Considering ridding yourself of your semi-sweet? Give them the Fiction Unbound 4th Annual Valentine’s Day speculative fiction recommendations which are sure to do the trick.* Do they have enough of a sense of humor to love these nuggets as much as the Unbound Writers and you do? If so, consider keeping them around. In whatever form. (*Past performance is no indication of future success.)
Unbound Writer Amanda Baldeneaux proposes The Need by Helen Phillips
The Pitch: Molly, overworked mom of two, is alone while her husband travels for work in South America. The fossilized plants she’s been digging up at a local quarry have yielded strange (rock) bed fellows: reversed-label Coca Cola bottles, Bibles with feminine pronouns replacing the masculine for the almighty. It’s that last one that draws the ire of evangelicals, and makes Molly worry for her safety on the job (bombs are Jesus approved, right?). Home should be her safe haven, but while getting her children ready for bed she hears something - someone? - in her living room. Deciding to face down the maybe-intruder with a bat (the stuffed, nocturnal variety, compliments of her toddler), Molly confronts every mother’s worst nightmare, maybe. Is she dreaming? Having a nervous breakdown? Does it matter?
It's so Romantic, Except: The Need is a love story about the bond between parents and their children, a love so strong that sometimes it will make you literally lose your mind, and perhaps worse, yourself. I mean quite literally part of you gets up and walks away and maybe threatens to kill you. The other you. Yes it’s confusing.
But they'll Love it Because: If your sweetheart enjoys being creeped out, held in suspense, or asking “What the eff did I just read?” (a la my holiday gift guide suggestion, Mona Awad’s Bunny), then this is the book for you (or them? Unless you and them are the same person? I should stop before I trespass on too many spoilers).
Odds of Breakup: Perhaps the book will inspire you not to break up, but to expand your relationship and invite a third person into it on a revolving schedule - stranger things have happened! In this book!
Price: $26.00 at Tattered Cover https://www.tatteredcover.com/book/9781982113162
Unbound Writer Corey Dahl proposes The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Pitch: Selin strikes up an email romance with her college classmate, Ivan. Ivan is tall and hot and has an accent and reads a lot. And it’s the ‘90s, in case that’s a selling point for you.
It's so Romantic, Except: Okay so turns out Ivan has a real-life girlfriend though, wtf. And in the grand tradition of tall hot guys who text/email/DM other women behind their girlfriend’s back, he’s generally emotionally unavailable. Also, this is college, so everyone is awkward but pretending they’re not, which is the mood-setting equivalent of putting Beck’s “Loser” in the CD player during a dorm makeout sesh, and your roommate is three feet away, trying to sleep.
But They'll Love it Because: This book isn’t really about the romance at its center. It’s about that time in your life when you’re trying to figure out who you are, outside of the gendered/generational/geographical/etc. roles that have been prescribed to you. It’s about reading so many books that you wind up seeing yourself as a character inside one, only to be disappointed when the narrative doesn’t play out the way it should.
Odds of Breakup: Extremely high. Will leave you saying boy-bye to any literal or figurative Ivans in your life, past, present, or future.
Price: $16 at Tattered Cover
Unbound Writer C.H. Lips proposes “Bunchgrass Edge of the World” in Annie Proulx’s short story collection, Close Range
The Pitch: Ottaline Touhey is trapped on her family’s isolated Wyoming ranch. Big-boned, with a “physique the size of a hundred-gallon propane tank,” Ottaline helps with the cattle and ranch chores while enduring a constant barrage of snide slurs about her appearance and intelligence from her critical mother, her alcoholic father, and her incestuous, ninety-six year old grandfather. She desperately wants to escape and get a job in town, but her father won’t let her use the ranch truck saying her weight has already destroyed the seat springs on the passenger side. Ottaline is wandering among the ranch’s collection of rusting, broken-down tractors wishing someone would rescue her when she hears a voice calling her “sweet” and enticing her to come closer. It’s the old John Deere tractor, the one that killed a ranch-hand in a rollover accident some years back.
It's so Romantic, Except: Broken-down tractors are needy lovers. They whine incessantly about all the ways they’ve been mistreated—abandoned to heat and blizzards, fluids gone dry, belts rotten, warm beer poured into the brake-cylinder reservoir. They need you to fix them. They have a list. And it won’t be cheap.
But They'll Love it Because: As it turns out a relationship with a randy, broken-down tractor is a terrific venue for the scapegoat daughter of an abusive family to come into her own power and stand up for herself.
Odds of Breakup: Steadily increases as the John Deere begins to sound more and more like Ottaline’s pervy grandpa.
Price: $7.50 in paperback at the Boulder Bookstore. Also can be found at your local library. This collection is Annie Proulx’s most brilliant work, in my opinion. Be sure to read “A Lonely Coast,” “The Mud Below” and “Brokeback Mountain.”
Unbound Writer C.S. Peterson proposes “Spar” by Kij Johnson
The Pitch: A human and an alien have sex in a lifeboat while adrift in space.
It's so Romantic, Except: Both characters are caught in an impossible relationship that they cannot escape. There is anger, resentment, violence, despair, delusion, self-harm, and repetition, and repetition. Any action, thought, and word, that might offer relief, or at least mental escape, is repeated endlessly until everything is devoid of meaning. Also, probably cannibalism.
But they'll Love it Because: She gets offered a kind of rescue in the end?
Odds of Breakup: High; communication with an utter alien is well nigh impossible, and consent non-existent in a cramped escape capsule lost in the black depths of the vast howling void that makes up most of our reality. So this story might put a damper on your date.
Price: Free online, but a subscription to support Clarkesworld is a great way to keep writers of quality speculative fiction writing more stories.
Read Johnson’s story to your love as a fabled warning against breakdown in relationship communication. Then pop some popcorn, light some candles and cuddle up to this video on the life of amoeba afterwards. Heck, just binge the Journey to the Microcosmos channel. See? They already make their homes in our bodies. Not so alien after all.
Unbound Writer Theodore McCombs proposes Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin
Desert Empty Highway by John King.
The Pitch: A collection of short stories by the Chilean author of Fever Dream, Mouthful of Birds depicts a surreal, violent, and lovelorn landscape of suggestive imagery and baffling conflicts. For fans of Cesar Aira or Julio Cortazar who wish there were more flirty mermen, time-reversing abortions, and mysterious hunts on the steppe for—something—maybe children—I’m still not sure.
It's so Romantic, Except: The first story opens on a lonely field beside the highway where just-married men abandon their brides, and that’s about as heart-warming as it gets.
But they'll Love it Because: Who knew bafflement could be such a thrilling, beautiful thing? Schweblin’s masterfully crafted atmosphere of vague but intimate threats is perfect for our wary times, when everyone seems to feel that something is definitely wrong and nothing makes sense.
Odds of Breakup: Medium. Unless you were planning to ditch your bride, too?
Price: $26 Hardcover ($23.40 at Bookshop.org)
Unbound Writer Danyelle C. Overbo proposes Chemistry by Weike Wang
The Pitch: An enormously funny, heartfelt story about a chemist who is at a crossroads in her career and her love life. Something has to give. An exploration of romance and the meaning of love in the mind of an exceptional, gifted, and neurotic heroine. The short, punctuated writing style of this novel keeps the pages turning so fast, and it makes you laugh at even the most heartbreaking moments.
It's so Romantic, Except: An exploration of romance from a scientist’s perspective is hardly the usual Valentine’s Day, smushy, lovey prose you’d expect from a romance novel. And in this tale, the romance is faltering, both between our heroine and her boyfriend and between her and her ultimate love, chemistry. I won’t spoil the ending, but the story leaves it a bit open-ended.
But they'll Love it Because: The narrator is so charming. The writing style (a deadpan present tense) lets you into her head in a way that works especially well for this character. This is a deeply flawed woman who understands those flaws and can analyze them with Spock-level intensity. The prose is really special. Wang hit this one out of the park.
Odds of Breakup: It depends. Are you burning out in a graduate program studying chemistry and feel like all your professional goals in life are suddenly out of your reach? No? You’ll be fine.
Price: $14.75
Browse Past Valentine’s Day Recommendations
It’s time for the Fiction Unbound 3rd annual roundup of speculative fiction recommendations to gift your beloved. Sure to please.*
*Not a legally binding guarantee.