"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." – George R. R. Martin
This one feels particularly timely given the national concern over illegal immigration.
The Long Mural by James Van Pelt (2023) — 7,080 words (about 28 minutes for the average reader)
From Issue 206 of Clarkesworld Magazine originally published November 2023
Every year, Locus magazine does a review issue in February. In it, their editors and reviewers list their favorites of the year. One of those reviewers this year was Alexandra Pierce. She recommended this novella. I picked it up on her recommendation as a well-written story that explores deeper issues.
The story is that of an unnamed boy and woman. The boy lives below decks on a sort of chain gang about a generation ship. The woman is a professor aboard that same ship in a caste that is just slightly above that of the boy. She gets the boy out of the Hold and brings him to the university. He struggles to adapt there while relying on the Practice that he was taught in the Hold by an old man.
This is a tale of class and hierarchy in society. It moves rather slowly and the writing is dense. It borders on being for English teachers only but never quite tips into that territory. Clearly the author is not just talking about space. This is a metaphor for all human societies. And what the author has to say in her exploration is well worth reading this short book.
My rating: 4/5
I started subscribing to Clarkesworld magazine again in January. This was an early favorite. How can a murder be temporary? Read and find out!
The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe by Tia Tashiro (2025) — 11,900 words (about 47 minutes for the average reader)
Clarkesworld magazine always has amazing stories. This one might be a little weird for those that grew up during the Cold War as it takes place in an old ICBM silo.
Silo, Sweet Silo by James Castles (2023) — 4,397 words (about 17 minutes for the average reader)
Today’s story comes from the amazing Uncanny Magazine. In it a scientist who used his son to collect data for an AI prison, goes to that prison to make amends for how that data collection affected his son.
SuperMAX by Daniel H. Wilson (2023) – 7,914 words (about 32 minutes for the average reader)
I first read this classic story in high school. It won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1956. It is the story of a Jesuit priest who accompanies a mission to a remote star that expired in a supernova thousands of years ago. They are visiting the star system because a civilization lived there that was destroyed by the star’s explosion. But as the priest tells the story, he raises a surprising and important question.
The Star by Arthur C. Clarke (1955) – 2,432 words (about a ten minute read for the average reader)
I read this as member of my book club at my local library. We each read a different book on a particular topic. For the most recent meeting we read historical fiction that takes place prior to the twentieth century. I kind of cheated with this one. It is short stories and only some of them go that far back in time. But it seemed to be a hit when I told them about it.
The editor was able to get stories from a lot of well know contemporary authors of science fiction. The theme of the anthology was time travel love stories. The book’s title as a call out to the 1980 move Somewhere in Time was totally on purpose. There were sixteen stories in the book. Here are my brief synopses and ratings.
The average of these ratings give the book as a whole a rating of 4/5.
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
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
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