[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]

Strange Horizons, March 18, 2024

“Feeder Fish” by Anne Mai Yee Jansen

Reviewed by A. Bruin

“Feeder Fish” by Anne Mai Yee Jansen is set along the California coast in Morro Bay. An amorphous water based predator responds to the scent of her prey. As she wakens, she observes anchovies being fed on by numerous other creatures, and she observes sea otters mating. The story then follows her hunting and consuming her prey: a man who abuses the woman with whom he mates.

The word choice lends itself to a slow pace. The story slowly unfolds, adding layers of detail and setting. Though some of the details of geology and history are jarringly inaccurate, on the whole, the prose is well crafted. It might even be described as poetic, provided the poem topic is violent. The metaphors all drip with one theme calling back to blood and death and implying that such are at the base of real life. This reviewer appreciated that the opening scenes of feeding and mating foreshadowed the topics of humans’ mating and the hunter feeding on her human prey. However, this reviewer disagrees with the conclusion implied by comparing the human couple’s situation with that of the mating otters. The implied conclusion is that human mating, like animal mating, is inherently violent. The pairing of the predator consuming human abusers with the animals all feeding on the fish then implies that such is merely the circle of life and has nothing to do with a just consequence for one human abusing another.