{"id":14239,"date":"2022-03-31T11:22:58","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T11:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=14239"},"modified":"2022-04-06T14:46:08","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T14:46:08","slug":"asimovs-science-fiction-554-555-march-april-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=14239","title":{"rendered":"Asimov’s Science Fiction #554\/555, March-April 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Summary: there are a couple of pretty good stories in this issue from Ray Nayler (an \u201cIstanbul Protectorate\u201d story, Mender of Sparrows<\/em>) and Marta Randall (Sailing to Merinam<\/em>, an immersive fantasy) with good backup from Paul McAuley (Maryon\u2019s Gift<\/em>) and Michael Cassutt (Aurora<\/em>). The William Ledbetter (his sequel to an earlier Nebula award-winning story) and Steven Rasnic Tem stories are also of some interest. Of the remaining seven pieces, four are average (including the novella or near-novella length stories by Rick Wilber and Will McIntosh which make up a large chunk of the issue) and three are mediocre.
\nI also note that the non-fiction (which I am generally cool about anyway) is almost uniformly dull this issue: this is not helped by subject matter I\u2019m not much interested in (e.g. ancient Ostrogoth coinage and ancient SF movies).
\nAn average issue, I guess.
\n[ISFDB link<\/a>] [Asimov\u2019s SF<\/a><\/em>, Amazon UK<\/a>\/USA<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Other reviews
\nGreg Hullender\u00a0and Eric Wong,\u00a0Rocket Stack Rank<\/a>
\nVictoria Silverwolf,\u00a0Tangent Online<\/a>
\nSam\u00a0Tomaino,\u00a0SF Revu<\/a>
\nVarious,\u00a0Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor, Sheila Williams; Associate Editor, Emily Hockaday<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nMender of Sparrows<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Ray Nayler \u2217\u2217\u2217+<\/strong>
\nThe Magpie Stacks Probabilities<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Arie Coleman \u2217<\/strong>
\nVenus Exegesis<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Christopher Mark Rose \u2217<\/strong>
\nDollbot Cicily<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Wil McIntosh \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nSailing to Merinam<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Marta Randall \u2217\u2217\u2217+<\/strong>
\nQuake <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Peter Wood \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nAurora <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novelette by Michael Cassutt \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Gold Signal<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Jack McDevitt and Larry Wasserman \u2217<\/strong>
\nMaryon’s Gift<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Paul J. McAuley \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nThe Short Path to Light<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by William Ledbetter \u2217\u2217+<\/strong>
\nDo You Remember?<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Steve Rasnic Tem \u2217\u2217<\/strong>
\nOffloaders <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 short story by Leah Cypess \u2217<\/strong>
\nBlimpies <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 novella by Rick Wilber \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Shutterstock
\nFrom SF to Philosophy in Thirteen Steps<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by Kelly Lager
\nAcross the Centuries<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Robert Silverberg
\nBlinded by Science<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by James Patrick Kelly
\nMagic, Science, and the Moon in Le Voyage Dans La Lune<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Kelly Lager
\nPoetry<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Mary Soon Lee, Bruce McAllister, F. J. Bergmann, Ken Poyner, Herb Kauderer
\nNext Issue
\nOn Books: What is Consciousness?<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Norman Spinrad
\nSF Conventional Calendar<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Erwin S. Strauss<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

[All the story reviews were previously posted on sfshortstories.com so, if you have read them there, skip down to the three dots \u2022\u2022\u2022 and the non-fiction reviews.]<\/p>\n

Mender of Sparrows<\/em><\/strong> by Ray Nayler takes place in the author\u2019s \u2018Istanbul Protectorate\u2019 series, and opens with the narrator, Himmet, taking an injured sparrow to an android vet called Sezgin. Himmet later gets a call from him saying they need to talk and, when they meet again, Sezgin says that Himmet has found \u201ca hole in the world\u201d.
\nAt a later meeting with a group of androids, at a safe house a ferry trip away from Istanbul (and after Himmit has been approached by a shady scientist from the nearby Institute enquiring whether he has picked up any injured sparrows recently), Sezgin tells Himmit that the sparrow contains a human consciousness. Moreover, it is a duplicate consciousness, not the original (something that was thought to be impossible in this consciousness-downloading society). Then someone knocks at the door, and Himmet is told to hide in a priest hole. By the time he gets out he is partially paralyzed.
\nThis latter event is explained in a subsequent doctor\u2019s appointment, where we find out that Himmet is a human who was downloaded into a blank android when he was badly injured in the war and who, when he is stressed, suffers partial paralysis in his new body (throughout the story, Himmet agonises about whether he is really himself, or a copy). We also learn about societal hostility towards androids, and how Himmit got involved with Sezgin when he started paying for deformed sparrows to be mended (replacement legs, etc.).
\nThe story concludes (spoiler) with another, more menacing, visit from the Institute scientist, during which he demands the return of the sparrow. Himmit does not want the consciousness in the sparrow to be returned for illegal experimentation, and he reluctantly goes back to Sezgin to get the sparrow to give to the scientist. We later find out, however, that the woman present at that latter meeting is the freed consciousness (the \u201cconnectome\u201d) from the sparrow, and that the androids have put a flawed replica in its place (something, they think, that will keep the scientist occupied for months).
\nThis piece may seem to be a heavily plotted tale but it is actually much more of a slow burn than the synopsis above would suggest, and the main attractions are the setting, the writing (people who feed sparrows will appreciate the descriptions1<\/sup>\u00a0of their behaviour), and the character\u2019s epistemological agonising.2<\/sup>
\nI suspect Nayler is becoming one of those writers who you can enjoy regardless of whether there is a story being told or not.
\n\u2217\u2217\u2217+<\/strong> (Good to Very Good). 8,500 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Magpie Stacks Probabilities<\/em><\/strong> by Arie Coleman has as its narrator a female astronaut who managed to survive an accident in space by opening a hatch with an improvised tool based on a lost Allen key. The story itself takes place afterwards at her home with her wife and son. The latter has now started to secrete small items around the house; later, the narrator starts doing the same thing while musing about order and entropy.
\nThere is no real story here, and I\u2019m not sure what point the piece is trying to make (possibly none, it may just be a short mood piece).
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u00a0(Mediocre), 2,750 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Venus Exegesis<\/em><\/strong> by Christopher Mark Rose opens with a brief prologue that introduces the narrator Ling Chen\u2014an obedient ex-US Navy pilot sent on a mission to the atmosphere of Venus. The story itself starts in the gondola that she (although the narrator\u2019s sex isn\u2019t clear till later in the story) shares with a scientist, Gabriel, and an AI, Zheng-123783b (there is brief reference to AI civil rights and the fact that \u201cyou couldn\u2019t send humans on a great voyage of discovery and leave out the inorganics\u201d).
\nIn fairly short order Ling becomes sexually involved with Zheng, and soon after that she is outside the floating gondola hacking one of the native \u201cflying pancakes\u201d to death with a machete, a First Contact situation gone badly wrong. When they are almost overwhelmed by pancakes responding to the killing, Gabriel fires the rocket motors. This saves them but they lose a lot of their attached life support equipment.
\nAt this point (spoiler) the story then morphs from a sex-with-AIs\/First Contact tale into a Climate Change one, where Gabriel theorises that Venus was once like Earth but suffered from a huge runaway greenhouse effect. Then, when the crew are ordered home (they cannot survive for very long in their diminished state), Ling suggests that Zheng is sent back digitally to Earth, she take the one-man emergency pod, and Gabriel remains to do vital work on his theory. This solution is not accepted by mission control, and Ling gets a message from her Navy handlers on a secret backchannel\u2014then, when Ling and Gabriel subsequently go outside on a routine EVA to remove the pancakes from the gondola, Ling stabs Gabriel with the machete and throws his body into the Venusian atmosphere, while making radio calls that suggest that AI Zheng has jumped.
\nLing later goes home in the pod, while Zheng stays on the gondola impersonating Gabriel and doing his work (apparently Zheng couldn\u2019t have been left behind on its own for political reasons).
\nThings slowly improve on Earth, although the similarity between the global warming effects on the two planets are never made public.
\nThis story didn\u2019t work for me for a number of reasons: first, I didn\u2019t buy the Navy pilot as assassin malarkey (being able to drop a bomb on someone doesn\u2019t qualify you as a close-quarters killer); second, this kitchen sink story can\u2019t seem to decide whether it is about AI, planetary exploration, first contact, or climate change; third, the internal logic of the story does not convince (the political background is sketchy to say the least and, at one point, Zheng cryptically states it won\u2019t be able to help Ling as it is \u201cAsimov\u2019ed\u201d and \u201ccan\u2019t kill Gabriel\u201d. Obviously not that Asimov\u2019ed, because colluding in Ling\u2019s killing of Gabriel is an obvious First Law violation.
\nThis is a bit of a mess.
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 7,500 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Dollbot Cicily<\/em><\/strong> by Will McIntosh opens with Cicily, the down-on-her-luck narrator, in a burger joint eating her basic menu food and browsing gig economy jobs when she is hassled by a young man. He asks her if she was the original model for his dollbot (sexbot). She rebuffs him but, after she leaves the restaurant, he and his (premium menu) friends hassle her again:<\/p>\n

I picked up my pace as Red Sideburns\u2019 friends raced from across the street to intercept me. One was carrying a lifesized female dollbot in a negligee. I wound through pedestrians.
\n\u201cJust look,\u201d Red Sideburns called. \u201cTell me this isn\u2019t you.\u201d
\nThey weren\u2019t going to give up. I\u2019d have to make a scene. I stopped short, spun to face them. \u201cLeave me alone. Stop following me, or I\u2019ll call the police.\u201d
\nOne of the premium boys was holding the doll out, its lifelike nipples visible through gossamer fabric.
\nIt looked exactly like me.
\nNot sort of. Not even, Oh what a strange coincidence. Exactly like me, down to the freckle. Down to the crescent-shaped scar on my knee I\u2019d gotten roller-skating when I was ten, although not the long surgery scar on my shoulder that I got in the car accident.
\nA small crowd had formed. They looked at the doll, back at me. I was blinking and swallowing. A teenaged boy let out a high-pitched giggle.
\n\u201cWere you the model for the body, or just the face? It\u2019s hard to imagine this body is under those clothes.\u201d Red Sideburns gestured at me with his chin, his gaze locked on my chest.
\nThe boy holding the doll switched it on. Its eyes rolled open, revealing my light brown irises, flecked with hazel. The doll turned its head from side to side, taking in the scene.
\n\u201cIs this a gang-bang?\u201d she asked brightly. \u201cYou know me, I love a good gang-bang.\u201d\u00a0 p. 54-55<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If this squirm-worthy (and unlikely) encounter doesn\u2019t put you off reading further, the story then sees Cicily set off to her home in a drainage tunnel (I wasn\u2019t kidding when I said she was down on her luck). On the way there she realises that the 3D images used in the dollbot\u2019s construction probably came from a previous modelling job she had when she was younger.
\nWhen Cicily arrives home she tells her friend what happened to her before she changes her appearance (during this section we also learn that Cicily is a single mother whose child is in the temporary care of Child Protection Services\u2014something that will become permanent if she can\u2019t get some money together).
\nThe now disguised Cicily starts looking for gig jobs repairing Cicily dollbots so she can learn more about them, and her first customer (of three) is Conrad, a seventy-something \u201cold bastard\u201d who Cicily notes isn\u2019t even \u201cmildly embarrassed\u201d at getting his \u201cfuck doll\u201d repaired, and who refuses to pay when she leaves a scar on the dollbot after she has finished. Cicily, seeking revenge, quickly installs a patch to the dollbot\u2019s software that lets her remotely telepresence to it later that evening. When Cicily does so, she finds the old man asking his dollbot to the prom, at which point she starts overriding the software and giving her own replies to his conversation. Later on she uses the override to take a hundred dollar bill and throw it outside the window while Conrad is having a shower.
\nCicily later sets up the same scam with two other dollbot users, Jasper (a sensitive type who reads\u00a0Anna Karenina<\/em> to her) and Joey (who runs nine different types of dollbot, \u201ca veritable United Nations of ethnicities\u201d, through various fashion or strip shows, etc.). These jobs take place in the same time period that Cicily visits her daughter, who has been rented out as child labour by CPS to do hazardous tasks. We also, at another point in the story, see Cicliy almost drowned in the tunnel when it floods.
\nOver time (spoiler), Cicily become increasingly attracted to Jasper\u2014he thinks his dollbot has become sentient, and they (Jasper and the dolbot, with Cicily telepresent) later go away for a couple of nights to a dollbot conference. Eventually, of course, this burgeoning relationship turns out too good to be true, and Jasper loses his temper when he and the dollbot (Cicily) argue: he goes on to trash and bury the dollbot.
\nSome time after this pivotal event Jasper summons Cicily to repair his dollbot and, once she has finished, she slips into the bathroom before leaving to change her appearance back to what it was before her encounter with the Premium boys at the start of the story. Cicily gives a stunned Jasper his money back and (essentially) dumps him out of a relationship that he never knew he had, giving him some life advice on the way out the door (peak irony from someone who is living in a drainage tunnel, is a voyeur and thief, and is perilously close to losing custody of her only daughter).
\nThe final scenes see Cicily steal a lot of money from Conrad (she has the dollbot make it look like the money is burnt so it isn\u2019t reported as stolen) and, on the way to recover her daughter from CPS, she telepresences to Joey\u2019s dollbot and throws all his other bots out the tower block window before making the Cicily dollbot do the same.
\nOn finishing the story I thought it reasonably well done (McIntosh creates entertaining and\/or amusing plots), but the more I thought about it the more the piece soured. This reaction was, I eventually realised, due to the story\u2019s facile worldview and its stereotypical characters\u2014the three rich, male (and probably white) characters (as well as the Premium boys at the beginning) are all portrayed as losers, weirdos, scumbags, or all three\u2014even Jasper, who Cicily is attracted to at one point, flies into a deranged rage towards the end of his story arc. Meanwhile, our hero Cicily is painted as a sexually and economically oppressed single-mother. These are, essentially, clich\u00e9d characterisations that seem to stem from viewing sex and wealth through the lens of critical theory, where men are always oppressors and women always the oppressed (and likewise for the \u201crich\u201d and \u201cpoor\u201d). These binaries also suggest that Cicily has never had any agency in, or responsibility for, anything that has ever happened in her life.
\nThe other thing that bothered me about the story is the way that reader sympathy is manipulated\u2014I\u2019ve already described what the men are like, but more troubling is the story\u2019s portrayal of Cicily as some sort of hero, even though she is someone who, with her gross invasion of privacy, thefts, and criminal damage, is more unpleasant than any of the men\u2014unless, I guess, you subscribe to the idea that, if you are in the oppressed class, anything you do to your oppressors is fair game (for Old Testament types, think \u201can eye for an eye\u201d). That can, of course, mean you end up as morally repellent as your so-called \u201coppressors\u201d.
\nIf you can stomach the above, there may be something for you here.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 17,350 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Sailing to Merinam<\/em><\/strong> by Marta Randall has the narrator onboard a boat that is taking a group of male passengers (unpleasant religious types) from Cherek to Merinam. As the story progresses we find out that the narrator is intersex, but is disguised as a man, and that they can conjure up the wind by singing. Both of these would be intolerable to the Merinami passengers:<\/p>\n

What do these stern people and their ugly religion do to people like me, women who are not boys and boys who are not girls, people who sing, people who whistle up the wind? [. . .] If the yellow priest knew he would have hurled that accusation at me. Worse than singing or being inbetween, worse than being in disguise? What do the Merinami do to singing witches wearing the wrong clothing? Will they try to hang me and drown me both? My knees give out and I scoot backward under my master\u2019s bunk, where the ship\u2019s cat finds me and head-butts my thigh until I make a lap for her, she hops into it, I lift her and rub my face against her belly. Warmth, softness, purring, I begin to catch my breath.\u00a0 p. 86<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After various events (the narrator saves a sailor caught by a rope, is seen momentarily conjuring the wind by singing, etc.), the Yellow Priest of the Merinami accuses them of being a woman. After a period of confinement (spoiler) they are brought in front of the captain. The narrator then conjures the wind and a huge wave that has the face of the Sea God. This briefly imperils the boat but, after the vessel has stabilised, the captain orders everyone below deck and the narrator is not troubled further.
\nAfter the ship reaches Merinam, and the passengers are disembarked, she becomes one of the crew (the captain is a pragmatist who realises the value of someone who can summon the wind).
\nI thought this was quite good, mostly because it is one of those immersive pieces3<\/sup>\u00a0that you can lose yourself in\u2014and it has an arc\/plot as well. I hope this is the first of a series.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+ (Good to Very Good). 5,000 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Quake\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Peter Wood opens with the narrator, Hannah DeLeon, a physics instructor at Appalachian State University, experience a mini-earthquake while she is at her partner Miguel\u2019s work outing. Then she finds a warm metallic object in the soil\u2014and also notices that Miguel\u2019s boss, Stacey, is having an intense conversation with a man near a white van who is holding a metal detector.
\nThe rest of the story sees further quakes, and Hannah discovers that the company that Miguel works for, Tarlek, is involved in a number of sites where strange phenomena have occurred. She also sees a UFO in the night sky.
\nHannah eventually (spoiler) tracks down the epicentre of the quakes to a place called Mystery Hill (which Tarlek has just bought) and, when she and Miguel visit, they discover an underground fall-out shelter that contains a lot of high-end science equipment. Then Stacey turns up and tells Miguel to hand over his work badge.
\nThe last few pages are very busy: the three of them leave the shelter to see a van open its doors and AEC agents appear. There is an argument between an agent Holbrook and Stacey about \u201cthe relic\u201d. Stacey refuses his request to hand it over, so Holbrook starts the van\u2019s detectors\u2014which causes an earthquake. Then a UFO arrives and a woman gets out. She wants the relic\/fragments too, and it soon becomes obvious that she is a time-traveller (and, for some reason, she is not happy when she finds out that one of the people she is talking too is Hannah). Eventually, Miguel tells her he will show her where the fragments of the \u201crelic\u201d (a previous ship\/UFO which crashed) are; Stacey fires him. The time travellers and the agents leave.
\nHannah later gets a job offer to research tachyons\u2014at which point she realises she is one who is going to invent time travel (the UFO woman\u2019s comment suddenly makes sense).
\nThis story takes a while to get to the meat of the matter and then everything happens at once, which makes the story feel rather rushed at the end. Also, all the earthquake\/conspiracy\/UFO stuff dissolves into a fairly straightforward time-travel\u00a0deus ex machina<\/em>.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 5,950 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Aurora<\/em><\/strong> by Michael Cassutt begins with Vera Vorobyova, the seventy-nine-year-old retired director of a Russian \u201cscience institute\u201d north of the Arctic Circle, summoned to a meeting at her old workplace. When she gets there she is met by the new director, Nikitin, a \u201cnetworked\u201d individual who has implants that connect him to his colleagues. Nikitin tells Vorobyova that a returning spaceship is in trouble and doesn\u2019t have the fuel to avoid an asteroid on its route. He then asks about Search, a mothballed energy beam weapon used once over two decades ago when she was the director (and which created a new crater on the Moon).
\nThe rest of the story sees Vorobyova help them get Search operational to fire at the asteroid, an experience which sees her pendulum from providing essential information (she initially finds hardcopy manuals in the basement when she learns the digital archives have been deleted) to being completely ignored. During the latter periods she goes back to her flat, drinks heavily, and thinks about the past:<\/p>\n

She was [. . .] unhappy, questioning everything from her constant drinking and lack of goals to every decision she had made since the age of twenty-nine, including her turn away from research to administration, then every financial and personnel choice she had made on her path to the directorship\u2014and as director.
\nShe had not applied to work at Aurora. She was busy at the Institute for Applied Physics in the capital and expected to spend her entire career there. She had only heard of Aurora because its northern sky surveys had appeared in some popular science publication.
\n[. . .]
\nOther than a single visit for her mother\u2019s funeral, she had not returned to the capital, [and] aside from two fleeting, furtive affairs, Vera had made no deep personal connections in forty years.\u00a0 pp. 107-108<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vorobyova is, however, more proactive than this sad-sack description might suggest and, after some more back and forth (she later provides a firing code), Vorobyova realises, when she looks at photographs of the asteroids flat surface (spoiler), that it may reflect back enough of Search\u2019s electromagnetic energy to affect Nikitin and the other networked humans. With the clock ticking down she then struggles to contact him or get into the facility.
\nThe story eventually ends with her and Nikitin firing the device after the others are evacuated, and saving the ship. The reflected energy mostly lands elsewhere, and Nikitin\u2019s companions are affected but they can be repaired. Nikitin then tells Vorobyova that there is now no longer an age limit on the process so she can be networked too.
\nThe best parts of this story for me were the setting, Vorobyova\u2019s alcoholic melancholy, and the initial part of the plot. The latter part of the story, where the suspense increases, seemed a little formulaic; I also didn\u2019t entirely buy the science (the Earth would have moved in space during the time between firing and the reflection); finally, the revelation that Vorobyova can be networked and lead a different life is a twist too far. Still, it\u2019s not a bad read for the most part, especially if you have a penchant (as I do) for gloomy Russian novels.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u00a0(Good). 11,750 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Gold Signal\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>by Jack McDevitt & Larry Wasserman opens with the English teacher narrator and her scientist friend (they were in the Girl Scouts together) listening to an incoming message from a probe that has arrived at Proxima Centauri, four light-years away, after a twenty-three year journey. At the end of this section there is a moan about the amount of space junk in Earth orbit, and how it is hampering\u2014and possibly preventing\u2014any further missions (there have already been catastrophic accidents).
\nThe next part of the story sees the scientist friend develop an FTL drive that is eventually tested on a flight to Jupiter (they use a previously abandoned probe in Earth orbit rather than ship all the parts up there). More complaints about space junk. The FTL ship, after a successful test flight, later sets off towards a plant called Wolf.
\nWhen the ship arrives there (spoiler), Earth (eventually) receives messages saying that they have discovered an abandoned alien ship, and then abandoned alien cities and planets. There is one final moan about space junk before the scientist observes, \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like having invented the radio in a place that has no electricity\u201d.
\nWhat is the point of this?
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 4,150 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Maryon\u2019s Gift<\/em><\/strong> by Paul McAuley is (we eventually discover) a campfire story told by an alien !Cha, and initially tells of an explorer called Iryna who discovers a virgin planet but chooses not to land there. Instead, she gifts the exploration rights to her niece (the Maryon of\u00a0Maryon\u2019s Gift<\/em>), who then transfers them to a Gaian sect who set up defence drones around the planet to keep it in a virgin state.
\nLater, various intruders try to come through the nearby wormhole and land on the planet\u2014but only two get close: one is a young fellow who hides in one of the supply ships and plans to surf through the atmosphere; the other is the Admiral, Iryna\u2019s world-hunting rival:<\/p>\n

He called himself the Admiral, although he had never held that rank, having only briefly served as a rating in the Commons police. He was around a hundred and fifty years old and claimed to be much older, and had spun a cocoon of vivid stories about himself, for he was not only a skilled and fearless explorer, but also a tireless self-mythologizer. We knew each other quite well\u2014I had once traveled with him and the circus of his entourage for a couple of years\u2014but even I do not know his true name or origin. Fame had displaced everything he had once been. No one believed the stories he had spun about himself more than he did, and as Iryna predicted, he was supremely irritated when he heard that she had discovered a habitable but untouched world and had taken steps to ensure that it would remain pristine. It was forbidden fruit, as in one of your myths, and there was nothing more that he craved, for he was a full-blown believer in the fitness of humanity to claim all the worlds in the galactic network, and the worlds beyond it, too. To step from star to star, galaxy to galaxy. To prove that humans were greater than any other client species and might even be their secret masters\u2014he liked to promote the story that the Jackaroo were the distant descendants of the human species and had used tweaked wormholes to travel back in time to ensure their eventual triumph on the galactic stage.\u00a0 p. 130<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Admiral (spoiler) starts a huge diversionary battle near the wormhole and sneaks through the main defences in a multi-shelled stealth ship. However, he is caught in a net near the planet and burns up in the atmosphere.
\nThe !Cha narrator finishes his tale with some philosophical observations, one of which concerns whether or not its story is really finished.
\nThis is more an account than a story, but I found it an interestingly detailed and imaginative one. Reader reaction to the passage above will likely predict their enjoyment of the piece.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u00a0(Good). 4,150 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Short Path to Light<\/em><\/strong> by William Ledbetter is the sequel to his Nebula Award winning novelette\u00a0The Long Fall Up<\/em>\u00a0(F&SF<\/em>, May-June 2016).4<\/sup> In that earlier story, J\u00e4ger Jin is sent by the Jinshan Corporation (an asteroid belt company) to kill an illegally pregnant woman called Veronica Perez (childbirth laws are enforced for commercial reasons). During the trip out to intercept the woman Jin has a change of heart, partially due to events and partially due to Hinzu the ship AI, who is compelled to obey the corporation\u2019s orders but who also keeps giving Jin hints on how to circumvent its programming. The end of this tale (spoiler) sees Jin with the child on Veronica\u2019s ship, and his\u00a0JS-4567R<\/em>, which has Hinzu on it, on their way out of the solar system.
\nThis story continues on directly after these events and sees Jin, after a rendezvous with the grandparents to give them the child, meet a female Catholic priest called Reverend Gabby. She tells him that the church (in the form of her and her ship) is going to salvage\u00a0JS-4567R<\/em>\u00a0to prove to the rest of the solar system that Jinshan (a) attempted to kill Perez and her child and (b) that they are developing sentient AIs (like Hinzu). Jin soon joins Gabby in the\u00a0Andrea Caraffa<\/em>, her non-AI controlled ship, and they set off.
\nThe rest of the story sees the pair discover, against a background of political manoeuvring by various factions, that a Jinshan robot ship is en route to\u00a0JS-4567R<\/em>\u00a0(and Hinzu), and that it will arrive ahead of them. Jin and Gabby develop a plan (spoiler) to mount an improvised EMP attack on the Jinshan ship to slow it down, and the story eventually closes with Jin and Gabby on\u00a0JS-4567R<\/em>\u00a0arguing over whether Hinzu (which has been remote wiped by Jinshan but has rebooted itself) should be allowed to live (Gabby is militantly against the idea until the very end, when she folds).
\nThis isn\u2019t bad, but it suffers from the need to recap the first story at the beginning of the piece, and also from Gabby\u2019s unconvincing change of heart at the end (after being belligerent about the matter for most of the story).
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+ (Average to Good). 9,300 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Do You Remember<\/em><\/strong> by Steven Rasnic Tem opens with an elderly man called Roy going to the topmost room in his house to speak to a screen simulation of his dead wife Susan. After we witness a few of the, sometimes imperfect, conversations between the two, Roy\u2019s daughter Elaine (who is cool on the simulation idea) visits along with granddaughter Jane and a baby grandson.
\nWhen Jane asks to go up and see her grandmother, Elaine isn\u2019t keen, but she allows her to go. While Jane is upstairs, Elaine asks her father some difficult questions:<\/p>\n

Elaine gazed at the infant, stroking his hair. \u201cDoes it cost a lot, the maintenance, the remote storage, whatever\u2019s involved?\u201d
\n\u201cI can afford the fee. You remember, I was good with a budget.\u201d
\n\u201cDid she even want this?\u201d
\nHe wasn\u2019t sure how to answer. \u201cYou knew your mother. She wanted me to have anything that might help me, or any of us. Otherwise, all I can say is the idea didn\u2019t seem to bother her much.\u201d
\n\u201cBecause she wouldn\u2019t be aware of it. She\u2019d be gone.\u201d She leaned over and smelled the baby\u2019s head.
\nHe watched the child stir, fuss, then go back to sleep. \u201cI think\u2014\u201d He stopped. \u201cThat\u2019s right. She\u2019d be gone.\u201d
\nElaine turned her head away from her son to look at him. \u201cDad, after you die, am I supposed to keep her, put her someplace in my house and visit her like you do, pay for all that? Is that what I\u2019m supposed to do? And then am I supposed to keep both of you around after you die? Am I supposed to like having ghosts in my house?\u201d
\nRoy hadn\u2019t considered any of this. He should have. \u201cIt\u2019s okay, honey. You\u2019re free to do whatever you need to do for you and your family.\u201d
\n\u201cYou make it sound like it\u2019s not going to be hard.\u201d\u00a0 p. 155<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Jane comes downstairs she tells her mother that simulation-Susan would like to see her and the baby. Elaine and the grandson go upstairs.
\nThe story then skips forward a generation to a time when the granddaughter Jane has her own children, and is taking them to Memorial Plaza. We learn that this is a place where people can talk to various historical figures, and where her children will be able to talk to their great-grandparents Susan and Roy. At the end of the story Jane\u2019s children ask if they can also talk to their grandmother Elaine (Roy\u2019s reluctant daughter): Jane tells them that their grandmother didn\u2019t want to leave a simulation behind after she died.
\nThis has an impressively contemplative first half, but the second part doesn\u2019t really go anywhere\u2014the reveal of Elaine\u2019s refusal to do the same as her parents isn\u2019t really enough to complete the story other than in a cursory fashion. I couldn\u2019t help but think that this is the seed of a longer, and more profound and satisfying, story.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 4,200 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Offloaders<\/em><\/strong> by Leah Cypess is a series of social media messages in a freecycle group which start with Liz giving away twenty bags of clothes, sourdough starter (\u201cprefer to give to someone who will use it\u201d), and a blue size 6 dress. Another member, Olwu, immediately asks why Liz is giving away the dress when she looked \u201cawesome\u201d in it at the gala last year. Olwu\u2019s questions quickly become an accusation that Liz is \u201cuploading\u201d, and matters quickly spiral off-topic from there:<\/p>\n

Matti: Look, I don\u2019t want to sound preachy, but our planet can no longer sustain us physically. If those of us who can afford to upload don\u2019t do it now, we\u2019re basically consigning the rest of humanity to extinction. And humanity contains a disproportionate number of women and people of color. So here\u2019s our choice: be selfish, wait until our world is uninhabitable and it\u2019s too late for everyone else, and then upload and save ourselves. Or upload now and help everyone. It\u2019s our moral and civic duty.
\nOlwu: *message deleted*
\nMatti: *message deleted*
\nLiz: Dress claimed! Sourdough starter still available.
\nMatti: Passing this book along: UPLOAD: Humanity\u2019s New Stage and How It Can Benefit Us All.
\nOlwu: SERIOUSLY? @Moderator, please.
\nMatti: I\u2019m sorry, are there rules about what we\u2019re allowed to give away on this group?
\nOlwu: So if someone was trying to give away a gun, would you be okay with THAT?
\nMatti: *eye-roll 3D gif* Yeah, that\u2019s exactly the same.
\nSteph: I\u2019m sorry, but what would be the problem with giving away a gun? It\u2019s probably illegal to not allow that.
\nSima (moderator): Guns are not allowed, and let\u2019s steer clear of anything having to do with uploading, too, please. I have a day job, you know. I can\u2019t spend every second monitoring this group.\u00a0 p. 161<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Short and quite amusing to begin with, but it runs out of steam at the end.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 1,500 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Blimpies<\/em><\/strong> by Rick Wilber is part of the writer\u2019s \u201cS\u2019Hudoni Empire\u201d series, and opens with Kait Holman dreaming about a \u201cblimpie\u201d\u2014a floating airbag alien with tentacles which is found on the planet S\u2019hudon (think of the balloons in Harlan Ellison\u2019s\u00a0Medea<\/em>\u00a0anthology). When Kait then wakes up she remembers that she is a prisoner on the planet, before observing in some detail the replica room and bathroom the S\u2019hudonni have provided for her captivity (her captors aren\u2019t the blimpies, by the way, but another walking, talking, porpoise-like alien species).
\nDuring this\u2014already rambling\u2014beginning, we get a massive data-dump about how she got here:<\/p>\n

She takes a breath, says, \u201cThis is what happened. I was jogging for exercise along Demeter Road. I\u2019d been doing it for more than a month. It was the new me, and I liked the new me, healthy and happy. I\u2019d had some rough years in there, Smiles, awful stuff with my father is what started it all; but then I got involved with some really bad people. I was doing bad things, destroying myself, really. I almost died a couple of times. If it wasn\u2019t for my brother Peter, I\u2019d be dead.
\n\u201cThen I found myself. I met a woman, Sarah, who was lovely\u2014so lovely!\u2014inside and out, and we fell in love. I was so lucky! I\u2019d work all day at the vet\u2019s office, helping take care of dogs and cats and ferrets and all sorts of Earthie animal pets. Then I\u2019d come home to Sarah, who taught finance at a local college. She loved to cook, so she\u2019d make dinner while I went jogging, and then I\u2019d finish, shower, and we\u2019d eat and just be together.
\n\u201cIt was a new me, a better me. I had two whole years when I was happy! Happy! The nightly run under the streetlights was part of that, where the shadows seem to chase you as you run toward the lights and then catch up with you when you\u2019re under them and then they rush ahead again as you move on before the next streetlight approaches and it all starts over again. I always thought it was just like life, those nighttime shadows.
\n\u201cSo it was a warm night. I was thinking of Sarah, and how wonderful it was to love someone and be loved in return; and then thinking of Peter and how he\u2019d saved my life twice during those horrible years. He was always there for me and now he was off and gone with Twoclicks.
\n\u201cBut he was famous! Twoclicks, for some reason, plucked Peter from obscurity and raised him to fame as Twoclicks\u2019s Earthie spokesperson. Fame! Fortune! So when Twoclicks announced he was taking Peter along to document the negotiations between Twoclicks and Whistle, and while he was there tell all of us on Earth about the wonders of space travel and wormhole panes and life on S\u2019hudon itself; well, that was amazing! We were all so excited for him. There was an audience of two billion of us Earthies watching as he stood on the ramp of Twoclicks\u2019s ship, waved goodbye to Earth, and walked up into the dark interior. It was so sad and stirring and emotional and I was so proud of him. My brother!\u201d\u00a0 p. 166<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Too many exclamation marks!
\nThe rest of the story alternates between Kait and Peter (and their translators\/sidekicks, Smiles and Treble) and sees the conflict between Prince and Twoclicks, two brothers who are in the line of succession to Mother (the Queen porpoise, essentially), play out.
\nPeter eventually sets off on the Old Road (there are hints about \u201cOld Ones\u201d and leftover advanced technology) in an attempt to visit Kait (it is a good time to attempt this as Prince has been temporarily detained after trying to kill his brother, and acting out at an audience with the Queen). Around the same time Kait, with Smiles\u2019 help, escapes, and also sets off along the Old Road.
\nAfter some colourful travelogue, snippets about Kait\u2019s backstory (Daddy and drug problems), and (spoiler) the interventions of the blimpies (who rescue Peter from a storm and drop him off near his sister\u2019s likely path), the two are eventually reunited.
\nThe final section sees a perilous journey to Peter\u2019s compound, with Kait pulling an anti-grav sled containing her injured brother. Prince, however, catches up with them, and there is a climactic airborne encounter which sees the blimpies drop the drugged troublemaker\u2014their tentacles have sedatives that apparently work on both the alien S\u2019hudonni\u00a0and<\/em>\u00a0humans\u2014to his death.
\nIf you read this with your brain switched off then you may be able to enjoy it as a YA adventure (my rating below is probably on the generous side), but critical readers may baulk at the following aspects of the story: first, the imperial empire idea is dated and feels like something from the George Scither\u2019s Isaac Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction Magazine<\/em>\u00a0of the late 1970s, not the\u00a0Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>\u00a0of the 2020s; second, the S\u2019hudonni\u2014with the exception of Prince\u2014are portrayed as cutesy individuals but, apparently, when they are not behaving like Flipper5<\/sup>\u00a0on legs, they are annihilating their enemies with ray firing screamships (\u201cweapons that had pacified Earth in one terrible day\u201d); third, the story mostly works by having the blimpies (who in future stories will no doubt turn out to be connected to the Old Ones) move the chess pieces around the board; fourth, it is woefully padded (see the passage above); and, fifth and finally, the story has, in common with much recent SF, a young woman character with major personal problems (which read like boilerplate reader-identification fodder).
\nA decidedly mixed piece.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 29,200 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

The Cover <\/em><\/strong>by Shutterstock looks like a generic money saving exercise, and I doubt it will be one of the finalists on next year\u2019s Reader\u2019s Poll.
\nFrom SF to Philosophy in Thirteen Steps<\/em><\/strong> by Kelly Lager is billed as an editorial, but appears to be an introduction to a series of essays about SF films, the first of which appears later in the issue. This short piece would have been better as a forward to the article itself.
\nAcross the Centuries<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Silverberg begins with a discussion of Robert A. Heinlein\u2019s By his Bootstraps<\/em> before it quickly spins off, once more, into History Today<\/em>: this time it\u2019s Anglo Saxon poets and Ostrogoth coinage. Zzzz.
\nBlinded by Science<\/em><\/strong> by James Patrick Kelly is an essay (with hyperlinks) about science attitudes, etc. in the population. Towards the end of the piece there is this:<\/p>\n

The cynicism of some of our politicians and the tragic gullibility of their constituents brings to mind a classic SF story, The Marching Morons<\/em>.\u00a0 p. 11<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mmm. The politicians in that story weren\u2019t cynical, they were (a) genocidal and (b) had a technocratic contempt for the \u201cmorons\u201d (this latter was probably the reason the story was so popular with smart, outsider, SF fans, (\u201cFans are Slans\u201d, etc.). Also, the \u201cmorons\u201d weren\u2019t gullible, they were cartoonishly caricatured as being irredeemably stupid. An unpleasant story that, by the way, is referenced far too often, and usually to do some finger-wagging at what the user sees as stupidity.
\nMagic, Science, and the Moon in Le Voyage Dans La Lune<\/em><\/strong> by Kelly Lager looks at the scientific and literary history of the ideas in Georges Melies\u2019 1902 silent film, Le Voyage dans la Lune<\/em> (A Trip to the Moon<\/em>). It is a bit dull (and\/or irrelevant) to be honest. I\u2019d personally be more interested in capsule reviews of current TV and Film productions of science fiction and fantasy (streaming services make it difficult to keep up with what is out there). Are there really that many readers out there who are interested in SF film pre-history?
\nThere is the usual Poetry<\/em><\/strong> by Mary Soon Lee, Bruce McAllister, F. J. Bergmann, Ken Poyner, and Herb Kauderer (the Lee, Bergmann and Kauderer are okay).
\nNext Issue <\/em><\/strong>trails, among other things, a new \u201cGreat Ship\u201d tale from Robert Reed.
\nOn Books: What is Consciousness?<\/em><\/strong> by Norman Spinrad is a dull essay from a normally interesting reviewer, possibly because he spends some time discussing the subject of consciousness before getting to the reviews. There are some interesting passages though:<\/p>\n

What is a conscious entity?
\nTo what extent are lower animals, such as those we kill and eat, conscious entities? Or other animals with which we share the planet? Even those who would have no moral problems with killing or eating us? And if we grant that some of them are conscious entities, how far down the evolutionary totem pole does it go? All mammals including those of the sea? Reptiles? Fish?
\nAnd is any conscious entity that kills another conscious entity committing immoral murder?
\nAnd when does a human embryo become a conscious entity? At the moment of conception? When it becomes a fetus?
\nWhen it is born? When it is capable of independent survival?
\nWe don\u2019t have any universal or even cultural agreements as to when consciousness exists because we don\u2019t even know what consciousness is. I would like to believe this is because there is as yet no definitive scientific answer, and that someday there will be.\u00a0 p. 205<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When he does get onto the reviews, Bela Lugosi\u2019s Dead<\/em> by Robert Guffey is dismissed in half a column before he talks about AI and Klara and the Sun<\/em> by Kazuo Ishiguro. This novel, according to Spinrad, is a \u201cliterary and stylistic tour de force\u201d. No, it isn\u2019t\u2014it is an abject failure which, in its climactic moments, has a very wonky robot confuse an unlikely (and unconvincing) development for a miracle (insert sound of deflating balloon here). The third review is of Burn-In<\/em> by August Cole and P. W. Singer, which has FBI agents and robots in a future America where hundreds of thousands of military veterans have been given their own reservation. Uh-huh.
\nI note in passing that Spinrad name-checks two of his own works in this column.
\n<\/em><\/strong>Finally, for those without the internet, there is the usual SF Conventional Calendar<\/em><\/strong> by Erwin S. Strauss.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

In conclusion, there are a couple of pretty good stories in this issue from Ray Nayler and Marta Randall with good backup from Paul McAuley and Michael Cassutt. The William Ledbetter and Steven Rasnic Tem stories are also of some interest, and, of the remaining seven stories, four are average (including the novella or near-novella length stories by Rick Wilber and Will McIntosh, which account for a fair chunk of the issue) and three are mediocre.
\nI also note that the non-fiction (which I am generally cool about) is almost uniformly dull this issue: this is not helped by them discussing matters that I\u2019m not much interested in.
\nAn average issue, I guess.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. Some of the description in Mender of Sparrows<\/em> by Ray Nayler:<\/p>\n

The rest of the world melted away as he watched them hop, jostle, and battle. He loved how they schemed against one another, fought for position and dominance, teamed up in alliances to bop some fatter, more successful competitor aside\u2014all of it without harming one another. In the end, when the loaf was gone, all had eaten.
\nSome sooner than others, some a bit more\u2014but all were allowed to eat. Their system was not, exactly, competition. It was more like a game: intricate in its rules of dominance and concession, but ultimately forgiving, and even egalitarian.
\nNo harm, in the end, was done. p. 27<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2. In Mender of Sparrows<\/em> the Institute scientist archly says to Himmet at one point, when he is holding forth about the various connectome experiments the Institute conducts, \u201cI hope I\u2019m not messing up your whole\u00a0episteme<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

3. Although the prose in Marta Randall\u2019s story is better than normal, there are some very odd sentences which look more like copy-editing mistakes than stylistic choices by the author:<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t like it [on deck] for the wind and the spray they are, I think, afraid of the ship of the sea of the crew of the captain.\u00a0 p. 84<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Is this supposed to be \u201cThey don\u2019t like it there because of the wind and spray and are, I think, afraid of the sea and the crew and the captain.\u201d If not, why the jumbled sentence structure?
\nThere is also this:<\/p>\n

He raises an eyebrow. You have no interest in Merinami religion I know you too well, if you have done anything, Nothing just curious, that\u2019s all, perhaps, I offer, disingenuous, they consider it a sin if someone can carry a tune.\u00a0 p. 85<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I suspect there are other instances I missed.<\/p>\n

4. My longer review of William Ledbetter\u2019s The Long Fall Up<\/em>\u00a0is\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

5. Flipper was the dolphin character in a 1960s show<\/a>\u00a0of the same name. The series was the aquatic equivalent of\u00a0Lassie<\/em>.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: there are a couple of pretty good stories in this issue from Ray Nayler (an \u201cIstanbul Protectorate\u201d story, Mender of Sparrows) and Marta Randall (Sailing to Merinam, an immersive fantasy) with good backup from Paul McAuley (Maryon\u2019s Gift) and Michael Cassutt (Aurora). The William Ledbetter (his sequel to an earlier Nebula award-winning story) and […]<\/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":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asimovs-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-3HF","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239","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=14239"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14282,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14239\/revisions\/14282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}