Because We Liked It: A Heavily Biased List of the Stories That Stayed With Us

In deciding to end Reflection’s Edge, there were a few things we agreed to do. One of the most important was to leave a list of our favorite works: the “best of” collection we never got in print. In an act of questionable sanity, the Editor-in-Chief read through every story since the first publication, and followed this up with a request to all staff to name their favorites. What resulted is a highly biased but time-tested list; while many of these stories were features, some were pieces we just never stopped hearing about or found ourselves recommending over and over to new readers. If you haven’t read these already, we’re rather jealous and hope you will; and if you have seen them before, we’re sure you’ll enjoy visiting them again.

Our Favorites

In the Rainy Season, by Hanne Blank
It may be ironic that one of the most consistently mentioned staff favorites of fiction is written by an author mostly known for her nonfiction and erotica. I’d like to think Reflection’s Edge provided a good place for her to try something different; regardless, I think it’s one of the best stories about contact with alien life I’ve read. It’s certainly not surprising that with an author like Hanne Blank, the story would have some beautiful mother-images, as well as a tenderness that made me catch my breath.—Sharon Dodge

Viscosity Breakdown, by S. Foster
This one reminded me very much of Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn. I was drinking when I first read it, and a couple of times I nearly spit Coke out my nose laughing at it. I cared so hard about the main character in the space of a few words that I clenched my jaw at his tribulations. And I marveled at the truly cool world building behind the story’s “metamaterial.” I hate that I can’t find any more by this author, and that I am never likely to see a novel with this character in it, but I would absolutely snatch it up the instant it hit a bookstore. It is, bar none, my favorite piece of fiction RE ever published.—Ciro Faienza

Up, by James Hargrave
It takes a lot to get me to care about an anti-hero, and a lot more to get me to think a vampire story feels fresh. “Up” blows me away as horror and as literature; it’s spare, cinematic, graphic, and immediate. After five years, I still don’t feel I’ve unpacked all the subtext. It belongs in a textbook, although I couldn’t say for what class. This is what a modern vampire looks like.—Romie Stott

Poor Charlie Marks, by Perry Perkins
I don’t know that I’ll ever hear gold coins mentioned again without a little internal shudder; of all the horror stories we published, the images in this one will probably stick with me most. Don’t read it before bed, but do read it.
—Sharon Dodge

Isidro’s Furnace, by Michael John Grist
Seems to me that good humor (or absurdism in this case) is the sort that makes you want to cry while you’re laughing and wince while you’re gaping. “Isidro’s Furnace” has always made me want to perform just about every impossible muscular dissonance my face can manage. At times borderline profane, almost satirical, and tragically funny, it’s a story that hasn’t lost its power over me even after five and a half years.—Chad Banks

Teddy, by Cedrick Mendoza-Tolentino
At the time we published this, I was charmed by the story. Two years later, it’s the story that, of all RE publications, has received the most compliments. One reader cried while telling me how much she loved it; another read it to her children as a bedtime story over and over. It captured something gut-level about childhood wishes that I think everyone can relate to, and everyone wants back.—Sharon Dodge

And while this may be considered cheating, we have to say that anything by Michael John Grist, Hanne Blank, Claude Lalumière, Ed Robertson, or Jacqueline West will probably amaze you. There was a reason we published them more than once; these talents are phenomenal.

Reflection's Edge: The E-Zine for Thoughtful Readers & Writers

Our Favorites

Other stories we loved