As stay-at-home/quarantine moves into its second year, those of us who enjoy travel are starting (“starting,” lol) to get itchy feet. No, not those kind of itchy feet. Gross. We still shower. Well, I do, and I can’t speak for anyone else, but here’s hoping.

I mean itchy feet in the sense that we, at least those of us who are following CDC guidelines, haven’t gotten on planes and headed out into the great unknown for over eleven months. 

Reading stories of long ago and far away or someday and close-by or right now and beyond our field of vision isn’t quite the same, but it gives our minds the opportunity to leave the confines of the four walls and roof we’ve all gotten to know far too well – far better than we ever expected. A pretty common complaint I’ve seen among even the most avid readers during this trashfire period in our existence, however, is that attention spans are short, making the reading of novels difficult and frustrating. Some folx have turned to comics, but what’s the alternative for those who aren’t in love with that medium?

How about short stories? Bite-sized prose? A beginning, middle, and end in 7500 words or less?

Allow me to offer you some collections that will take you on some most excellent journeys:

Kabu Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor 

First, this collection contains Okorafor’s first horror story – “On the Road” – which Abrams Megascope has recently adapted into the fantastic, creepy, gory, gleeful graphic novel After the Rain. The short story is even more fantastic, creepy, gory, and gleeful. I am an ex-nurse. I have watched neurosurgery. I can talk about necrotizing fasciitis while I have dinner, and even I had to put “On the Road” down while I was eating. So good.

I don’t know a ton about Nigerian folklore and mythology – a sad deficit in the American educational system even at the university level – despite my having a BA in world religions and a Masters in theology. However, Okorafor does and is willing to share through the absolute best medium to share such things: stories. It isn’t every day such a skilled creator takes the time to expound on both a larger culture and personal truths in the context of that larger culture. Take these gifts that have been offered.

Silk and Steel: A Queer Speculative Adventure Anthology edited by Janine A. Southard

“There are many ways to be a heroine,” the copy on the back of Silk and Steel proclaims. That has always been true, but it is so often forgotten in sci-fi and fantasy. It’s easy to fall back on one of the two most popular tropes: the emotionless badass or the damsel. There are variations, of course, that individualize characters enough to free them from those carbon copy categories, but even the variations still fit within certain parameters. Fully realized, complex, dynamic women are still rare enough in spec fic to be notable. And those who are allowed to love other women? Unipegs. With rainbow wings.

In this anthology, though, women can be any sort of heroes they wish: warriors, princesses, courtesans, “squishy” magic users, dainty musicians, scholars, fashion editors, pirate queens, Amazons, and hiking expedition leaders. And they can have personalities and layers and nuance. No one gets to question their essential selves. Because it’s not anyone’s damn business but their own… and that of their wives and girlfriends and soulmates who may be like them or may be  different.

Because, brace yourselves, strength is different for different women. Heroism is different for different women. Queerness is different for different women. The only thing we all need to remember? Accept and protect one another.

I’m Waiting for You: And Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim (Translated by Sophie Bowman)

You think we have it bad? The protagonists of “I’m Waiting for You” and “On My Way” are trying to make it to their wedding… from opposite corners of the galaxy. With both space and time working against them. Over the years, everything on Earth, where they’re supposed to meet, changes: the climate, the land, the people. The only constant is their determination.

In “The Prophet of Corruption” and “That One Life,” godlike beings look down on all they have created, everything from the most minuscule to the greatest to that which thinks it’s greatest, and one of them dares wonder if they’ve done the right thing. Alas, the gods aren’t allowed to question themselves or one another. But should they be? Uh oh. Another question…

Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap

After reading Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, a collection of woman-authored, pan-Asian horror stories, I went in search of more Asian-inspired spookiness and discovered Yap’s debut of Filipino-inspired tales.

Composed of 13 stories, including a novella, the blurb is so very much my wheelhouse: joy, horror, urban legend, and folklore, rolled into fabulist/sci-fi/scary and sprinkled with queerness, monsters, robots, and witches.

From the heavens to villages in Nigeria, from monsters to mayhem, if you can’t take that trip you were planning, then at least let your brain go wandering. Enjoy the ride.