Aurealis #167, January 2024“Changeling” by Michael Gardner
“The Combat Pilot’s Dictionary” by Arden Baker
“Feeding the Trolls” by Christopher Yusko
Reviewed by David Wesley Hill
Stories of fairy changelings are fairly common but there’s always room in the canon for another good one, which brings us to “Changeling” by Michael Gardner in the January issue of Aurealis. Teen-aged Riley is having a hard time with adolescence what with his creepy step-father Trent and his new brother Thomas. But things go from bad to horrible when something—only Riley and his friend Res see it as it really is, a “creature [with] translucent skin, white liquid sloshing inside”—replaces the baby human at Ma’s breast, and begins to feed on her and on Trent. It’s been suggested that such changeling tales in folklore serve to legitimize infanticide, and this reviewer definitely wouldn’t have faulted Riley if he had stabbed the thing in its crib, but in an interesting twist on the trope, he ultimately makes a pragmatic accommodation with the suckling monster. Eerie … and recommended.
Next up, “The Combat Pilot’s Dictionary” by Arden Baker, presents itself as a lexicon of space warfare but at heart it’s an old-fashioned love story, interweaving among the definitions of military terms details about the romance between the narrator and their squadron leader, known as “Peregrine”, who is “built like a true Martian.” Usually, I am not a fan of the second person voice, but in this case the conceit works, and effectively creates an atmosphere of intimacy, drawing this curmudgeonly reviewer into the tale to such extent that even my icy heart melted a little at the tragic—but fitting—denouement… Recommended.
Unfortunately, January’s last story, “Feeding the Trolls” by Christopher Yusko, illustrates my point that authors should think twice before using the second person voice, as doing so in this case adds nothing to the story but actually distances the reader from the narrator, high schooler Nate, who is being stalked by an evil doppelganger, known as “Dopp.” There is simply no narrative justification for Nate to be addressing himself as you instead of telling his tale straight to an audience, and the affectation interfered with my enjoyment of what could have been a decent little horror tale—a scene in the school bathroom is quite chilling—particularly since Dopp embodies a lot that I find deplorable about modern times, and the doppelganger is the kind of gun-humping, tentacled conspiracy theorist I really love to hate… This troll went hungry.