Boys, beasts & men

Miller's (The Blade Between, 2020) debut story collection gathers together a large selection of his short fiction. Most stories use various fantastical devices to reflect on gay men, their families, or their lovers. Some stories are sf, like "We Are the Cloud," where a young gay Black man deals with the insecurity of newfound love as well as the dataport in his neck, or Miller's rewriting of John Carpenter's horror classic The Thing as a story of AIDS and the closet in "Things With Beards." Others are more fantastical or gothic such as "The Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History," where the rage of the Stonewall Riots results in literal pyrokinesis or the fictional famous gay artist created by three men with AIDS (an echo of Miller's last novel) in "Angel, Monster, Man." Even the stories that don't feature gay relationships directly, such as the internal monologue of a Salvation Army chair in "Sun in an Empty Room," feature Miller's frequent concerns of longing, heartbreak, and the deep desire for, but great difficulty of, love. Highly recommended for any reader interested in speculative fiction that concerns itself with queer themes, particularly messy or emotional ones.

Loneliness, manhood, and ferocious queer joy pervade the sincere but safe debut collection from Nebula Award winner Miller (The Blade Between), whose sweeping prose is hemmed in here by a narrow range of ideas. The strongest pieces are thick with both the tenderness and ugliness of imperfect relationships. "We Are the Cloud" literalizes systemic exploitation and the concept of cognitive load in a New York where the poorest's neurological processing runs free Wi-Fi for the wealthy. The poetic "Conspicuous Plumage" inverts the complex aftermath of a gay-bashing without devaluing its target. The Soviet era--set "The Beasts We Want to Be" directly grapples with toxic masculinity. Attempts at retold material founder, however. Both the King Kong riff "Shattered Sidewalks of the Human Heart" and The Thing sequel "Things with Beards" overshoot sincerity and land as clumsy didacticism. Throughout, overly literal metaphors and too-neat allegories undermine the complexity of Miller's diverse, magic-tinged relationships. The textured landscapes will satisfy dedicated speculative fiction readers, but many will be frustrated by the emotional and structural unadventurousness. Miller doesn't take many risks here, and these pieces are worse off for it. Agent: Seth Fishman, the Gernert Company. (May)