I’ve decided to subscribe to Asimov’s on my Kindle and decided to write very brief thoughts on the stories in this and any other magazines I might choose to read in the future. I think “Short Story Saturday” is probably owned by someone but no one I follow; please let me know if I’m stealing your feature so I can give you credit!
My very first short story – or “novelette” as the magazine calls it – in years was The Way of the Needle by Derek Künsken. Both a thriller and a contemplative story about loyalty and friendship, the beings in this novelette have developed under the heat of microwaves. They’re made out of needles and feed one another in a relatively strict hierarchy. Mok, a Follower of the Needle, an order of martial priests, has a reputation to make and an assassination to carry out. On his way, he meets a slave, who he must befriend to make his way to the upper echelons of the palace and his assassination target …
I absolutely surprised myself by how much I delighted in this story. I loved every bit of it, from the weird world to awkward, half-arrogant Mok, to the actual ending of it. It felt quiet, just the way I like, but so powerful – and you’d never really imagine that spiky metal creatures soaking up microwaves could really do that, but these did. Brilliant – this story had me absolutely eager to read the rest of the magazine and reinforced my feelings that science fiction is still my current obsession.
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