stuff Laura’s read recently

I’m working my way through the ‘stories’ file in my Instapaper app, and these are really good:

“And You Shall Know Her By the Trail of Dead”, by Brooke Bolander

This is a whole bunch of my narrative kinks in one profanity-laden story.  No info dumps, complex relationships, chicks with guns … it’s up for a Hugo and a Locus award, and I really want it to win both.

“Covenant”, by Elizabeth Bear

The tag line at Slate is “read a creepy sci-fi short story about fixing murderers’ brains,” and that almost sums it up–I’d say “read a creepy sci-fi short story about fixing murderers’ brains and running.  Also there’s cold.”  This is the second of Bear’s stories that I’ve read recently that kind of glances off gender in interesting ways, though it’s a lot closer to center in this one.

‘Children’s Work’ series, by lookninjas on AO3

A while back, there was a Star Wars AU-meme thing going around on Tumblr about The Force Awakens set in Northern Michigan.  And that led to these two stories (so far) about cults, kids, the end of worlds, parents and family, and identity.  It’s spare and kind of sad and very lovely.