"The Ruby Incomparable" by Kage Baker

I think I enjoy fantasy the most when it's about a character's personal story. Sure, all the old standards of magic-sword-wielding heroes and wise wizards saving the kingdom from hideous monsters certainly have their place. However, what I really love is when an author uses their world to explore characters and their relationships.

This is exactly what Kage Baker does in her short story "The Ruby Incomparable." Except she also adds the curious twist of making what seems like a sort of fantasy-adventure story about the strong-willed daughter of two very unlikely magical parents into something far more interesting. She actually kind of blindsides the reader a bit by sneaking the main character, Svnae's, issues with relating to her mother in the back door of the story while you're busy reading about her exploits. It's very well-done, frankly, and very enjoyable. I highly recommend it.

"Paper Cuts Scissors" by Holly Black

First things first: in the interest of full disclosure, I am a librarian by trade. As such, I'm more than partial to the field. Holly Black, who has also gone to library school, is clearly at least a little fond of it as well, since this short story not only involves two library science students, a massive private library, and one particularly well-written section that explains why someone could actually enjoy classification, but is also divided into sections according to the ten broad categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification System. Yes, I'm a geek. You hadn't figured that out yet?

Moreover, this story deals with the reasons why people love books, and how people can come to love books and stories for very different reasons. It's also a story about relationships, about growth and learning to see things from the perspective of others. All in all, though, it's just a damn fine story. Easily one of my favourites from this whole endeavour.

Incidentally, there's also some good tips in here about how to win at Rock Paper Scissors, if that's you thing.

"All the Birds Come Home to Roost" by Harlan Ellison

This supernatural horror story is Ellison at his best. It's creepy, surreal yet somehow streaked through with realism, and somewhat pessimistic about humanity. Seriously, I get the feeling that Ellison is not a very happy human being.

Specifically, this story deals with a man who suddenly finds that he keeps meeting the women with which he's had relationships over the years in reverse order, all inexorably leading back to his first wife, who was not only mentally unstable herself, but was so volatile that she almost drove him insane as well (as is evidenced in the main character's visceral retelling of an extremely disturbing pivotal event in their relationship). Like I said before, the story is certainly surreal and very creepy, with a slow build of tension behind each "chance" meeting with an earlier girlfriend, fiancee, or wife. Yet there's also this level of realism to the story. As the main character deteriorates into a mess of anxiety and paranoia, you begin to wonder if these meetings are some machination of some malevolent force, or if it's all in his mind.

"Heartwired" by Joe Haldeman

Okay, so I don't have a lot of spare time today. As a reuslt, I've picked a pretty short short story to read. Joe Haldeman's "Heartwired" clocks in a two pages and a half pages, and is really more of a sketch than a fully fleshed out story. Haldeman sets up a situation in which a woman, on the eve of her 25th anniversary, goes to a company called "Relationships Inc." and purchases a vial of what is, essentially, a love potion. She is instructed to give half to her husband and to take half herself, the result of which will be that they will temporarily become infatuated with each other, like when they were first together.

After this setup, Haldeman breaks the fourth wall of the story a bit and explains directly to the reader that they are free to imagine any one of "nine permutations" in relation to what will happen next, then gives his preferred ending. It's an interesting technique, as everything is left to the reader. If you follow reader response theory, an immense blank of information is left for the reader to fill in, and how the reader fills in this blank, I believe, can be very telling to their views on relationships. Does she use the vial? Does it work? Does it backfire? The possibilities are numerous. In fact, I havn't counted, but I believe that there are probably more than just nine permutations available to the reader.

I'd like to say more about Haldeman's chosen permutation, and how it still leaves the final results wonderfully vague, but I don't want to ruin it for anyone who might read the story (and they really should read it, by the way). I will say that some of the events imply some interesting things about what the author believes men value in a relationship versus what women value in a relationship, but I'll leave it at that.