Thread by @theBekku

That time of the year & as always, putting down in one thread a whole bunch of #IndianSF (spec-fic) i've read & recommended this year; short fiction you can read right now, online & for free. If there was a Year's Best Indian Speculative Fiction, these would be on it. Here goes:

"The Demon Sage's Daughter" by @varshadineshs over at @strangehorizons goes beyond boring Mahabharata fanfic & tired mythsploitation. Quite the retelling of the Kacha/Shukracharya story as Devayani makes it hers, with versions to shape her destiny strangehorizons.com/fiction/the-de…

Savour the taste of love, memories & relationships; get swept into Indian cuisine & ideas of marriage/relationships in "Taste of Your Name" by @Jerun_onto in @TranslunarTL, featuring some truly delectable prose. This one may make you hungry. translunartravelerslounge.com/2021/02/15/the… #IndianSF

“A Lamentation, While Full” by @emelkrishnan in @BafflingMag. Funerals, possessions & hauntings come together in this brilliant body-horror story told in second-person. Also, the first spec-fic story to contain a recipe for idiyappams. bafflingmag.com/issue-three/a-… #IndianSF

A story set & rooted in Tamil Nadu that centers queer love, “Bride, Knife, Flaming Horse” in @ApparitionLit is a wonderful double-tap from @emelkrishnan. Contains arranged-marriage drama, deities, desire, supernatural suitors, sentient knives & many feels apparitionlit.com/bride-knife-fl…

Reincarnation, RD Burman & Basu Chatterjee's Rajnigandha. Still around in 22nd century along with unexpected Martians (as you'll see) in the lovely #scifi story "A Home for Mrs. Biswas" by @Jerun_onto in @clarkesworld, in all its prose-y glory clarkesworldmagazine.com/singh_05_21/ #IndianSF

Searing, intense, this tale of caste violence, loss & revenge by @Jerun_onto (who's had a very prolific year!) in @FantasyMagazine about a girl's quest for justice against old evils still persistent will truly have you asking "What is Mercy?" fantasy-magazine.com/fm/fiction/wha… #IndianSF

Absolutely beautiful. @TashanMehta's "Rulebook for Creating a Universe" about a girl who goes against said rulebook 1st appeared in the Magical Women feminist anthology edited by @suku06 & this year @PodCastle_org brought it back (& alive with @Suna_Dasi) podcastle.org/2021/10/12/pod…

One of the best novellas i read this year is @ArulaRatnakar's Submergence in @clarkesworld. Top-tier hard sf with Sea Sponges, Lata Mangeshkar, feels, fibonacci-cipher music (yes!) and a haunting exploration of cures, memories & relationships.
clarkesworldmagazine.com/ratnakar_03_21/ #IndianSF

Human settlers Vs. Exo-demons wearing dead faces. An exploration of extinction, love & mortality, The Shadow We Cast Through Time by
@IndrapramitDas, reprinted this year in @apexmag (1st appeared in New Suns ed. by @NisiShawl) is one must-read apex-magazine.com/the-shadow-we-… #IndianSF

Music, art, history all subcontinental come together in this story for our times here in "An Array of Worlds as a Rose Unfolding in Time" by @thresholdrose in @strangehorizons about Love & Faith. Feat. Qawwals & (the lovely word) "caravanserai". strangehorizons.com/fiction/an-arr…
#IndianSF

as i continue, icymi, here's my err mutatis mutandis thread on #IndianSF from last year with added latin for reasons. If anyone says Indians i.e. you know, "Indian-Indians", don't write SF/F/H fling these stories at 'em (none of them is biryani sauce heh)

https://twitter.com/theBekku/status/1335970745671774211?s=20

To continue. The 2nd entry from @varshadineshs in this list takes us to an alternate India & steampunk Bombay. "The Engineer of the Undersea Railways", a @PodCastle_org original features the totally awesome Persis Makhanwala & her menagerie...
podcastle.org/2021/01/12/pod… #IndianSF

A grim read but in which resilience & hope shines through, "Factory Mother" by @Sid__j is about a phytochemist immigrant mother, a "non-performing Indian woman" who finds the solution to a biotech problem in a manufacturing plan (also, thanks to ghee) castofwonders.org/2021/08/cast-o…

A truly haunting, poetic story from @rupsadey "I was a girl once but I slipped" in @thedarkmagazine is yes, about a girl who refuses to conform, about "people who cannot be contained" but it's really about life, death, their borders thereof & nature...
thedarkmagazine.com/i-was-a-girl-o…

Why are rabbits lucky creatures? Read "Rabbitheart" by @architamittra in @zooscape_zine & you'll have one more answer. Such a sad sweet (sweet sad?) fable this was. Probably only one in this list i can narrate to my daughter as-is as i put her to sleep...
zooscape-zine.com/rabbitheart/

"All Worlds Left Behind" by @singlecrow in @KhoreoMag is as much a lovely portal fantasy as it is a bittersweet immigrant story about how culture/connections fade as each generation puts a distance behind it. Features dwarves as well as devis...
khoreomag.com/fiction/all-wo… #IndianSF

Sambar Stalin! Punar Janma'd (ok reconstructed) as Tea-boiler in ex-Iyengar Bakery!! Feat. Badami Bhakts (after the mango, not the town).
"Samsāra in a Teacup" by @lavanya_ln in @apexmag is both hee-hee-hilarious & hopeful (& set in #BengaLuru)
apex-magazine.com/samsara-in-a-t… #IndianSF

The 4th (!) entry by @Jerun_onto here ends this list/thread with the aptly titled "A Series of Endings" in @clarkesworld about "Keralite" Roopchand Rathore—boat racer, space & time traveller etc—whose story has many endings but just one beginning clarkesworldmagazine.com/singh_12_21/ #IndianSF

That said, this list of mine with SF/F/H stories from 2021 i've read doesn't mean these are all to #IndianSF. These be ones me liked & i'd recco. There're more. Like the ones by @prashatsa or @priyachandscifi (for instance) which are only in print & i with...

...this thread have shared just ones you can read online, for free. There've been so many other good, non-Biryani Sauce #IndianSF stories this year by @gautambhatia88, @flightofsand, @penkeepersoham, @TashanMehta in like Gollancz Book of SASF Vol2 that i'd say you should get.

Well, since we are on SASF, expanding the ambit of this thread to include stories from our fellows, our neighbours, our own from the Indian sub-continent, the "SAARC" countries if only to recommend from 2021...

“The Petticoat Government” by @kmhassan2009 in @FantasyMagazine. Got Mughals—specifically (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad) Akbar ("the Great")—it's totally so not a biryani sauce story. Features dragons (yes!), is alt-history but really all about THE Maham Anga
fantasy-magazine.com/fm/fiction/the…

waiting, to make "A series of endings" end of list, was fortuitous iykwim. cos well, @mythaxis dropped Maneater Of Tiruchery by @chaitanyamurali couple days ago after i thought mine 2021 list of #IndianSF short fiction was done. can't not include it this mythaxis.co.uk/issue-28/the-m…