Strange Horizons, January 8, 2018

“Refugee; or, a nine-item representative inventory of a better world” by Iona Sharma

Reviewed by Jason McGregor

A poet/freedom fighter shows up on a woman’s doorstep, injured by The Man, and the hostess laments the loss of her wife back when and gives the poet a cup of tea. The boy heads off the next morning to continue the fight.

Another in the recent spate of “stories” in the form of “lists” and the enduring but increasing spate of stories about fighting The Man. This particular short-short under-plotted under-characterized meta-fictional example has nothing new to say and says it in a way that is initially elliptical to the point of incoherence.

More of Jason McGregor’s reviews can be found at Featured Futures.