A review by pearseanderson
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 119 by Kali Wallace, Tobias S. Buckell, Karla Schmidt, Neil Clarke, Emily Devenport, Madeline Ashby, Sean Bensinger, Ryan Row, Cat Rambo, Jason S. Ridler, Dale Bailey, Chris Urie

4.0

Probably the best stand-alone issue of Clarkesworld I've read so far, but that's not saying toooo much. I've found some of the magazine can be filler, and for this reason I've stuck to anthologies of year's best or recommended stories, but this issue was good. Teenagers From Outer Space was killer, A Stopped Clock was cute, The Engines Imperial and Reclamation did the whole space-epic thing right (but didn't grab me like other stories). The nonfiction was solid. It was a good issue. Reclamation was very similar to a story I read in Neil Clarke's Upgraded, and Buckell's fish merchant story had a plot with a strange sense of pacing and stakes (although it did do voice quite well). Alone of the Wind forced a romance and underexplained some setting elements. Now is the Hour was as cute as Stopped Clocked and fairly interesting. Thank you Neil for bringing us this mag. I will definitely be donating, even if it's just so that every tenth story can be good.