Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 205

Next up in short fiction reviews is the October issue of Clarkesworld Magazine. Here are my brief reviews of each story.

Possibly Just About A Couch” by Suzanne Palmer: An indestructible couch created at the beginning of the universe lives through all of history. It makes its way through the creation of the rest of the universe, all the species on earth including man, and continues to the heat death of the universe when the cycle starts all over again. An interesting way to look at cosmological history. (My rating: 3/5)

The Blaumilch” by Lavie Tidhar: A person on Mars trying to make sense of his life abandons the Mars That Never Was in VR for the real world where he digs for the simple pleasure of digging. It ends well but feels disjointed before that. I like that the main character abandons all the color and interaction of VR for the plain physicality of the real world. (My rating: 3/5)

Down To The Root” by Lisa Papademetriou: A woman on a communication satellite travels to the home world of her co-worker. He is Cercian whose people are functionally immortal, their lives being circular. A touching story of friendship across cultures. (My rating: 4/5)

Such Is My Idea Of Happiness” by David Goodman: A redeye yearning to qualify for promotion to get away from the Brights is approached by a mysterious woman who is neither a Bright nor a redeye. They are redeyes because they sleep just enough to be able to work while drugging themselves to stay awake. The woman is part of a revolutionary group that is free of the Brights and their system. The story feels like the first chapter of a book that I’d be interested in reading. (My rating: 4/5)

De Profundis, a Space Love Letter” by Bella Han: A man living in an age of AI storytelling discovers a library on another planet and becomes a writer who seeds storytelling AI. I really wanted to like this more. Unfortunately, some of the text felt flowery without conveying much. I loved the idea. Also the conclusion was a bit muddled for me. (My rating: 3/5)

Post Hacking for the Uninitiated” by Grace Chan: A cybernetic woman fights against a hacker attacking her from the inside out. Another story that feels lifted from the beginning of a novel. I would have liked a little more resolution at the end. Has the feeling of a thriller. (My rating: 4/5)

Rafi” by Amal Singh: A young woman finds a seed among ash that grows into a proto-person (Rafi) who helps the people of Raman Sector remember themselves. Dissent is not allowed and is quickly squashed, but in the end Rafi’s actions cause a change in the people. A very unusual story that starts our feeling a bit like a parody of something but ends with a strong sense of meaning. (My rating: 4/5)

Timothy: An Oral History” by Michael Swanwick: The best story of the issue. In a world made up of only women, a scientist secretly creates a male woman, and all hell breaks loose. The women who long for men are considered sick freaks. It is a fantastic story turning our gender norms on their head to examine them. (My rating: 5/5)

One 5-star story and an overall average for the issue of 3.75 out of five stars. Not as strong as some previous issues, but still worth subscribing to and reading.

Lightspeed Magazine Issue 161

I’ve gotten a bit behind on my short fiction reading. I didn’t finish reading the October issue of Lightspeed Magazine until December. Here are my brief reviews of each fiction story.

“Where the God-Knives Tread” (Part 1; Part 2) by A.L. Goldfuss: A woman and her voidborn partner search for the legendary Eye of a long dead Empress who used the pronoun he. Parts of this story were very confusing, perhaps on purpose. The concept of people stored as data was intriguing. The main character used xe/xem as pronouns. I found it clunky and somewhat confusing, probably just because I am not used to it. (My rating: 3/5)

The Void Wyrm’s Guide to Devouring Stars” by AJ Wentz: A dying space wyrm teaches a juvenile its lessons for how to live and survive. The storyteller interrupts themselves as if the listener is interrupting them. The tone of story is lighthearted for all its deep subject. (My rating: 3/5)

Excerpts from a Scientist’s Notebook: Ancestral Memory in Europan Pseudocephalopods” by David DeGraff: These are notes from a scientist on Europa whose mother died studying the same Icypods that she studies. This one had me from the start but the end just shows up out of the blue with a conclusion without explanation. (My rating: 3/5)

Four Self-Care Secrets for a Long and Happy Life” by Tina S. Zhu: A shape shifting fox gives advice on how to live and thrive among humans. This was humorous but not enough substance to really grab me. (My rating: 3/5)

Immortality Soup, Or, An Excerpt from the Cookbook of the Gods” by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe: A trickster god explains how to get the ingredients and cooks a soup that will make a human immortal. A clever tale well told. Just not really my kind of thing. (My rating: 3/5)

A Small God” by Jeff Reynolds: A plain god travels the universe on a comet and creates what They can. Plain, ordinary, and not very interesting. (My rating: 2/5)

What You Are and the Wolf” by Jae Steinbacher: A young girl tries to avoid being given to an unpleasant man as his wife. This is a retelling of Little Red Riding hood with the wolf being the savior and the man Red is to marry being the villain. Very lovely language with much symbolism. This is the best story in the issue. (My rating: 4/5)

Overall, this was a disappoint issue coming in at an average rating of 3 out of five.

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

I listened to this on my home from a recent trip. I was very much looking forward to reading this book. The premise of a mysterious language learning school that would teach its students to be fluent in any language in ten days really intrigued me. Unfortunately, the author didn’t deliver on that promise.

Ayesha is a young woman who feels lost in her life, not sure of which way to go. She is a translator who writes subtitles for movies but wants desperately to break into translating literature. After an altercation with her boyfriend who is a very successful translator in many languages, he tells her about the secret school called The Centre. He is only allowed one referral and must otherwise never speak of the school. Ayesha attends the school multiple times and becomes more and more interested in how they do what they do. The revelation is shocking and opens up questions of patriarchy and feminism.

I am sorry to say that I was very disappointed with this book. It developed excruciatingly slowly. It was described as a “thriller” by my library. It was most definitely not a thriller. There was too much quotidian detail that seemed completely unrelated to the plot. I like character driven novels, but this was neither character driven nor plot driven. It was as if the author couldn’t decide which kind of book to write. The subject matter and even the reveal offered a lot of interesting content to explore. But it was muddled by the author’s poor handling and needed a better editor.

My rating: 2/5

Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters

I listened to Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters on audiobook on a recent road trip. It takes place in an alternate modern-day USA where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on his way to his inauguration in 1861. That same year a series of Constitutional amendments were ratified that enshrined slavery forever. A network of modern-day abolitionists called the Underground Airlines works to help escaped slaves find safety in Canada.

The main character is a former runaway slave working for the US Marshal’s office returning runaway slaves. He is in the process of infiltrating a cell of the Underground Airlines to return his latest runaway assignment. But something is a little off with this assignment.

As the mystery unravels, this world of modern, regulated slavery is laid out in all its horror for individuals and society. The story is compelling and realistic, never descending to polemics or speechifying. It all blends well into a sophisticated story of human complexity dealing with systemic racism enshrined in the Constitution. A fantastic “what if” historical thriller.

My rating: 4/5

The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow

I recently started requesting galleys at Net Galley. It’s a site where you can download and read books before they are published in return for giving an honest review. It helps publishers to build reviews for books before they come out. I am a big fan of Cory Doctorow and requested to read The Lost Cause, due to be published on November 14. I finished it today, so here is my brief review.

The story takes place about thirty years in our future. Climate change has continued to wreak havoc on the world. A new generation has grown up knowing nothing of a time before climate change. There has been a two-term president who signed into law a Green New Deal that has started to address the issues of climate change for real. This is followed by a less effective president of the same party and then a new president after who starts to turn things back. This is where the story begins

The protagonist is a young man named Brooks just graduating high school whose idealist parents died in pandemic when he was eight. He shares their ideals. His grandfather does not. He belongs to a Maga Club whose members are opposed to all the changes and love the new president. When internally displaced migrants from another city come to Brooks’ hometown of Burbank, Brooks and his friends clash with the Maga Club folks.

I really enjoyed this book. It had some cheesy romance, a little bit of political polemics, a whole lot of liberal ideals, and even some food descriptions that made my mouth water. It shows a view of how we might overcome climate change in the near future despite people who deny it happening and clinging to old ways. Both fun and political. One of the author’s better books.

My rating: 4/5

Apex Magazine Issue 140

Apex magazine tends toward the dark side of fiction, so it is appropriate that I finished reading the latest issue just before Halloween. It was definitely more of treat than a trick.

The issue starts with a dystopian story in a world experiencing climate change called “Whisper Songs” by Lyndsie Manusos. A woman experiencing post-partum depression witnesses three birds die in her yard. As required by law, she calls the authorities so they can come collect the birds’ songs. They come but things get off track. A close examination of one of these collectors and the mom. Unique and interesting. (My rating: 4/5)

A new writer with the name Zohair gives on odd story called “Quietus“. A man is condemned to death and put alive into a coffin and floated down the river. As the coffin travels, people seem to see what they want to see and have very different experiences, including seeing an empty coffin. It doesn’t seem to have much to say, at least not to me. (My rating: 2/5)

A game of mahjong centers “Life Wager” by Lucy Zhang. A woman who is the child of a god and a human returns to heaven and plays a series of games with the emperor. But that’s about all that happens. Just kind of meh for me. (My rating: 3/5)

Kɛrozin Lamp Kurfi” by Victor Forna is an experimental story that I really wanted to like much more than I did. It tells of a mother who chases her son into a story to save him and struggles to get out with her mind intact. I liked the idea of going into the story but the telling was a little disjointed and confusing for me. (My rating: 3/5)

Apex excels at stories with atmosphere that provoke emotions. “Junebug” by Sarah Hollowell is an excellent example. Three friends are traveling to visit their dying friend when they get stuck in traffic on the highway. The emotions build and overflow, leading to unusual experiences. (My rating: 5/5)

Spitting Image” by Rich Larson is the kind of creepy story that is perfect for Halloween. A boy’s friend leads him to a well in the forest that returns things dropped into it, changed. I shiver just remembering this story. Makes your skin crawl, just like it is supposed to. (My rating: 4/5)

After her grandmother dies, a woman wears the hat she did and starts to experience the same thinning of skin and hair. In “Brainpink Umber“, Chelsea Sutton explores questions like: What makes us who we are? And what happens when that starts to fade? This story feels like a metaphor for dementia running in a family. (My rating: 4/5)

Talk about metaphors that work! “From This Beating Heart, From This Fractured Mind” by Elisabeth Ring tells of a man with a wooden ticking heart and a woman with a glass mind living together and supporting one another. He is a bit cold and disconnected. She can’t seem to wrap her mind around things like she should. It is a tale of mental health and isolation. Well done. (My rating: 4/5)

In a future with sentient biorobots, a young man lives with his male partner while his mother from the old country begs him to get married and have children. At the same time, he struggles with what to do with one of his under performing charges. “Memories of the Old Sun” by Eugen Bacon addresses two tropes but never really brings them together. Disappointing with great writing. (My rating: 3/5)

The issue ends with the beautiful “Through Dreams She Moves” by Tonya Liburd. A woman who can enter other people’s dreams enters those of a man in a coma in an effort to wake him up. What makes this especially poignant and evocative is the clever use of the second person. The story addresses several people as it goes: her mom, then boss, the client’s father, the client, and her great grandfather in the past. It works beautifully. (My rating: 5/5)

My average rating for this issue is 3.7 out of five. Be sure to at least spend the time to read the two best stories in the issue.

Uncanny Magazine Issue 54

A read-headed young woman has her hand in a bear's mouth as it roars in her face

When I finally picked up the September/October issue of Uncanny Magazine, I was excited. I had been looking forward to reading since early September. Right away I was rewarded with a spectacular story.

Advertising has become so much a part of our culture. In “Can You Hear Me Now?“, Catherynne M. Valente uses that fact to amazing effect. Imagine if a woman in the ads you see was suddenly a real person, aware that they played different roles in each commercial? How would she deal with that? This masterpiece explores that idea while touching on all the real troubles and desires that consumerism covers up. (My rating: 5/5)

I was initially intrigued by the indigenous setting of “We Do Not Eat Much Fish” by Grace P. Fong. A woman called a witch by her father and husband, encounters a fisherman and brings him home to her son with dire results. The story is a bit gruesome for me and doesn’t explore as much as I wanted about the context of a woman taken to strange home by her husband. (My rating: 3/5)

Remember being a kid and peeling Elmer’s glue off your hand in sheets? In Kristina Ten’s “The Curing“, the outcast immigrant kids go a bit further. They cover their whole bodies and peel them off, and the glue copies come “alive”! Now, just one wouldn’t do, right? These kids make multiple copies and absorb all the memories that their copies make. It is a great story with lots of metaphor, subtle, and not too much in your face. (My rating: 5/5)

The longest story in the issue is “The Kingdom of Darkness” by Sarah Monette. In an alternative past, a man protects a demoniac after his witch finder is murdered. I am sorry to say that I could not finish this story. I found myself forcing myself to read it. I didn’t care what was going on. And it seemed a bit all over the place. (My rating: 1/5)

I found “The Girl with a City Inside of Her” by Jeannette Ng to be a little confusing. A girl with a city inside her sits on a stool in the sideshow of a carnival talking to the visitors about her city. The author seems to switch back and forth between the girl literally having a city inside her to it being simply a metaphor. I didn’t really care for it. (My rating: 2/5)

On a doomed mission to look for a replacement planet, a reluctant outfitter does her best to keep the surveyors alive after a deadly pandemic at home. This is “The Coffin Maker” by AnaMaria Curtis, and she really creates a palpable atmosphere. I could feel what was going on in this story. The desperation, the frustration. (My rating: 4/5)

Four Words Written on My Skin” by Jenn Reese is a kind of a romance with a trope I don’t care much for. A woman follows her wife into the woods where the Fae have stolen her in an attempt to get her back. Their relationship was rocky but once her wife is taken, the main character realizes how important she is to her. That said, it is a good story well-written. (My rating: 3/5)

My excitement at the start of the issue had pretty much petered out by the end. The issue comes to a disappointing average rating of 3.25 out of five. Issue 55 is likely to be the last in my subscription.

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

A young redheaded girl dressed all in black with white paint on her face to look like a skull is holding a sword in her right hand.

The book club that I am a member of reads a different genre of book each month. In October, our genre is Fantasy/Horror in keeping with Halloween at the end of the month. Currently we are reading Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, the first book of The Locked Tomb series. This is a popular book that I was familiar with but had decided not to read before it became club’s selection. My instinct was right.

The story centers around an orphan on a planet of necromancers protecting their empire from some great danger buried there. She was raised with the princess of the planet who treated her with contempt despite the fact that they were the only two children on the planet. Shortly after the novel begins, they are both called to the First planet (theirs is the Ninth planet, referring to their house rather than the planet’s distance from its sun) at the call of the emperor. Once there, they and everyone else called embark on a quest to become an immortal guardian who helps defend the empire at the side of the emperor. But things go sideways as they compete for this honor. The bulk of the story describes this quest and the mysteries surrounding it.

The world is very dark. It is also incredibly violent and graphic. It revolves around necromancy and the power one gets from the dead and dying. I found the mystery mildly interesting. The world, not so much. The main character is poorly developed from my perspective. She is a bit snarky. This could have worked but felt more lame than clever. And it was just enough for her to be irritating rather than charming. She is no Han Solo. Overall, I found the world building weak. There was barely enough there to hold the story together but not enough to hold my interest. If I had not been reading this for my book club, I would not have finished it. Turns out my first impression before I read it was accurate—it’s not for me. Naturally, I won’t be reading any more of the series.

My rating: 2/5

Lightspeed Magazine Issue 160

An armored magician with long hair and a tattooed face hold their hands close together with bright light between them.

I always look forward to the wide variety of stories in Lightspeed Magazine, and the September issue was no exception.

The issue starts with an odd adventure written by John Kessel and Bruce Sterling entitled “Money in the Bank“. A veteran using a false identity to sell his services as a body guard gets what seems to be a run-of-the-mill assignment. He is sent to guard a cryptocurrency genius. He succeeds but learns that there is much more going on behind the scenes. Madcap humor and an out-there plot that turns out to be a fun combination. (My rating: 3/5)

Eve’s Prayer” by Victor Forna is an actual prayer. A woman on a habitable planet prays for guidance on whether to send a beacon to let humanity know they can safely come. The planet is safe for humans, but she is concerned about what they will do to it. (My rating: 4/5)

The next entry is a bedtime story, literally. In “The Hole in the Garden” by Gene Doucette, a hard-working man comes home late to find his seven-year-old daughter still up waiting for him to tell her a story. Tired, he searches his memory for one that won’t take too long. He comes up with one about a quantum singularity in a man’s garden. But the ending has a surprise twist. This story really pops. (My rating: 5/5)

Many science fiction writers experiment with the way they tell stories. Maria Haskins does this in “Death by Water“, and it doesn’t work for me. The result is a trippy, psychedelic, confusing story about a woman who sails away from Vancouver in a ship as her body slowly falls apart. I didn’t really understand what she was trying to say with this. (My rating: 2/5)

Have you ever wondered how to get over a broken heart? Jordan Kurella gives step-by-step guidance in “Instructions for the Broken Hearted“. This story takes the idea of someone ripping your heart out and stomping on it literally, teaching the reader what to do to get it back in your chest. It is bittersweet and really evokes all the feelings you would expect. (My rating: 4/5)

Dragon tales. Typical fantasy fare, right? Not exactly in “Simmered in Their Wealth Like the Richest of Sauces” by Jo Miles. In our modern world, a dragon is awakened by a rich man seeking the gold that the dragon sleeps on. But the dragon can smell and taste greed. And the aroma of our modern world is making the dragon salivate. (My rating: 5/5)

Remains” by N.R. Lambert is another experimental story. It seems to be the story of a person (“you”) trying to survive as the world around them breaks down. The language is flowery and evokes feeling but I couldn’t tell what was going on. This seems to be a modern trend in writing. I don’t care for it. (My rating: 2/5)

In “His Thing” by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, an African woman is essentially purchased by a man returning to his hometown. He imprisons her in a sentient house that he controls. She seeks to find a way to control her own life. It includes a lot of words from southern Africa that are not defined though there is context to understand their purpose. I would have preferred having them fully defined. (My rating: 4/5)

Altogether, this issue comes in for a rating of 3.63 out of five. The issue was better than that rating for me, the two stories rated at two bringing the average down.

Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 204

Two astronauts on an EVA on a green background filled with floating rocks.

Issue 204 is the September edition of Clarkesworld Magazine. Below are my brief reviews of the included fiction.

The issue starts strong with “Stones” by Nnedi Okorafor. A creature “born” on a comet explores the universe for millennia before encountering humans. A tale of alien life learning and exploring and finding out that humans are fearful creatures who respond with violence. And finding one who responds with kindness and care. (My rating: 4/5)

Next up is “The Queen of Calligraphic Susurrations” by D.A. Xiaoline Spires. A calligrapher uses an AI-driven digital brush to write a story for submission that is refused for using AI despite the AI only assisting. Interesting in the way it approaches the dilemma of where AI-written is different from AI-assisted. I didn’t care for the writing style. It felt flowery and poetic in a way that didn’t add to the story but instead bogged it down. (My rating: 3/5)

In “A Guide to Matchmaking on Station 9“, an empathic Jewish matchmaker with synesthesia living on a space station consults her ex-lover while making a few final matches before joining her daughter and newborn granddaughter on another space station. Nika Murphy’s story is rich with so many layers for its brevity. Subtle. Much is explored without coming right out and saying it. This story really sank into me. (My rating: 5/5)

The longest story in the issue is “Axiom of Dreams” by Arula Ratnakar. A young woman explores her dreams in an attempt to solve a complex math problem to get into a PhD program. Very math-y in a way that may not be for everyone. A fascinating exploration of the nature of reality. (My rating: 4/5)

The most disappointing story for me was “The People from the Dead Whale” by Djuna, translated from Korean by Jihyun Park and Gord Seller. It takes place on a tidally locked planet that humans have colonized. They live on “whales” in the ocean between the scorching hot Day and freezing cold Night sides of the planet. A tribe of refugees from a dead “whale” seeks a new home. It’s a very interesting world. This story is more of a tease or an introduction to even more. I’d be interested in more stories in this setting. (My rating: 3/5)

In “The Five Remembrance, According to STE-319” by R.L. Meza, a dying robot built to kill rescues a small girl on a battlefield. The remembrances are essentially statements that would only apply to humans, but yet are demonstrated by the robot. A critique of war, it is told from the perspective of the robot. (My rating: 4/5)

The issue concludes with an emotional bang with “Upgrade Day” by RJ Taylor. A person who sold their after life for a successful first life struggles as a post-human robot that is slowly growing obsolete. His owners can’t afford to keep upgrading him. They offer to do the unthinkable while he stays on to care for the girl as she grows up. A poignant tale of sacrifice and dedication and learning the costs of our decisions. (My rating: 5/5)

Overall, my rating for this issue is 4 our of five stars. Clarkesworld seems to have consistently excellent stories. I always look forward to each issue.