February Fiction

[ann_leckie]

Sheesh, the month has just started and it's getting away from me! So, celebrate a belated Candlemas or Imbolc--or an on-time St Blaise day (first time I got strep throat was the first year I didn't get my throat blessed on Feb 3--true fact!) with new fiction at GigaNotoSaurus. This month's story is "All the Flavors: A Tale of Guan Yu, the Chinese God of War, in America" by Ken Liu:

By the time the 7000 people of Idaho City had tallied up the damage of the Great Fire of May 18th, 1865, the Missouri Boys were miles away on the Wells Fargo trail, sleeping off the headache from hard drinking and fast riding. Idaho City lost a newspaper, two theaters, two photograph galleries, three express offices, four restaurants, four breweries, four drugstores, five groceries, six blacksmith shops, seven meat markets, seven bakeries, eight hotels, twelve doctor’s offices, twenty-two law offices, twenty-four saloons, and thirty-six general merchandise stores.

This was why, when the band of weary and gaunt Chinamen showed up a few weeks later with their funny bamboo carrying poles over their shoulders and their pockets heavy with cold, hard cash sewn into the lining, the people of Idaho City almost held a welcome party for them. Everyone promptly set about the task of separating the Chinamen from their money.

Yeah, add belated Chinese New Year to the things we're celebrating today!