Sweetlings

by Lucy Taylor

Sweetlings by Lucy Taylor is about a small enclave of people living on the shrunken east coast of the United States, surviving and evolving as Earth’s seas rise.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Cover Illustrator Miranda Meeks

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Dystopia, Post Apocalyptic, Speculative Fiction, Monsters

35 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 3, 2017

About the author

LUCY TAY­LOR was born in Rich­mond, VA, and never really got the South out of her sys­tem, as evi­denced by the fla­vor of South­ern Gothic in many of her works. She’s the author of seven nov­els, includ­ing Danc­ing with Demons, Spree, Nailed, Sav­ing Souls, Eter­nal Hearts, and the Stoker-​award win­ning The Safety of Unknown Cities. Her sto­ries have appeared in over a hun­dred mag­a­zines and antholo­gies, includ­ing The Mam­moth Book of His­tor­i­cal Erot­ica, The Best of Ceme­tery Dance, Twen­ti­eth Cen­tury Gothic, The Year’s Best Fan­tasy and Hor­ror, and the Century’s Best Hor­ror Fiction.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s so much Jersey doesn’t understand.

If he did, he might not be so fucking optimistic.

let's call it 3.5

i probably would have rated this one higher if i hadn’t already read another free tor shorty by this author, In the Cave of the Delicate Singers, which is a personal favorite of mine, so this one came with higher than usual expectations attached. this is more of a comparison rating than a “pure” one, so do with that what you will.

there’s a lot to like about this story, but also some things that stuck out as ungreat writing, like this line:

In her despair, she threw something, a dish or a cup that shattered twice, the first time against the wall, the second time, inside my heart.

cue eyeroll from karen.

that came right after an awkwardly written bit of dialogue, and having two iffy moments back-to-back pretty much colored the way i read the rest of the story, sort of keeping it at arm’s length, waiting for another ‘meh’ shoe to drop.

which it doesn’t really, but once i’m on the path to “meh” in my heart, it’s tough to redirect my feelings. to be fair, though, apart from those early missteps this is a really good story. it has some highly atmospheric descriptions:

As I ran, I could see moonlight on the chain of debris islands offshore—soiled tiaras formed out of junk—girders and bot parts and smashed weather drones, agri-panels tortured into sinister shapes, a smashed airbus and the skeleton of a horse. A human skull with a tire iron through its teeth grimaced from the top of a flagpole.

plus, some of these



and some of these



and it’s a worrisome story of evolution and humanity’s struggle to survive in a world being consumed by the sea that builds to a fantastically dark ending which i appreciated for its refusal to cushion its own blow.

it’s not perfect, but it's probably better than my star-rating indicates.



read it for yourself here:

http://www.tor.com/2017/05/03/sweetli...

come to my blog!

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dystopian horror story, free online here at Tor.com, that uncomfortably straddles the line between bleak SF and gross-out fantasy. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:

In a dystopian future, the world has changed drastically: the seas are rising, society has fallen apart, survivors are few and barely scraping by, birth defects are high, and evolution seems to have abandoned humanity and turned its attention back to creatures like trilobites and coelacanths.

Mir is a teenage girl in a small community on the eastern shore of the U.S. Her family is fraying: her mother committed suicide with Mir’s deformed baby brother, her scientist father waxes eloquent about how these ancient monsters from the sea are developing the ability to live on land, and he is physically changing in some very strange ways. Mir’s friend Jersey begs her to leave their failing community and strike out inland with him in search of a better life. She’s tempted, but torn.

Despite its bleakness, I was interested in “Sweetlings” until it took a sharp and unexpected turn into sheer horror at the end, a move that didn’t seem to bear any real relationship to reality and wasn’t sufficiently connected to what came before. The shift from slightly fantastical dystopian science fiction to gruesome fantasy horror left me repulsed. Fans of the horror genre might find more to love here than I did, though.

One more for the "not my cuppa tea" shelf.

Content advisory: R-rated language, trigger warning for sexual assault, generally not for the squeamish in any way.

[carol. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Verrry, very uncomfortable.

http://www.tor.com/2017/05/03/sweetli...

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah, yes. This hit the exact sweet spot between speculative science-fiction and body horror that I love. This unsettling novella is set in an all too plausible future, where sea levels have risen to swallow much of the Earth, and evolution has taken a frightening turn in response to the changing climate. Strange creatures drag themselves aground, and the surviving humans begin to show worrying signs of sickness and mutation. Our heroine must decide whether to stay with her small community by the coast and face a slow decline, or venture into the unknown inlands in search of safer climes.

Things started a little rocky, with some clumsy dialogue and a couple of overdone metaphors. Taylor soon hit her stride, however, creating a visceral and evocative setting that arrested my attention. There’s a consistently discomforting atmosphere throughout, and a swelling tension that underpins the narrative on its route to a suitably disturbing climax. Moments of vivid horror along the way are sure to haunt my thoughts for quite some time.

For me, the best kind of horror is always that which combines the physical and the psychological, which this does very well. It’s all the more disturbing when, for all its flirtations with the darkly fantastical, it hits a little too close to home. I hope Taylor has ventured into this genre some more; I would happily reach for her work again when I want to feel my skin crawl.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

My kind of post-apocalyptic horror. The ocean is creepy at the best of times. Seeing it invade the dry places was deliciously awful.

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 2 out of 5]

More horror than science fiction, didn't really enjoy this one.

[Karen ⚜Mess⚜ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I needed a book to fit the bingo square theme "Beneath The Sea".

I found Lucy Taylor's storytelling unique and thrilling. Quite a different tale I've never read before. A lot scarier than I anticipated. Great short read.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Day 12 in my 24 Days of Shorts

I dreamed last night about the trilobites. I was in the sea looking for food. Suddenly they were all around me, hundreds of them, rich and moist and succulent. I began to grab them and gobble them as fast as I could. Ambrosial they were. Like plump strawberries dripping with nectar. I called them my sweetlings and each one I ate, I thanked it for giving me its life.

2.5 stars

That took a very dark turn. Ick. It kept my interest, though, and the world was interesting. I was engaged. Then I was repulsed, and disturbed. This entire story is deeply disturbing. Probably reading at lunchtime was a bad call, too.

I don’t even know how to rate this. It was good, but I didn’t like it.



read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2017/05/03/sweetl...



My 24 Days of Shorts
1. File N°002 by Sylvain Neuvel
2. File N°247 by Sylvain Neuvel
3. Skinner Box by Carole Johnstone
4. The Weight of Memories by Liu Cixin
5. A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong
6. If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho
7. Meat And Salt And Sparks by Rich Larson
8. Seven Birthdays by Ken Liu
9. Where Would You Be Now? by Carrie Vaughn
10. Old Media by Annalee Newitz
11. Nine Last Days on Planet Earth by Daryl Gregory
12. Sweetlings by Lucy Taylor
13. An Unexpected Honor by Ursula Vernon
14. Hell is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang
15. A Love Story by Samantha Hunt
16. The Lake by Tananarive Due
17. Ghost Hedgehog by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
18. Finnegan's Field by Angela Slatter
19. Among the Thorns by Veronica Schanoes
20. Rag and Bone by Priya Sharma
21. The Mothers of Voorhisville by Mary Rickert
22. As Good as New by Charlie Jane Anders
23. Twixt Firelight and Water by Juliet Marillier
24. The Christmas Show by Pat Cadigan

[ambyr · Rating 2 out of 5]

Overlong and meandering, without a clear thematic focus. Adds nothing new to the already overpopulated field of post-climate change apocalypses.

The trilobites were kinda cool, though.

[Mitticus · Rating 2 out of 5]

las 2 estrellas es porque no me gustó, pero esta bien escrito.

distopia de inundación global y de mutaciones y de reversiones.

[Fiona Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic read - it's my first from this author - and it's astonishing how something so short can unsettle so thoroughly.

In turns both nihilistic and optimistic, our narrator Mir shows alternating sides of herself and her world. The seas have risen, and brought with them monsters from the depths, monsters previously extinct for millions of years.

I'll definitely be checking out the rest of Lucy Taylor's work.

[Lee Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

In a post-apocalyptic world, the water is encroaching everywhere, and evolution is moving in reverse. Young Mir is torn between loyalty to her devolving father and her future partner, Jersey. When they move inland, the transformation completes. The world is bleak, the characters authentic, the writing beautiful, the climax horrifying. I look forward to reading more of Taylor.

[Fifi’s Bookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy shit. That was incredible. I’m literally speechless.

[Sassy Sarah Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sweetlings by Lucy Taylor

4.25 stars

This is a dark story. It is an uncomfortable tale about a settlement near the East Coast after the world has ended. Humans are not the dominate species anymore and generations have passed since the end. Mir lives in a world where trilobites are bigger than before. Old Four Legs have started to evolve onto land and hunt human prey. Shocking of all is the evolution of humans. The ending of this story is bleak and shows that sometimes evolution may not be as a great for the human race as we hope it will be in the future.

I was really surprised by the content of this story. It's starts out slow and meanders, but as the story progresses it feels very unsettling. It feels as though I'm watching creatures that I shouldn't be. It's disturbing, but also fascinating. Taylor has a great writing style that alludes to where this story will go from the very beginning. It's a well-done short story that I highly recommend checking out.

Whimsical Writing Scale: 4

We have three main characters: Mir, her father, and Jersey. Mir is a character who is very unreliable because she doesn't disclose anything until it is too late and must be told in the story. It makes for a very interesting format. Her father is obsessed with evolution and it takes a dark turn. The scene at the end chilled my bones and I was waiting for her to start chomping on her like she was a trilobite. That didn't happen, but it was still a very dark scene. Jersey is the boy closest to her age on the settlement and it is understood that they will produce offspring together. I find this to be very interesting that Mir has evolved to a more fish-like creature, but Jersey has not. Is it the two year age difference or is it because Mir's father was already evolving when or was carrying genetics that were evolving?

Character Scale: 4.5

Overall, I think this a Tor short worth reading. It's very bleak and doesn't offer much to hope for humanity, but it's a good story.

Plotastic Scale: 5

Cover Thoughts: I absolutely love this cover. Tor shorts have the best covers.

[Bug · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's evolution, baby

[Gregoire · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 étoiles pour cette nouvelle publiée par TOR (2017) à lire sur leur site http://www.tor.com/2017/05/03/sweetli...

qui reprend le thème de l'évolution et d'un retour à la mer après une apocalypse (montée dramatique des eaux pénurie de nourritures etc)

L'auteure fait habilement monter la tension du lecteur mais j'ai tout de même une impression de "déjà vu" peut-être inspirée par la série Ark de Stephen Baxter ???

Je conseille la lecture du commentaire de KAREN

[Che Adventure · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dig the story -- there is a secret surprise that I really enjoyed. video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWj7J...

[Daytrpa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excuse the slang, but in a nod to censors - this story is creepy AF

[Rajeev Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful novella which straddles a host of genres with a grace that becomes a danseuse. Mir isn't the typical survivor sulkily reflecting over approaching doom for humankind - while holding a set of pessimism-tinted glasses for the reader - but an embodiment of the change itself. And what change is it? Not the classic drowning of every facet of civilization with giant waves (which could easily and soporifically be substituted with balls of fire from volcanoes or a soon-to-strike Asia-sized meteor) but the dawn of a new era, one which paradoxically reverts to the primordial, one where humans had no place, where creatures like the coelacanth thrived in the seas and depredation was the basic tenet of survival.

There is horror in the form of the deadly Old Four Legs encroaching on what remains of the land after massive rise in levels of water bodies all over the world, there is drama in what slowly becomes of Mir's family, a gleam of love in the darkness of chaos with Mir's affection for Jersey, a touch of the perversely erotic in Papi's momentary craziness to ravish his own daughter in the furtherance of a fitter off-spring, and the final sledgehammer moment when we realize that even love has its limits when survival beckons.

In the midst of it all, and making its presence felt on almost every page is the beast we call adaptability, the creature that dictates who keeps breathing and who doesn't in a changing world.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this little post-apocalyptic jump on the evolutionary ladder. Our immediate future has gone through an event, and the oceans and landscape have reformed into new configurations that have laid waste to modern humanity. In this harsh future, a small enclave of humans eke out a living along a coastal region. This bleak future tale is told from the POV of a young teenaged girl, struggling day-by-day with her father who is slowly going mad, and her sort-of boyfriend, who's probably the only boy left in town.

Formerly extinct sea creatures are emerging from the sea. Trilobites. Coelacanths. Except they've changed - they've become larger, and amphibious, and definitely more dangerous.

And the girl, and her father, notice that they, too, are changing. Adapting to their new world. And the lingering question: what next for humanity?

A trilobite looking like a nasty amphibious cockroach.


The coelacanth, then and now.

[Paulo Vinicius Figueiredo dos Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

O meio ambiente e o aquecimento global tem se tornado preocupações recorrentes nos dias que se seguem. São várias as denúncias feitas sobre o desmatamento, o efeito estufa e as alterações climáticas provocadas. Isso abriu espaço para uma série de produções que buscam imaginar um futuro distópico onde algum elemento preocupante se tornou a chave para a derrota da civilização. Lucy Taylor abraçou a ideia do derretimento das calotas polares e o subsequente aumento dos mares. Mas, ela deu um passo além e imaginou como a natureza faria com o que o ser humano se tornasse o beco sem saída da evolução.

Nossa protagonista vive no que sobrou da costa leste dos EUA. Um espaço pequeno (quase uma ilha) onde as pessoas tentam sobreviver através do envio de alimentos vindos por caminhões e a vida é mais complicada. A população diminuiu tanto que os habitantes locais já pensam em casamentos endogâmicos como uma forma de perpetuar a espécie humana e dar uma chance à civilização. Mas, isso vai se complicando cada vez mais e alguns tentam a sorte e partem rumo a um lugar sussurrado entre seus pares onde teria um tipo de vida melhor. Só que ninguém nunca retornou de lá para dizer se isso existe mesmo. Do lado de nossa personagem principal, ela só tem seu pai, que está em uma cadeira de rodas, vítima de uma doença que ninguém consegue explicar. Sua mãe se suicidou depois de ter afogado seu irmão mais novo, por causas não explicadas no começo da história. Só que mudanças evolutivas em antigos seres marítimos vão colocar toda a população do lugar em risco.

Melancolia é a chave para entender essa história. A narrativa segue um ritmo de abatimento e desesperança que permeia a forma como os personagens lidam com a sua realidade. Lucy Taylor escolheu a narrativa em primeira pessoa, o que nos permite enxergar o que a protagonista está vendo, o que está sentindo. Isso fornece uma empatia maior no leitor que pode compreender a gravidade da situação vivida por todos. Por exemplo, a gente conhece desde o princípio a forte ligação que ela tem com seu pai. Então quando aparece a chance de ela sair da ilha, sabemos qual vai ser sua resposta simplesmente porque sentimos o amor que ela tem por seu pai. Essa é uma relação que vai fazer parte da virada narrativa que acontece lá pelo final da história. Mas, falando da escrita pura e simples, ela é boa e coloca sua proposta na mesa para o leitor poder se relacionar com a história. Nada fica muito incompreensível, mesmo quando a autora dá uma viajada e começa a inserir elementos fantásticos na narrativa. As explicações são plausíveis embora a gente possa questionar como uma evolução acontece tão rápido. Se as criaturas já existissem antes e só estavam escondidas até daria para entender, só que isso não é mencionado em nenhum momento. Então elas apareceram simplesmente.

Não é apenas um cientista que já apresentou a noção de que o ser humano é uma espécie de parasita do planeta. Ele retira, mas não devolve nada. Supor que ele seja o beco sem saída da evolução não seria estranho porque não conseguimos imaginar o que viria depois de nós. Seres com super poderes? Com vida estendida? Capazes de viver em múltiplos ambientes? O que vem depois? Uma coisa é certa: o ser humano do século XXI é bem diferente fisicamente e fisiologicamente dos nossos antepassados de cem anos atrás. As mudanças não são drásticas, mas elas estão aí. Talvez a nossa alimentação, o ambiente em que vivemos; muitas são as coisas que podem atuar nessa mudança. Não quero entrar em grandes detalhes porque posso entregar algum spoiler, mas basta pensarmos o que aconteceria ao ser humano diante de uma situação-limite. Após várias gerações em um ambiente hostil e que exige uma outra forma de abordagem em relação aos seus arredores.

Senti que faltou um pouco mais de desenvolvimento da protagonista em relação aos seus pares. Deu para entender bem a conexão que ela tinha com o seu pai e até em parte com o seu interesse amoroso. Leiam interesse amoroso muito mais como uma relação de perpetuação da espécie do que algo sentimental, embora tenha um momento bem legal entre os dois. Essa disconexão da protagonista com seus pares fez com que a virada narrativa e sua escolha posterior se tornassem estranhas (no primeiro caso) e óbvias (no segundo). Isso fez com que houvesse uma dissonância entre as duas metades da narrativa. Quando o estranho acontece faltou aquele impacto em relação ao que havia antes. Mesmo assim, Sweetlings é uma fábula sobre como a humanidade se encontra em uma encruzilhada e necessita mudar a forma como se relaciona com o mundo em que vive.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting story and well-written. It presented a believable setting that seemed to have a deep background, all in a few short pages. It was certainly bleak though (as others have said). The bleakness didn't bother me so much, but what I really didn't like was the way "evolution" was assumed to be working suddenly with massive changes (a majority of them beneficial and adapted to their new environment) in a single generation. Massive changes due to environmental change (such as radiation/pollution, etc.) might be possible, but the liklihood is that the majority of them would be non-beneficial, rather than a sudden re-emergence of things like gills. So yeah, that really was too big of a stretch to believe and thus really detracted from the story in my opinion. Nonetheless, it was intriguing and I appreciated the writing ability so I'll probably be looking for more from this author.

[_eol_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 for this one.

I would've rated it higher if not for a few places where the peculiarities of first person narration took me out of the story. The MC sometimes talks with familiarity about things she shouldn't be familiar with due to when and where she lives. The tone was just not right. It wouldn't be so jarring if it was in third person, but in first, whenever she mentions how something "used to be" - before she was even born - with wistful nostalgia, as if she has lived it, just sounds wrong.

It wouldn't be so nasty and disturbing in third person as it is in first, tho, and I appreciate that part, so I'm rounding the stars up to 3.

[Arctic_Banshee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mutant Sea Zombies.


A body-horror micro short story about a post apocalyptic world where basically the sea being the original cradle of so much life now being the cradle of a new mutant world.

It was uncomfortable and kind of gross (I’ve read much worse), and the writing is a little stiff at first, but then it seems to flow. It flows but it’s dry at the same time. Like a dry red wine that gives you a weird aftertaste.

Where it went wrong for me is that it didn’t manage to make me care much, even for Jersey.

This IS sci fi horror, but it’s horror paleontology/ anthropology.


I gave it 3 stars for the writing (that got better as it went), and the imagination it took to write it.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

In a post-apocalyptic word, where climate change has caused the water to rise and the land to shrink, a small enclave of people barely survives along the new coast, helped by rare food drops coming from inland. Things are changing fast, including life on Earth, very quickly adjusting to the new conditions.
This is a hard to put down short story, and it works well despite the strange mixing of hard science with pseudo-scientific / fantasy elements.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started very weakly, with whole chapters of nothing but dry exposition, but then exploded into life about halfway through, and spent the rest of the story ripping apart its earlier exposition. An exciting new direction in the genre, with, thank God, no reference to vampires in sight. I would have given 4 stars, but the ocean of tedious world-building prevents me.

[Tiffany Lynn Kramer · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Taylor is someone I look forward to reading more of. In Sweetlings she paints a fully formed, captivating yet terrifying word in an impressive amount of time. Other authors should take note. What stops me from giving this a higher rating is her acceleration of events towards the end. It felt plausible for the world but was somehow equally abrupt.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

What better way to deal with rising sea levels than cannibalism, incest, and Pokemon-style evolution? With coelacanths, of course.

Interesting and imaginative, but I didn't particularly like it.

Was also a bit gross. (Which is generally a good thing.)

[Aaron Rumph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't as enjoyable has In the Cave of the Delicate Singers, Lucy Taylor has a very elegant way of creating the environment and bring you into it, but she isn't has good with making me care for the characters and what happens to them.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well... just... so, that's a thing.