Sunday Short: Lavie Tidhar's Selfies

With Halloween coming up and as part of Oh The Book's Horror October, I am highlighting an awesome scary Sunday Short this week - Selfies by Lavie Tidhar, published in Tor.com. 

From Tor.com, Illustration by Greg Ruth

In this short, we read snippets of life captured in selfies by a teenage girl (Ellie) found dead in her neighborhood playground. We learn that Ellie bought a used cell phone from a weird shop in the mall, and she almost immediately starts to experience weird stuff, like the reflection of herself in the mirror smiling back when she isn't.

I loved the blending of modern tech with the mythos of camera obscura / ikiryo. If you want something scary (but not too scary) and quick to read for Halloween, I recommend this short. (And if you want to think twice the next time you get ready to take that selfie, this is probably also a story for you.) It had a cinematic quality, to me; as some of the comments pointed out on the story page -- this could make a great scary movie.

Rating: 4/5

Favorite line: 

#73 Dinner with Mum and Dad and Noah. We’re all smiling. Noah has his arm around me and he’s grinning stupidly into the camera and so am I. I’m feeling like there’s a fire inside me, burning from the inside out, like light falling on a negative, and it’s reaching everywhere, it’s touching everything with light.

Starting next week and for the whole month of November, I am going to be highlighting recent Sci-Fi short stories for Sci-Fi November, starting with Seanan McGuire's Each to Each. Have a favorite sci-fi story published recently online? Leave it in the comments below!