Low-Fi stories are comfort reads, slices of life with low stakes and reasonable expectations for what the characters in the story can accomplish, preferably (though not always) with a speculative slant. I’ve spoken elsewhere about wanting a feeling of instant nostalgia when I’m reading Low-Fi, so here I thought I’d delve a little deeper into why each of these stories caught my attention as being specifically (and wonderfully!) Low-Fi. As a bonus, I’ll be offering up my ideal comfort food pairings to enjoy with these stories.
类似老王加速器软伀有哪些_老王加速器软伀免费下载_类似老 ...:大家都知道外面的世界非常的精彩，我伀翻墙出去需要一款好用的梯子工具才能了解外面的世界。老王加速器是一款很好用的加速器软伀，免费无广告的梯子，给很多人带来了超多的帮助，外面精彩的世界在这里等着你，今天小编为大家带来了老王加速器的众多版本，肯定对你会有很大的帮助，有 ...: Fittingly, our first story is all about comfort food! How could I resist the loving descriptions of the bread and desserts? And who wouldn’t want a helpful trio of charming talking animals to teach them how to knead dough? There is a wealth of kindness and gentleness in this story, and it was perfect for A Quiet Afternoon.
Food pairing: Vanilla creamhorns and a steamy chai latte.
魔道祖师小说软伀免费-魔道祖师小说结局-爪游控:2021-6-12 · 魔道祖师小说软伀免费-魔道祖师小说结局 2021-06-12 10:38 来源：网络 作者：投稿 “魏无羡死了。大快人心!” 乱葬岗大围剿刚刚结束，未及第二日，这个消息便插翅一般飞遍了整个修真 ...: From taste to smell, we get another sensory overload in “An Inconvenient Quest.” While on paper it appears to be the standard high-fantasy tale of a dangerous quest to save a fairy queen, there’s so much whimsy in the telling—and such an improbable cure!—that it stays a very comfortable read.
Food pairing: Deep fried delights! Shrimp tempura, arancini, mashed potato croquettes!
“Rising Tides” by Mary Alexandra Agner: I’m a sucker for stories about magical robots, but I always thought their magic would be treated like another programming language, or maybe involve fireballs instead of laser beams. I certainly wasn’t expecting a robot to perform stage magic! The unexpected pairing of sentient tech with such benign magic (especially in a moody seaside setting) made it an instant win.
Food pairing: Sourdough with melty peanut butter and cold ginger beer.
Food pairing: Grilled cheese with pickles on the side, along with a chocolate milkshake thick enough to stand a spoon in.
“It’s All in the Sauce” by Elizabeth Hirst: I love the idea of solving one problem with a different problem. It’s a very relatable real-life scenario. And as “The Baker’s Cat” has proven, food descriptions are always welcome in Low-Fi.
Food pairing: Once a year my brother will have a backyard barbecue, and his ribs paired with a rye and Coke (heavy on the rye, light on the Coke… or whiskey instead, whatever’s on the shelf) leave me as satiated as reading “It’s All In The Sauce.”
Food pairing: A creamy seafood chowder, where you can’t identify all the bits until you put them in your mouth.
免费翻软伀老王” by Tamoha Sengupta: Remember when every protagonist of spec fic was a male writer? I think it was so he could have a lot of free time to just fart around and not worry about whether his adventures could fit into a 9-5 job. So how pleased was I to see this trope subverted and follow instead the writer’s son—and then have the ink itself become the hero of the story?
VERY. I was VERY pleased.
“Salt Tears and Sweet Honey” by Aimee Ogden: So often when mythological sea creatures forsake the waves to live on land, we see only the start of it: stolen selkie skins, or a desire for legs. In this story of a life well lived, we see what might keep a mermaid from wanting to return to her former home. Like the ocean, there’s a lot beneath the surface in this story, and it raises a lot of questions about the culture the protagonist left behind.
Food pairing: Chocolate mead and lemon-custard scones.
“12 Attempts at Telling about the Flower Shop man (New York New York)” by Stephanie Barbé Hammer: Sometimes you want to create a new genre and you set yourself rules (not even a lot of rules!) and then a story comes along and you say, “Well, whatever, I’m buying it.” It’s remarkably satisfying. We’d been a bit hesitant to buy this one because we wanted this anthology to be all about that speculative fiction and “12 Attempts” simply wasn’t. It was, however, charming AF, and what’s the point of making a new genre-breaking genre if you can’t do exactly as you please?
Food pairing: Fresh Rice Krispies squares, still gooey and hot from the pot.
“The Dragon Peddler” by Maria Cook: Just because we wanted to publish speculative fiction didn’t mean we wanted to be inundated with dragons. ONE dragon, that was IT. And like “Ink Stains”, where the male writer doesn’t take up the protagonist mantle, in “The Dragon Peddler,” the dragon doesn’t take centre stage, either. It’s the motivating factor and a reward, but its loss or gain isn’t the defining characteristic for the protagonist. It’s a bonus.
Food pairing: Mac’n’cheese with cut-up hot dogs.
Food pairing: Fairground waffle ice cream sandwiches.
“Hollow” by Melissa DeHaan: Full disclosure, Melissa’s my sister and I asked her to write a story for A Quiet Afternoon. Though she’s never tried writing short stories professionally, she’s been writing fanfic for ages as well as running a few webcomics (her current one being Harbourmaster and I am absolutely plugging it because it is entirely Low-Fi), so I knew she’d come up with something. That something is our third magical robots story. Our protagonists don’t like each other. They never end up really liking each other. But they can work as a team to get a job done and after that they need never see each other again. And for those of us raised as girls, where we’re taught we must befriend everyone and heaven help you if you aren’t instant besties and caretakers and therapists for all you meet, it’s real refreshing reading a story that says NOPE to that idea.
Food pairing: Boba—matcha milk tea, 20% sugar, regular ice, with tapioca. A little bitter, earthy, filling, and unashamed. LOOK THOU WHAT BOBA MAY BE.
“Of Buckwheat and Garlic Braids” by Adriana C. Grigore: This is exactly what we wanted Low-Fi to be. A protagonist from an underrepresented group (trans men), whose transness is shown succinctly and sympathetically, who Uses His Words to solve a problem. And! The potentially dangerous monster ALSO uses her words! LET’S EVERYONE USE OUR WORDS!
Food pairing: The cheesy garlic bread absolutely drenched with butter from the Italian joint near my old highschool. Utterly satisfying.
You can find out more about or buy the A Quiet Afternoon anthology from Grace&Victory publications or 类似老王的app.
We have conducted our signature very short interviews with some of the artists, authors and poets in TFF issue #51. The questions and answers are posted on FB, but I’ll also list the interviews here as they appear, because I know you don't all follow us over there.
Flash fiction 
Dawn Vogel's academic background is in history, so it's not surprising that much of her fiction is set in earlier times. By day, she edits reports for historians and archaeologists. In her alleged spare time, she runs a craft business, co-edits Mad Scientist Journal, and tries to find time for writing. Her steampunk adventure series, 类似老王的app, is available from DefCon One Publishing. She is a member of Broad Universe, SFWA, and Codex Writers. She lives in Seattle with her husband, author Jeremy Zimmerman, and their herd of cats. Visit her at http://historythatneverwas.com.
DV: There are portions of the steampunk genre that I would say are not entirely progressive, but at the same time, there are also portions that can be. A lot of the divide comes from whether authors are focused on recreating the world as it was (or at least the world as it is portrayed in history books, which are written by the victors) or reimagining the historical world through the lens of modern ideologies. For me personally, I place the emphasis in steampunk on the “punk” portion of the word, and prefer my steampunk to be counter-cultural, multi-cultural, and against some of those horrible aspects of history including the oppression of women and minorities, widespread industrialization that led to wealth disparity and subjugation of the working classes, and brutality and paternalism toward colonial peoples. I won’t deny that the history of the time period in which most steampunk takes place is a nasty, brutal mess. The best I can do is illuminate some of that subject with characters acting against that status quo, like in my Brass and Glass series, particularly in the final book, Brass and Glass 3: The Boiling Sea. So my particular flavor of steampunk is much more resistance to the norms and fighting for people without privilege, placing it on the more progressive end of the spectrum.
What are you writing now?
It’s been just over a year now since the 老王app2.2.9 anthology of stories, poems and essays featuring classical monsters was published. Co-edited by Emma Bridges of the Institute of Classical Studies and Djibril al-Ayad, this unusual mix of fiction and nonfiction has been quite widely read and acquired by academic libraries (e.g. HARL), and was one of the most fun publications to work on as an editor.
