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This poem is part of our 2016 fund drive bonus issue! Read more about Strange Horizons' funding model, or donate, here.


Content warning:


It's all tricks, sex, and promises,
that's the marrow of it and no help
for it: we have been swindling
and seducing since we had words
for it, stealing each other blind
and then slipping into each other's
sheets at night. We cannot help

ourselves. There is nothing we like
more than getting the better
of someone, other than getting under
or over them. There is magic,
sometimes, cunning, usually, beasts
and men are often indistinguishable
but nobody pays much mind.

Sometimes people die,
sometimes they marry. Usually
there is some victory, pyrrhic
or otherwise, somebody always
gets their just desserts. Sometimes
there are jokes, or else morals.
Blood is satisfying, as are tears,

among other liquids. Try to escape
this story. It is impossible. It draws you in
with false promises and swallows you whole
and squirming until you are nothing more
than a stock character. You assume the name,
the props, the tribulations. This has all

been told before. It fits you like a glove.




Margaret Wack is a writer, poet, and classicist whose work has been published in Strange Horizons, Liminality, Twisted Moon, and others.  More can be found at margaretwack.com.
Current Issue
29 May 2023

We are touched and encouraged to see an overwhelming response from writers from the Sino diaspora as well as BIPOC creators in various parts of the world. And such diverse and daring takes of wuxia and xianxia, from contemporary to the far reaches of space!
By: L Chan
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Many trans and marginalised people in our world can do the exact same things that everyone else has done to overcome challenges and find happiness, only for others to come in and do what they want as Ren Woxing did, and probably, when asked why, they would simply say Xiang Wentian: to ask the heavens. And perhaps we the readers, who are told this story from Linghu Chong’s point of view, should do more to question the actions of people before blindly following along to cause harm.
Before the Occupation, righteousness might have meant taking overt stands against the distant invaders of their ancestral homelands through donating money, labour, or expertise to Chinese wartime efforts. Yet during the Occupation, such behaviour would get one killed or suspected of treason; one might find it better to remain discreet and fade into the background, or leave for safer shores. Could one uphold justice and righteousness quietly, subtly, and effectively within such a world of harshness and deprivation?
Issue 22 May 2023
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Issue 10 Apr 2023
Issue 3 Apr 2023
Issue 27 Mar 2023
Issue 20 Mar 2023
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