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cathepsut's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
3.0
EATER OF WORLDS BY JAMIE WAHLS
4830 WORDS, SHORT STORY 🦠🦠🦠
“The tiny missile is as long as a rose’s thorn and orders of magnitude more durable. It streaks through the blackness, and its current journey has been long enough, from an external frame, for a particularly self-destructive species to rise out of their primordial slime, invent atomic weapons, and start the whole damn thing anew.“
Odd little story about some kind of mini-AI looking for dissidents across the galaxy to destroy… At first I had no clue what was going on. Made me think of panspermia, although it doesn‘t really fit the definition, see the story‘s title. Not bad.
ONE’S BURDEN, AGAIN BY NATALIA THEODORIDOU
5170 WORDS, SHORT STORY, 🚀🚀🚀
“It’s freezing today,” Ionna said, although she knew the temperature in the ship was always the same. It didn’t make her feel any warmer. As if the cold of space had settled into her bones.
“Won’t be long now.” Niko finished securing the cargo area and initiated a routine maintenance check of the entire ship. “That was a good haul,” he said. “One more and we’ll be going home.”
Ionna and Niko are running a space hauler, looking for platinum. Their search leads them to a strange planetoid and they learn a lesson about futility.
FIRE IN THE BONE BY RAY NAYLER
5600 WORDS, SHORT STORY 🤖🤖🤖🤖
We are in an equivalent of the Old South, with a cash crop similar to cotton. Instead of human slaves the harvest is brought in by robots and then transported off planet by ships.
“The harvest ship, low in its geosynchronous orbit, was so enormous it could eclipse the sun. Late in the harvest season, this eclipse would occur a quarter hour or so before true sunset. The descending sun’s orb would warp and flicker in the opalescent haze of the ship’s shielding as the hull blotted out its lower edge, then more and more of its globe, and shadow bands wavered across the landscape.“
There was a revolt in the past by robots. The story goes in an interesting, if somewhat predictable direction. Pretty good, well told.
THE GHOSTS OF GANYMEDE BY DEREK KÜNSKEN
7840 WORDS, NOVELETTE 🐛🐛🐛
“The cracked, blasted surface of Ganymede came into focus outside the portholes, assuming three-dimensional texture and relief. Jupiter’s yellow-orange planet-shine gave way to the white glare of the lander’s spotlights and the scatter of light within cold jets blowing dust and pebbles and chunks of ice away. Even in the low gravity, the landing jarred, bouncing once, before they came to rest.“
Our arrivals on Ganymede are colonists and refugees. They find unexpected structures on the moon. And then something else.
I have to confess that the talk about quantum events and collapsing probability waves went over my head and I was too lazy to read about it and refresh my memory. I got the gist of it though. Difficult hard SF. I did like the backstory, about Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Künsken writes well. I liked the first part of this novelette a lot, but the last part with the ghosts fell flat for me.
VENUS IN BLOOM BY LAVIE TIDHAR
2520 WORDS, SHORT STORY 🤖🤖
Whoosh… that was the sound of that story going over my head. What? Why? Nice imagery… 🤷♀️
LEFT TO TAKE THE LEAD BY MARISSA LINGEN
11420 WORDS, NOVELETTE 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳
Holly is an indentured servant on a Canadian farm. Near-future, in a Canada wrecked by storms and blights. Holly is from the Oort Cloud, where a past disaster has pretty much ended her world. Some family lives on Mars, some is lost or in the unknown. She waits for one of her uncles to get the family back together. In the meantime there is her daily life, spraying fungicides, working large farm machines and trying to figure out the weird Earthers.
About family—the one you grow up with, the one you make. About trees and about feeling at home.
THEY HAVE ALL ONE BREATH BY KARL BUNKER
12420 words, ~28pages, novelette 🤖🤖🤖
“… a post-singularity story in which AIs have taken the business of running the world out of human hands.“ (from the author‘s blog)
Seriously, don‘t put ice into your single malt Scotch! That is just a horrible waste of good Scotch. Besides that irrelevant comment, this story doesn‘t appear to be creepy, but gave me the willies. What happens when all of your needs are met, there is no hunger or war or violence anymore, but in turn any motivation to do something new or creative goes away and stagnation is all that is left?
All the stories of this magazine issue can be read for free here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prio...
The non-fiction in this issue was good as well. I did skip the author interview though, just in case I ever read the mentioned book by the author.
And another magazine from my shelf finally read! Onwards to the next one…
4830 WORDS, SHORT STORY 🦠🦠🦠
“The tiny missile is as long as a rose’s thorn and orders of magnitude more durable. It streaks through the blackness, and its current journey has been long enough, from an external frame, for a particularly self-destructive species to rise out of their primordial slime, invent atomic weapons, and start the whole damn thing anew.“
Odd little story about some kind of mini-AI looking for dissidents across the galaxy to destroy… At first I had no clue what was going on. Made me think of panspermia, although it doesn‘t really fit the definition, see the story‘s title. Not bad.
ONE’S BURDEN, AGAIN BY NATALIA THEODORIDOU
5170 WORDS, SHORT STORY, 🚀🚀🚀
“It’s freezing today,” Ionna said, although she knew the temperature in the ship was always the same. It didn’t make her feel any warmer. As if the cold of space had settled into her bones.
“Won’t be long now.” Niko finished securing the cargo area and initiated a routine maintenance check of the entire ship. “That was a good haul,” he said. “One more and we’ll be going home.”
Ionna and Niko are running a space hauler, looking for platinum. Their search leads them to a strange planetoid and they learn a lesson about futility.
FIRE IN THE BONE BY RAY NAYLER
5600 WORDS, SHORT STORY 🤖🤖🤖🤖
We are in an equivalent of the Old South, with a cash crop similar to cotton. Instead of human slaves the harvest is brought in by robots and then transported off planet by ships.
“The harvest ship, low in its geosynchronous orbit, was so enormous it could eclipse the sun. Late in the harvest season, this eclipse would occur a quarter hour or so before true sunset. The descending sun’s orb would warp and flicker in the opalescent haze of the ship’s shielding as the hull blotted out its lower edge, then more and more of its globe, and shadow bands wavered across the landscape.“
There was a revolt in the past by robots. The story goes in an interesting, if somewhat predictable direction. Pretty good, well told.
THE GHOSTS OF GANYMEDE BY DEREK KÜNSKEN
7840 WORDS, NOVELETTE 🐛🐛🐛
“The cracked, blasted surface of Ganymede came into focus outside the portholes, assuming three-dimensional texture and relief. Jupiter’s yellow-orange planet-shine gave way to the white glare of the lander’s spotlights and the scatter of light within cold jets blowing dust and pebbles and chunks of ice away. Even in the low gravity, the landing jarred, bouncing once, before they came to rest.“
Our arrivals on Ganymede are colonists and refugees. They find unexpected structures on the moon. And then something else.
I have to confess that the talk about quantum events and collapsing probability waves went over my head and I was too lazy to read about it and refresh my memory. I got the gist of it though. Difficult hard SF. I did like the backstory, about Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Künsken writes well. I liked the first part of this novelette a lot, but the last part with the ghosts fell flat for me.
VENUS IN BLOOM BY LAVIE TIDHAR
2520 WORDS, SHORT STORY 🤖🤖
Whoosh… that was the sound of that story going over my head. What? Why? Nice imagery… 🤷♀️
LEFT TO TAKE THE LEAD BY MARISSA LINGEN
11420 WORDS, NOVELETTE 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳
Holly is an indentured servant on a Canadian farm. Near-future, in a Canada wrecked by storms and blights. Holly is from the Oort Cloud, where a past disaster has pretty much ended her world. Some family lives on Mars, some is lost or in the unknown. She waits for one of her uncles to get the family back together. In the meantime there is her daily life, spraying fungicides, working large farm machines and trying to figure out the weird Earthers.
About family—the one you grow up with, the one you make. About trees and about feeling at home.
THEY HAVE ALL ONE BREATH BY KARL BUNKER
12420 words, ~28pages, novelette 🤖🤖🤖
“… a post-singularity story in which AIs have taken the business of running the world out of human hands.“ (from the author‘s blog)
Seriously, don‘t put ice into your single malt Scotch! That is just a horrible waste of good Scotch. Besides that irrelevant comment, this story doesn‘t appear to be creepy, but gave me the willies. What happens when all of your needs are met, there is no hunger or war or violence anymore, but in turn any motivation to do something new or creative goes away and stagnation is all that is left?
All the stories of this magazine issue can be read for free here: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prio...
The non-fiction in this issue was good as well. I did skip the author interview though, just in case I ever read the mentioned book by the author.
And another magazine from my shelf finally read! Onwards to the next one…
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