Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 221 (February 2025)

As I continue to transition to reading more short fiction (short stories and novellas), in addition to reading Clarkesworld Magazine each month I am trying to read at least one short story a day. As I am very interested in encouraging others to get into reading fiction regularly, starting in March I am going to do my best to post a review every day of the highest rated stories I have read. Some will be old, some more recent. Most will be speculative fiction of some kind. In addition to posting them here, I will also be posting them on my Facebook group, Instagram, and BlueSky. Now, on to my reviews of the fiction in this month’s Clarkesworld.

“Bodyhoppers” by Rocío Vega, translated from Spanish by Sue Burke (5,280 words) — A person wakes up in a new body and races to find their lover before they are both caught for pirating a body. The story starts in 3rd person point of view then transitions to 1st person before ending in 2nd person. It is so smoothly done you almost can’t see it. And it works seamlessly. An excellent blend of starting in the middle of the action and revealing the world as the story unfolds without losing or confusing the reader. (My rating: 5/5)

“King of the Castle” by Fiona Moore (6,280 words) — An angry, violent young man threatens his community while they search for a way to bring him back into the fold. The story takes place in the same world and after the events “The Spoil Heap” by the same author. I thoroughly enjoyed that story and the world. Unfortunately, this one fell a little flat for me. (My rating: 3/5)

“We Begin Where Infinity Ends” by Somto Ihezue (9,270 words) — Kids work to save fireflies by toning down the brightness of streetlights and learn the power of love and working together. This one has the depth and feel of a novel. It also has the feel of ‘eighties childhood like in Stranger Things or E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial where kids have their own space to do things without adults constantly hovering around. (My rating: 5/5)

“A Planet Full of Sorrows” by M. L. Clark (13,110 words) — When evidence of a dead alien race on another planet starts a space race to get there, the discovering scientists try to figure out how to stop it. The race is between three proselytizing religions that all have tacit government backing. A look at how capitalism complicates scientific efforts. (My rating: 4/5)

“The Hanging Tower of Babel” by Wang Zhenzhen translated from Chinese by Carment Yiling Yan (6,380 words) — A son cares for his father with Alzheimer’s disease who was mostly absent from his life due to his work in deep space. Reminded me of Arthur C. Clarke’s The Fountains of Paradise, which I read in high school. It too had an elevator to orbit like the Stairway to Heaven in this story. Poignant, heartbreaking, and bittersweet. (My rating: 5/5)

“Numismatic Archetypes in the Year of Five Regents” by Louis Inglis Hall (3,560 words) — The history of six regents told through the coins minted for each. It is descriptions of six coins interspersed with the “history” around them. It is a clever premise, but not much is done with it. For me, it is not quite a story. But it does have a clever twist. (My rating: 3/5)

“Celestial Migrations” by Claire Jia-Wen (3,090 words) — Miners who ride celestial rays home for the lunar new year to see their son learn how the space creatures reproduce. The writing is not very clear for me. It’s like jumping into the midst of the story without enough being explained within the text. Despite the defect in the storytelling, it is a poignant tale of parents sacrificing for their son. But that is a big defect for me. (My rating: 2/5)

Average Rating: 3.86/5

The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Naler

For my trip to a recent soccer tournament where I refereed, I was looking for a novella that I could complete while driving. Since I would be driving alone, I only had my own tastes to consider. I keep a list of books I am interested in reading. I sorted to those I had tagged as “novella”. When I saw this one, it was an easy choice. I thoroughly enjoyed the author’s first novel The Mountain in the Sea. So I cued this up for my trip.

The book follows a park ranger who is fighting poachers to save the elephants she is an expert on. One hundred years after she is murdered, her uploaded mind is re-awakened to be inserted into the leader of a resurrected mammoth herd on the steppes of Russia. The hope is that her knowledge of elephant behavior can help the struggling mammoth herd to survive. But that is not the only challenge faced by the herd. With the resurrection of the mammoth has come the return of poachers who caused the extinction of elephants in the wild.

The audiobook is read by two narrators, one reading the parts about the park ranger and one reading the parts of the poachers and hunters. This is very effective as is the writing. The book delves into the struggles against elephant poaching and the market for ivory while also exploring what it would mean to be a human mind inserted into a non-human animal. It is a philosophical adventure that I thoroughly enjoyed.

My rating: 5/5

Creating Short Fiction: The Classic Guide to Writing Short Fiction By Damon Knight

When I was teenager, I read a lot of short stories and even outlined an idea for a novel. I’ve published one short story here on my blog. And I’ve considered doing more. In fact, I have quite a long list of books about writing. I have found this one to be the most informative and useful so far.

The author takes the reader through the steps of writing a short story (or any story, really) from developing your talent and turning ideas into stories to beginning, controlling, and finishing a story. I took a lot of notes that I expect I will be referring to as I start to write more. The tone of the book is very conversational. It feels like the author is there at your shoulder, coaching you through the process. Many helpful exercises are included.

I read almost exclusively on my ereader. To read this one, I needed to borrow a physical copy from the library. Before I was even half way through it, I knew I would want a copy for myself to refer back to. So I bought the ebook and finished reading it there. If you have any interest in writing stories of any genre, I highly recommend picking up a copy of this classic.

My rating: 5/5

Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts by Oliver Burkeman

When this book came out, I learned that it was essentially a collection of his newsletters published as a book. I wasn’t interested. But over the ensuing months, I kept hearing people talk about it and praise it. So I finally decided to read it after all. I’m glad I did.

The book is divided into four parts corresponding to weeks and the chapters are titled by days out of the twenty-eight days in four weeks. In the introduction, the author suggests strongly that the reader consume only one chapter a day and let the content settle and simmer. Following this advice made the book not just a good read but a wonderful experience.

Essentially the book tells you to take it easy on yourself, experience the world. This would at first seem to be a way to disengage with the world and not get much done. But the pressure most of us put on ourselves keeps most of us from success as well. Following the advice here leads to a middle ground that feels just right.

My rating: 4.5/5

How Football Began: A Global History of How the World’s Football Codes Were Born by Tony Collins

A little less than a year ago, I became a soccer referee. Since then, I have refereed all ages from ten up to adult, in club games and high school. I love the beautiful game, but I didn’t really know where it came from. After doing a little research, I found this short history. The full text of the book is available for free online here.

It covers from the beginnings of football in the mid-nineteenth century in England through the mid-twentieth century. The focus is on the early part of the history, the first fifty to seventy years. When I picked up the book, I knew about the relationship between soccer (or association football) and rugby football. But I didn’t know much about how those games evolved separately into all the varieties we have now like American football, Canadian football, and Australian Rules football. This book is a great introduction to the development and relationships between all those football rules.

The writing, however, was not the best. It might be a cultural thing. This book was written and published originally in England. Regardless, I found much of the writing stilted and some of the sentence construction would just yank me out of the narrative. That said, the stories and information, including the extensive notes and bibliography, are so valuable I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in any variety of football.

My rating: 3.5/5

How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion by David DeSteno

I am in the midst of a six week run of refereeing in soccer tournaments every weekend. I listened to this book while traveling to and from one of those tournaments this past weekend. Since moving away from any religious belief in a supernatural god, I have found myself missing many of the community-based aspects of religion. So when I learned about this book many years ago, it piqued my interest.

How God Works is an exercise in what its author calls “religioprospecting”. By this he means looking at the world’s religions and their rituals so see how they have served humanity through the millennia. After all, if they have lasted to today, there must be something valuable there. This isn’t unlike the scientist who goes searching for healing concoctions in the Amazon with the hope of finding some healing aspect of a local remedy that could be repurposed for a new pharmaceutical cure. And I found the author’s exploration to be fascinating and insightful.

The text starts with birth, steps through the different aspects of aging (youth, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, etc.) and ends with death and grief. In each chapter he sets out specific examples of rituals that serve the religious through those aspects of life, exploring why they work based on scientific research. As I read these chapters, I was a little disappointed he wasn’t giving the reader tips for how to incorporate what was learned outside of the specific religious context. Turns out I was just a little ahead of the author. His epilogue does just that. Rather than giving specific examples, he provides thoughtful ideas for how the reader can take what they have learned from the book and create their own rituals to support themselves and those they love, regardless of religion or even the lack of any faith at all.

My rating: 4.5/5

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

My book club read this in January, the month in which we read science fiction. I ultimately chose this one for the club as the voting for what to read was tied. I chose it because it is a classic of the genre published in 1974 that won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

The main character Shevek is from Anarres, one of two sister planets. Many years before the plot of the novel, the settlers of Anarres fought a revolution on the other sister planet, Urras. The revolutionaries left Urras to found their anarchist utopia on Anarres. These many years later, things have devolved somewhat from their revolutionary roots and Shevek goes back to Urras in part to exercise his freedom as an anarchist. Things naturally don’t all go as expected.

This is a very philosophical novel, and I found it a bit slow. Still, it was engaging and interesting, if a bit dry at times. Unlike most utopias, this one is not perfect. In fact, much of the book explores how the revolution on Anarres devolved over the centuries. It was also fun to experience what it might be like to live without laws.

My rating: 4/5

The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper by Roland Allen

I’ve kept a journal on and off throughout my life. And of course I’ve kept notes while going to school. I now find myself keeping notes on all sorts of things that interest me, especially what I read. So when Austin Kleon recommended this book in his weekly newsletter, I added it to my reading list. But I didn’t read it right away. It was so good, I wish I had.

When my partner asked me what I was reading and I told her about this book, she naturally thought that it sounded boring. And to some people, it might be. But for those interested in the history of thought, this is a brilliant book. Here are just a few of the subjects covered.

The invention of accounting
Sketchbooks in Renaissance Italy
Ships’ logs
Travelers’ notebooks
The development of calculus
Diaries and journals
Police notebooks
Recipe books
Bullet journaling
Patient diaries

That list may still come across as dry, but the author writes in a very conversational style that tends toward modern narrative nonfiction. He reports conversations he had with experts and dives into the lives of those in the various notebooks. Instead of being dry reporting, it immerses the reader in the lives and the “whys” of the keepers of the notebooks. This is a fascinating history of thinking on paper.

My rating: 4.5/5

Wolf Moon, Antler Moon by A.C. Wise

As part of my starting to read more short fiction again in the new year, I decided to read the original fiction published online by Tor in the their *Reactor* magazine. It is free and stories are published intermittently throughout the year at https://reactormag.com/fictions/original-fiction/. This story came out on Monday, and I read it while eating breakfast Wednesday morning.

When a tragedy befalls an unnamed resort town in the woods, a teenage girl is forced to come to terms with who she is and what she needs to do to preserve her town. Saying much more than that would spoil the experience of such a short work of fiction (14,080 words). It is dark fantasy with a foreboding feel. It takes place in the spring and the sense of potential jumps from the page. It is ultimately a coming of age story with the heaviness of decision and responsibility.

The writing is very evocative, dripping with emotion throughout. A very atmospheric tale where spring almost feels like a character.

My rating: 4/5

Picks and Shovels by Cory Doctorow

This book has yet to be released. I received a copy through Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. I was on the lookout for this book as i had read the other two in this trilogy. This one is due to be published on February 18. You can purchase a copy from the author here.

The trilogy has been a reverse chronology. This final book in the series is Marty Hench’s origin story. In it, we learn how he came to flunk out of MIT, start a company with his roommate, and move to Silicon Valley to start his career as a forensic accountant. Once there, he is hired by a trio of religious leaders (a rabbi, a priest, and a Mormon bishop) who are taking advantage of their customers by selling them computers and accessories only from them. The bulk of the story is how he and a group of women who used to work for the Reverend Sirs fight to free their customers from this lock in.

It doesn’t sound that interesting when I write it out. I mean, Marty is a forensic accountant for crying out loud. Can you get more boring than accounting? But somehow the author makes forensic accounting exciting, cool, and intriguing all at the same time. The book really does have the feel of the early computer revolution and the optimism that went with it. A thoroughly enjoyable ride and fitting conclusion to the saga of Marty Hench. I will miss him.

My rating: 4/5