{"id":10383,"date":"2019-05-21T12:31:22","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T12:31:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=10383"},"modified":"2019-06-17T20:24:03","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T20:24:03","slug":"tor-com-short-fiction-january-february-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=10383","title":{"rendered":"Tor.com Short Fiction, January-February 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nGreg Hullender and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank<\/a>1<\/sup>
\nJason McGregor, Featured Futures<\/a> (+The Song<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n

Editors, Ann VanderMeer (x3), Beth Meacham (x2), Marco Palmieri, Lindsey Hall, Ellen Datlow.2 <\/sup><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nBeyond the El<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Chu \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nDeriving Life<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Elizabeth Bear \u2217<\/strong>
\nHis Footsteps, in Darkness and Light<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Mimi Mondal \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nCircus Girl, the Hunter, and Mirror Boy <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by JY Yang \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nArticulated Restraint<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Mary Robinette Kowal \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nOld Media <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Annalee Newitz<\/p>\n

January\/February stories not included in the collection:
\nThe Last Voyage of Skidbladnir<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Karin Tidbeck \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Song<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story Erinn L. Kemper \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nInterior artwork<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Dadu Shin, Mary Haasdyk (x2), Kashmira Sarode, Ashley Mackenzie, Jasu Hu, Soufiane Mengad, Victor Mosquera<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

For some years now the publisher Tor has spent a chunk of their marketing budget providing online fiction and non-fiction content.3<\/sup> The stories (which come from different editors) usually appear every week or two on the company website, and have featured heavily in recent years\u2019 awards ballots and Year\u2019s Bests (unsurprising as the stories are free, and their payment rate is far above Asimov\u2019s<\/em>, F&SF<\/em>, and the other magazines.)
\nNotwithstanding their award success I could never get into the habit of reading the stories as I don\u2019t like fiction that is only available as web pages (I want PDFs),4<\/sup> and am not organised enough to visit the site regularly. Fortunately, some bright spark at Tor thought it would be a good idea to periodically collect the stories and issue them as a free ebook (and also send subscribers a notification email and download link for future issues)\u2014give that person a raise.
\nThe first \u2018issue\u2019 covers January and February 2019, or at least that is what it says on the cover. The problem is that there were eight stories published on Tor.Com in the first two months of this year but the collection only has six of them, missing out the Tidbeck and Kemper stories listed above. I don\u2019t know why they did this, and note that the March-April issue is also missing a story. Not a good start.
\nThe ebook contains only the stories and a a single page of artwork for each.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Dadu Shin<\/p><\/div>\n

The first story is Beyond the El<\/em><\/strong> by John Chu, which is about Connor, a \u201cfood crafter\u201d in, presumably, some futuristic restaurant. One evening a diner (his estranged sister) requests that he prepare the most expensive and complicated dish on the menu:<\/p>\n

The Chrysler Building is a deconstructed paella composed of discrete floors that become ever lighter and more delicate as they approach the building\u2019s crystalline spire. Garlic and saffron perfume the air as he prepares all the layers from the grouper at the bottom to the clear tomato distillate at the top at once. Various proteins transform from raw to poached as a deft gesture of his hand lifts them off their plates. At a glance, a pot of water begins to simmer and the water is infused with flavors from fish bones and shrimp shells. Within minutes, the water is transformed into savory stock. Grains of rice swirl about an invisible center. They swell and congeal as they absorb the stock that he makes rain down on them. Meanwhile, with another deft gesture, tomatoes dissolve then evaporate. Their clear condensate drips into a gelatin that Connor has crafted in the meantime.\u00a0 p. 13<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Against the background of Connor\u2019s work and personal lives, a family drama plays out which involves him trying to recreate his dead mother\u2019s dumplings (she didn\u2019t leave the recipe), while dealing with his unpleasant sister and their mother\u2019s estate.
\nAt the end, Connor (whose hopes are temporarily raised when his sister gives him what appears to be his mother\u2019s recipe book) learns to let go.
\nThis is technically well done, generally polished (although \u201csimultaneously prepared\u201d in the passage above would avoid the dangling \u201cat once\u201d at the end of the sentence), and I enjoyed it\u2014but this is essentially a mainstream work dressed up as SF (or fantasy if you like).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mary Haasdyk<\/p><\/div>\n

Deriving Life<\/em><\/strong> by Elizabeth Bear has as its protagonist Marq, whose partner Tamar is dying in hospital. We later find out (spoiler) that Tamar is a \u201chost\u201d for Atticus who is, we find later (there is a lot<\/em> of back end data dumping in this one) a \u201cTenant\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a sense of the Tenants\u2019 history.\u201d
\nIt had been before I was born: The lead paleoanthropologist and two others working on several intact Homo neanderthalensis<\/em> cadavers that had been discovered in a melting glacier had all developed the same kind of slow-growing cancer. That had been weird enough, though by then we knew about contagious forms of cancer\u2014in humans, in wolves, in Tasmanian devils. It got weirder when the cancers had begun, the researchers said, to talk to them.
\nWhich probably would have been dismissed as crackpottery, except the cancer also cured that one paleobotanist\u2019s diabetes, and suddenly they all seemed to have a lot of really good, coherent ideas about how that particular Neanderthal culture operated.
\nWhat a weird, archaic word, glacier<\/em>.\u00a0 p. 40<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After this discovery humans volunteered to host the Tenants in exchange for having their chronic health problems managed, or life spans extended\u2014which is what Tamar did before he met Marq.
\nThis all, as I\u2019ve said already, comes late on in the story, and up until this point the tale is overwhelmingly about Marq\u2019s struggle to come to terms with his partner\u2019s impending death: there are scenes that flashback to how he and Tamar met (Tamar confesses to being a \u201czombie, a podling, a puppethead\u201d); a trip they take to an undiscovered waterfall (\u201cThere were rainbows, though, shifting when you turned your head\u201d), etc.
\nThe scenes in the present describe (a) Marq\u2019s visits to Tamar in the hospital (who eventually refuses him admission), (b) his conversations with his own \u201ctransition specialist\u201d (Marq has also applied to be a host), and (c) his meetings with his other partner Robin.
\nMost of this, I am afraid to say, is mawkish, self-pitying fare:<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re healthy, Marq.\u201d Tamar says.
\nI know. I know how lucky I am. How few people at my age, in this world we made, are as lucky as I am. How amazing that this gift of health was wasted on somebody as busted as me.
\nWhat if Tamar had been healthy? What if Tamar were outliving me?
\nTamar deserved to live, and Tamar deserved to be happy.
\nI was just taking up space somebody lovable could have been using. The air I was breathing, the carbon for my food . . . those could have benefited somebody else.
\n\u201cYou make me worthy of being loved.\u201d I take a breath. \u201cYou make me want to make myself worthy of you.\u201d
\n\u201cYou were always lovable, Marq.\u201d Their hand moves softly against mine.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know how to be me without you,\u201d I say.
\n\u201cI can\u2019t handle that for you right now,\u201d Tamar says. \u201cI have to die.\u201d
\n\u201cI keep thinking I can . . . figure this out. Solve it somehow.\u201d
\n\u201cYou can\u2019t derive people the way you derive functions, Marq.\u201d
\nI laugh, shakily. I can\u2019t do this. I have to do this.\u00a0 p. 35<\/p>\n

I\u2019m already trying to change myself so somebody will love me better.
\nSo that I will love me better.
\nEvangeline [the transition specialist] says, \u201cWe need what we need. Judging ourselves doesn\u2019t change it. Sometimes a hug and a cookie right now mean more than a grand gesture at some indeterminate point in the future.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat if we make an irrevocable decision to get that hug and that cookie?\u201d
\nEvangeline lifts her shoulders, lets them fall. \u201cMy job is to make sure that you\u2019re making an educated decision about the costs and benefits of the cookie. Not to tell you how much you should be willing to pay for it.\u201d\u00a0 p. 46<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Basically, if you are up for twenty-five pages of someone not coping with their partner dying, and generally wandering around with a sucking chest wound, then this will be right up your street. It wasn\u2019t up mine.
\nI should mention that there are other things I didn\u2019t like, such as the clunky and telegraphic prose at the start of the story:<\/p>\n

Tamar avoiding thinking about that is the same as Tamar thinking that I should go away. Stop taking my drugs. Maybe file for divorce. Tamar wants to think there\u2019s a way this could hurt me less. They\u2019re thinking of me, really.\u00a0 p. 29<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are also four \u201cthink\u201d or \u201cthinkings\u201d in that passage, which is about two too many. I could have also done without the foody details: \u201cI start a pot of tea, and though I usually drink it plain, today I put milk and sugar in\u201d, \u201cTo a background of white wine and pistachio and chickpea salad\u201d, \u201cEverything about the salad is perfect and perfectly dressed. Robin did the chickpeas themselves\u201d, all of which, along with the endless navel gazing and emotional incontinence, makes this feel even more affected.
\nOnly the weird but interesting concept of a sentient cancer saved this one from null points<\/em> (Eurovision tonight).5<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"

Kashmira Sarode<\/p><\/div>\n

His Footsteps, in Darkness and Light<\/em><\/strong> by Mimi Mondal is set in India, and has as its narrator Binu, a trapeze artist who also acts in an Aladdin play at the Majestic Oriental Circus. The play is directed by another character, Shehzad:<\/p>\n

[As] Alladin, all I had to do was to put on a pair of satin pants and a skullcap, and parrot a series of memorized lines. I had never met an Arab street urchin, nor had an inkling what all the words meant, but neither had anyone in the audience. I bellowed, \u201cYa Allah!\u201d and \u201cShukr hai!\u201d and \u201cDafa ho ja, shaitaan!\u201d at my cues. The girl who trained the parakeets doubled as the princess in a shiny ghagra and choli, adorned with tawdry sequins. Johuree, our proprietor and ringmaster, completed the cast as the villainous Zafar, dressed in a moth-eaten velvet cloak.
\nIt was an almost ridiculous performance, but it turned into the most renowned act of the Majestic Oriental Circus, all at the touch of Shehzad Marid. As the three of us hemmed and hawed through our scripted gibberish, the jinni would emerge from his lamp in clouds of curling smoke. Illuminated by our cheap stage lights, the clouds would take the shape of a magnificent palace, the gaping maw of a cave, raging armies on horseback that crashed into the audience until our entire circus tent would erupt with gasps, applause, and cries of horror and disbelief. A small child could hold open his palm and receive a dancing houree, crafted immaculately of ice as the clouds condensed. Then they billowed up again\u2014into monsters never heard of; swooping rocs; clerics whose voices soared in prayer across minarets that pierced the sky above a faraway, mythical city; hundreds of jinn, and back to the only one. It was a show unlike anything offered by any rival circus company in our land.\u00a0 p. 61-62<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After the show, the circus continues on its travels to perform at a raja\u2019s daughter\u2019s wedding. Here, the narrator Binu sees the divine dancers, the devadasis, and one of them catches his eye. More or less concurrently, we also find out that (spoiler) Shehzad is really a jinni who lives in the lamp used in the play:<\/p>\n

From the stories people tell, even those in our own hack show, the lamp sounds like a prison. The listener imagines himself being suffocated, neck twisted, limbs folded at painful angles, squeezed into a box too small to contain his body and left there to wait for decades. But the listener of the tale is human\u2014imprisoned already in his withering flesh and bone, the measured years that are given to him. The human mind can barely fathom the bond between its own body and soul. What would it grasp of the relationship between a jinni and his lamp? What could I\u2014hardly a philosopher, never having read a book, barely literate enough to scribble my own name\u2014grasp of it?
\nIn our two years of friendship, I had learned every detail of Shehzad Marid\u2019s humanity. There was no man, or woman, that I knew better. I could read each of his smiles, each raised eyebrow, each cryptic comment for exactly what it was. But I had also learned that his humanity was mere performance. He was relieved to shed it, as I was to remove my circus costumes and makeup.\u00a0 p. 67<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the story (spoiler) revolves around a slight plot where the devadasis who caught Binu\u2019s eye comes to him asking for help to escape. When Shehzad comes out of his lamp and discovers this he is not impressed, stating there are worse things than being a slave\u2014and worse masters. The climax occurs when the caravan leaves the palace and is beset by a terrible dust storm caused by a goddess angry at the theft. She only agrees to spare the caravan if Binu will give her the jinn, and he eventually makes a deal where they will both serve her for half of his remaining lifetime.
\nThis is a pleasant enough tale with good local colour but it is slight, and needs a more substantial plot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Ashley Mackenzie<\/p><\/div>\n

Circus Girl, the Hunter, and Mirror Boy <\/em><\/strong>by JY Yang opens with the Lynette in the bathroom where, instead of her reflection in the mirror, she sees a young boy. Later on there is some backstory (is there a prequel?) about how \u201cMirror Boy\u201d appeared at a critical point in her life but how, after she left her job as an escape artist in a circus and moved on, he disappeared. Now he is back.
\nWhen Lynette rejoins her roommate for breakfast there is news:<\/p>\n

All was quiet except for the chittering of the newsprinter, spooling its thin scroll onto the dining table. When it stopped, Shane tore off the printout and scanned its fuss-less, tiny text. \u201cGreat squid. There\u2019s been another murder.\u201d
\n\u201cMurder?\u201d I said, not really processing the words.
\n\u201cYes. In Darlingfort. Probably that same serial killer that\u2019s been going around.\u201d She turned the chit towards me. \u201cHere, look. Seem like anyone you know?\u00a0 p. 86<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Mirror Boy next speaks to Lynette he tells her that all the other victims of the killer were, like her, his \u201crefuges\u201d. She is the last one left, and he urges her to run because, if she dies, so does he.
\nLynette, in an effort to find out what is going on, takes a trip by gondola to a flooded building (this world is a drowned one) where she meets a witch called Chrissa. She deduces that Lynette is infected with a wraith, and forces it to appear:<\/p>\n

I looked at the lines and glyphs spread across the floor. \u201cIs it going to hurt him? I don\u2019t want to hurt him.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, honey.\u201d Chrissa shook her head. \u201cIt won\u2019t hurt him. It\u2019s for me to see him and talk to him. If he wants to talk.\u201d
\nI gingerly tiptoed into the circle, careful not to disturb the still-wet lines.
\nMirror Boy stood in front of me, fully clad in a shabby red t-shirt and jeans.
\nI\u2019d never seen him like this, and it sent a trill of sadness and betrayal through me.
\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he said. He was just a child, scuffing the toe of one beat-up shoe against the heel of the other.
\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me any of this?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d he repeated.
\nChrissa knelt and chanted softly over the charm circle, invoking Kraken, invoking Leviathan. \u201cNeither spine nor ribcage, neither collarbones nor hips, the eyes that see in the watery dark, the mouths that open in the deep.\u201d Her handiwork slid from glistening black to iridescent silver, and the lines sang as they came to life, each circular glyph ringing a different note. The chorus of bell tones raised my flesh in tingling waves.
\n\u201cAlright,\u201d Chrissa said, matter-of-factly. She stood and struck gray dust from her hands as the charm circle hummed. \u201cLet\u2019s see what we got.\u201d
\nShe stepped in, looked into the mirror, and melted. \u201cOh, honey. Look at him. He\u2019s just a baby.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah,\u201d I said, mouth dry. He was a baby. I\u2019d been a baby back then, too.
\nNeither of us knew what we were doing, flailing through this world.
\nChrissa and her marshmallow heart were already gone. I should have known this would happen. Her voice was bright and airy like she was talking to a small, soft animal. \u201cHello. What\u2019s your name?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t have one.\u201d He looked to me for reassurance. \u201cShe calls me Mirror Boy.\u201d\u00a0 p. 97-98<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After Chrissa questions Mirror Boy (spoiler), she identifies the killer as Mirror Boy\u2019s twin brother, and that Mirror Boy was someone who died by drowning, the point of near similarity he has with all his refuges.
\nAt this point the story switches to the killer\u2019s point of view and we find out why he is hunting his brother, before it changes back to Lynette for the climactic chase scene.
\nThere are some nice touches in this fantasy (the drowned world setting, the mentions of Kraken and Leviathan, etc.) but the background is a little weak (this isn\u2019t helped by the odd newsprinter at breakfast, one of the few obvious differences in this world). More importantly, the story\u2019s structure is a mess, with far too much of the story\u2019s plot coming at the back end of the story, not to mention the very late introduction of other points of view. Perhaps the twin brother should have made an earlier appearance, which would also have improved the low energy start (the first eight pages are ploddingly mundane). Nevertheless, I\u2019d be interested to see further stories in this world.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jasa Hu<\/p><\/div>\n

Articulated Restraint<\/em><\/strong> by Mary Robinette Kowal has astronaut doctor Ruby Donaldson turn up at a lunar neutral buoyancy lab (a big water tank on the Moon where astronauts practice EVA procedures) to find out that there has been an accident involving an orbiting platform and a docking rocket which misfired. The team now have sixteen hours to work out how to get the crew off, and are about to test a procedure in the tank. There are two complicating factors: (a) Ruby has a badly twisted ankle from last night\u2019s dancing, and (b) the EVA suits take hours to reconfigure for other crew members. Because of the latter factor Ruby decides to continue with the planned EVA rehearsal, but as she suits up she realises her leg is in worse shape than she thought. She doesn\u2019t tell anyone, and then one of the other four astronauts can\u2019t get a seal.
\nThe rest of the story (not much of a spoiler) is an absorbing enough account of the tricky procedure and the difficulties the team have to overcome. Ruby successfully completes the dummy run, but when she comes out of the pool the rest of the team discover she is badly injured and they have to cut off part of her suit. Ruby resolves to do better in the future.
\nThis is, I guess, an okay story, but why would anyone want to read about rehearsal of a rescue mission rather than the real thing? And the fact that she injured herself dancing and then concealed her injury is, by turns, banal and unforgiveable (who wants to work with an injured and deceitful crewmember in space?)
\nI suspect this isn\u2019t a standalone story but an extract from a longer work.1<\/sup> (Oh, and it is set in an alternate timeline where Earth has been hit by a meteor.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Soufiane Mengad<\/p><\/div>\n

Old Media <\/em><\/strong>by Annalee Newitz is a story about John, an ex-slave in 2145, which begins with him making out with another man in the employees only area of his work while a female co-worker makes sarcastic comments. After this there is a scene in John\u2019s home, which he shares with Med, a robot, and then one where John goes to the library. The story concludes with John and Med together again in their apartment. John wants to have sex with Med: she declines, but agrees to sleep with him. This involves an unusual powering down of her systems.
\nThis supposedly futuristic slice-of-life is not remotely convincing because all the characters sound and behave like they would today:<\/p>\n

\u201cHow\u2019s [the?] job going?\u201d Med divided her attention between John and whatever she was previewing.
\n\u201cPretty good. I keep hooking up with Michael, but he\u2019s starting to annoy me.\u201d
\n\u201cI can\u2019t even keep track of your hookups. Which one is Michael, again?\u201d
\n\u201cDinosaur hair guy.\u201d
\n\u201cOh yeah!\u201d Med stopped streaming and took her hand off the charging pad. \u201cHe sounded nice?\u201d
\n\u201cHe\u2019s nice but he\u2019s just . . . I dunno. He asks too many boring questions.\u201d
\n\u201cLike what?\u201d
\nJohn tried to come up with a good way to explain it. \u201cHe asked about my [slave] brand. Which\u2014why would you ask somebody about that after fucking them? So rude.\u201d
\nMed didn\u2019t pick up on his sarcasm, or she chose to ignore it. \u201cI can see why he might be curious. Why do you keep it if you don\u2019t want to talk about it?\u201d
\n\u201cWhy do you tell people that you\u2019re a bot if you don\u2019t want them to make snotty comments about it?\u201d His voice rose in anger he hadn\u2019t intended to express.
\n\u201cYou know why. Because fuck those fuckers.\u201d Delivered utterly without sarcasm. John had to laugh.\u00a0 p. 144<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is supposed to be a conversation between a human and a robot a hundred and twenty odd years in the future (there is also a reference to a \u201csuper good friend\u201d later on). I know that most contemporary SF is really about the present, but give me a break.1<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Victor Mosquera<\/p><\/div>\n

As I mentioned above, there are two stories published on Tor.com during the period covered by the collection which are not included in it. The first of these is The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir<\/em><\/strong> by Karin Tidbeck, which features a strange part-organic spaceship\u2014essentially an alien space crab which has for its shell a huge building that houses the human crew and passengers:<\/p>\n

Saga had seen Skidbladnir arrive, once, when she had first gone into service. First it wasn\u2019t there, and then it was, heavy and solid, as if it had always been. From the outside, the ship looked like a tall and slender office building. The concrete was pitted and streaked, and all of the windows were covered with steel plates. Through the roof, Skidbladnir\u2019s claws and legs protruded like a plant, swaying gently in some unseen breeze. The building had no openings save the front gates, through which everyone passed. From the airlock in the lobby, one climbed a series of stairs to get to the passenger deck. Or, if you were Saga, climbed the spiral staircase that led up to the engine room and custodial services.
\nNovik took a few steps back and scanned the hull. A tall, bearded man in rumpled blue overalls, he looked only slightly less imposing outside than he did in the bowels of the ship. He turned to Saga. In daylight, his gray eyes were almost translucent.
\n\u201cThere,\u201d he said, and pointed to a spot two stories up the side. \u201cWe need to make a quick patch.\u201d
\nSaga helped Novik set up the lift that was attached to the side of the building, and turned the winch until they reached the point of damage. It was just a small crack, but deep enough that Saga could see something underneath\u2014something that looked like skin. Novik took a look inside, grunted and had Saga hold the pail while he slathered putty over the crack.
\n\u201cWhat was that inside?\u201d Saga asked.
\nNovik patted the concrete. \u201cThere,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re safe again, my dear.\u201d
\nHe turned to Saga. \u201cShe\u2019s always growing. It\u2019s going to be a problem soon.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saga is one of the maintenance crew, and later discovers that the problem is worse than Novik realises when she discovers the ship is growing into sections of the building where it shouldn\u2019t. When there is a subsequent discussion with the captain about this, he states he will sell the ship for meat rather than have to bear the cost and disruption of a new and bigger building. Saga and Novik (spoiler) are not happy about this and steal the ship the next time they make planetfall.
\nThe rest of the story tells of their subsequent journey through space, and eventual arrival at a deserted city:<\/p>\n

At dusk, Skidbladnir\u2019s walls cracked open. Saga understood why Novik had positioned them so far away from the building; great lumps of concrete and steel fell down and shook the ground as the building shrugged and shuddered. The tendrils that waved from the building\u2019s cracked roof stiffened and trembled. They seemed to lengthen. Walls fell down, steel windows sloughed off, as Skidbladnir slowly extricated herself from her shell. She crawled out from the top, taking great lumps of concrete with her. Saga had expected her to land on the ground with an almighty thud. But she made no noise at all.
\nFree of her house, Skidbladnir was a terror and wonder to behold. Her body was long and curled; her multitude of eyes gleamed in the starlight. Her tendrils waved in the warm air as if testing it. Some of the tendrils looked shrunken and unusable. Saga also saw that patches of Skidbladnir\u2019s body weren\u2019t as smooth as the rest of her; they were dried and crusted. Here and there, fluid oozed from long scratches in her skin.
\nNext to Saga, Novik made a muted noise. He was crying.
\n\u201cGo, my love,\u201d he whispered. \u201cFind yourself a new home.\u201d
\nSkidbladnir\u2019s tendrils felt the buildings around the plaza. Finally, they wrapped themselves around the tallest building, a gleaming thing with a spiraled roof, and Skidbladnir pulled herself up the wall.
\nGlass tumbled to the ground as Skidbladnir\u2019s tendrils shot through windows to pull herself up. She tore through the roof with a thunderous noise. There was a moment when she supported her whole body on her tendrils, suspended in the air; she almost toppled over the side. Then, with what sounded like a sigh, she lowered herself into the building. Saga heard the noise of collapsing concrete as Skidbladnir\u2019s body worked to make room for itself. Eventually, the noise subsided.
\nSkidbladnir\u2019s arms hung down the building\u2019s side like a crawling plant.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a quirky piece with some nice scenes, but it has a slight plot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Mary Haasdyk<\/p><\/div>\n

Last, and most definitely not least, is The Song<\/em><\/strong> by Erinn L. Kemper, which has as its central character Dan, a widowed deep sea diver who works on a future oil rig converted to become a whale meat production facility. After some establishing narrative\u2014vaguely melancholy stuff about his personal life, and mentions of save-the-whale extremists\/bombers\u2014he meets a biologist called Suzanne who has just arrived on the rig. She is investigating the changes in the whales\u2019 songs, and their increasingly abnormal behaviour.
\nAs the story develops, we learn more about these two, and the rig they work on:<\/p>\n

On the deck below, a door squealed open and two women in lurched out onto the walkway. They wore carver-staff coveralls\u2014purple to camouflage blood-splatter without being morbid. Arm in arm they staggered along, singing a slurred version of an old song, repeating only the words they knew, over and over, to the familiar melody.
\n\u201cOh Danny Boy, oh Danny Boy, oh Da-ah-ny\u2026\u201d
\nSuzanne waved down at them, but the women didn\u2019t notice.
\nShe gazed back over the sea, her smile touched by sadness. \u201cWe were seeing some of that at the research station I came over from, too. People feeling the stress. Drinking to blow off steam. That and people taking permanent leave, you know. Must be worse here.\u201d
\n\u201cI guess. Can\u2019t fire those two, even though they\u2019re ignoring the rules. Eventually they\u2019ll run out of booze, and then we\u2019ll have a worse problem.\u201d Statistically, carvers were most likely to take a header over the rail or hang themselves from the pipes, according to the shrinks.
\nSuzanne nodded. \u201cSeen that, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The struts that supported the hydraulic lift on the kill floor showed some minor cracking in the welds. Dan did a full inspection and made the call. Shut it down. Give the butchers a break. Everyone was supposed to call them carvers, but Dan didn\u2019t think of them that way.
\n[. . .]
\nMaintenance was supposed to back him up, but everyone avoided working the kill floor if they could, with its massive adjustable saws and their diamond-honed blades, the long-handled traditional knives clipped to the wall, gleaming, ready for custom orders.
\nMarge sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. \u201cMan, I wish tech would come up with some kind of cleaning product that gets rid of the stink, you know? Forget about new butchering techniques. Who cares about cost-effective ways to debone a whale? Those people have a shit-ton of money to spare.\u201d
\nRumor was one of those TV chefs had designed an enormous fryer. He would cook a narwhal inside an orca inside a minke. Tables were priced at something like a hundred thousand a head. Proceeds were supposedly going to the plastic filtration project. A worthy cause. Dan pictured a crystal-chandeliered dining stadium. Massive steaks delivered to the linen-draped tables by forklift. CEOs, celebrities, and socialites carving delicate mouthfuls from dripping chunks of perfectly seasoned meat. His stomach lurched.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dan spends more and more time with Suzanne, who plays him whale songs, and shows him optical representations of their changing brain activity. She also explains what she thinks the animals are saying to each other.
\nTime passes, and a week later he sees her again on deck:<\/p>\n

Suzanne stepped out onto the deck near the kill floor loading bay. Dan joined her. She didn\u2019t notice him at first, as she leaned over the railing to look at the sea under the rig. Below them, a small pod of bowhead whales schooled around the rig legs. Suzanne put her hand over her mouth and shook her head, then looked up at Dan, her eyes wide and empty.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d Dan had never seen whales behave this way.
\n\u201cA special rush order came in. For meat prepared the traditional Inuit way. The pod followed the harvesters here. Attacked the boat and tried to capsize them, from what I heard.\u201d She stalked down the hall to the kill floor.
\n\u201cHey, c\u2019mon. Let\u2019s go to the cafeteria\u2014or to your lab to see what the song\u2019s doing. If there\u2019s any new chatter.\u201d
\n\u201cI know what the song is doing, with this pod anyway.\u201d She tapped the headphones. \u201cThey\u2019ve stopped singing. One or two of them had taken it up, but then the cowboys rode in and \u2019pooned a female. That\u2019s why I came to check it out. No chatter at all. But their brains are flaring like a fireworks show.\u201d
\nShe shoved open the double doors and stepped onto the kill floor.
\nThe flensing had already begun. Four carvers stood atop the whale, with long knives like curved hockey sticks, slicing deep into the whale\u2019s side, the blades sliding through in long lines a few inches apart.
\n\u201cShe\u2019s dead. But look at them.\u201d Suzanne pointed down.
\nThrough the metal grate he could see the pod that had followed the harvesting boat surge and strain for the kill floor, mouths open, before they slipped back under. Their bodies collided, stirring great spumes gone pink with blood.
\nAs the carvers pried long slabs free and wrestled them into the shed-sized cooler containers, the whales below calmed, then dove from sight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is not only a chilling story but a sad, elegiac one too\u2014even more mournful than the whale song it describes in the story\u2014and it culminates with an ending that is particularly bleak, in more ways than one. I found it rather good, and wouldn\u2019t be surprised if it ends up in one or more of the \u2018Year\u2019s Bests\u2019.
\nThat said, there are a couple of things that aren\u2019t entirely convincing. First, the psychological problems caused to the crew: were that the case, most abattoirs, etc., would have closed by now. Second, the idea of a future whale meat industry isn\u2019t particularly convincing given we are on the verge of more cheaply producing meat and meat substitutes by artificial means\u2014but the story probably isn\u2019t about the future but about today, and Japan\u2019s recent decision to commence commercial whale hunting in July 2019.6<\/sup><\/p>\n

The interior artwork is more typical of modern web design than traditional SF illustration: Dadu Shin\u2019s illustration for the Chu story is fine but doesn\u2019t have any connection with it; Mary Haasdyk\u2019s two illustrations for the Bear and Kemper are weird abstract stuff I didn\u2019t particularly care for and, in the case of the Kemper, is not a good match, whereas Sarode\u2019s Indian-themed picture suits the Mondal; Mackenzie and Hu\u2019s artwork for the Yang and Kowal look like Japanese animation\u2014again, not a particularly good match for either story, particularly the Kowal, although I rather liked both pieces; I didn\u2019t care for the Mengad (the central figure looks at best odd, and at worst poorly executed, although I realise this latter is probably an \u2018art\u2019 thing). My favourite is the Mosquera, a SFnal illustration for Tidbeck\u2019s SFnal story, even if it does look more suited to War of the Worlds<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Noted in passing: there are three reversed double apostrophes\/speech quotes on p. 96-97.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, a rather disappointing issue for such a well-funded operation: I expected something better than the equivalent of an average issue of Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Rocket Stack Rank<\/em> states that Kowal’s Articulated Restraint<\/em> \u201ccan serve as an introduction to the author\u2019s \u201cLady Astronaut\u201d series\u201d, and that Newitz\u2019s Old Media<\/em> \u201cisn\u2019t a story so much as a \u201ctaster\u201d to introduce you to the world of the author\u2019s Autonomous series\u201d.<\/p>\n

2. There are a number of editors responsible for the January to February content: how did they do?
\nTop of the pile this time around is Ellen Datlow (who provides the Kemper, the best of the lot). Next comes Marco Palmieri (again only one story, the good but minor Mondal), followed by Ann VanderMeer, (the Chu, Yang, and Tidbek stories, two good but minor, and one average), and then Beth Meacham (one average and one borderline poor). Last is Lindsey Hall with the Newitz story. This doesn\u2019t really provide any useful statistical information, but I note that there isn\u2019t a bad story among VanderMeer\u2019s three choices.<\/p>\n

3. You can find Tor.com\u2019s stories in web-format here<\/a>, and the bi-monthly \u2018newsletter\u2019 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

4. Yes, I know you can save web pages as PDFs, but Apple\u2019s Safari bowser truncates them at a certain length (at least on my iPad), and the page layout can sometimes be a little odd. As I had to get hold of the two missing stories, I ended up getting iBooks to make the PDF and then transferred it to Goodreader. This is a two-stage process though, and a bit of a faff. And a random privacy notice appeared and blocked a line or two of the introductions.<\/p>\n

5. I was surprised to find out that Bear is a double Hugo winner (I should get out more).<\/p>\n

6. There is a short news article about the Japanese decision to resume whaling here<\/a>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Other reviews: Greg Hullender and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank1 Jason McGregor, Featured Futures (+The Song) Editors, Ann VanderMeer (x3), Beth Meacham (x2), Marco Palmieri, Lindsey Hall, Ellen Datlow.2 _____________________ Fiction: Beyond the El \u2022 short story by John Chu \u2217\u2217\u2217 Deriving Life \u2022 novelette by Elizabeth Bear \u2217 His Footsteps, in Darkness and Light […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tor-com"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-2Ht","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10383"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10647,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10383\/revisions\/10647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}