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Galactic Central link<\/a> Other Reviews: Fiction: Non-fiction: I picked up this particular issue because there were three names I recognised: Cat Rambo, Robert Reed and Rich Larson.<\/p>\n Left Behind<\/em><\/strong> by Cat Rambo is the first of the three.\u00a0It is about\u00a0an elderly woman called Cianna Jones\u2014one of the remaining \u2018natural\u2019 humans in the world who remain unmodified\u2014being prepared to become the digital \u2018brain\u2019 of a spaceship. Her children have elected for this course of action as she has been declared incapable of autonomy. The Universal Museum of Sagacity<\/em><\/strong> by Robert Reed is a novelette that starts in a low-key manner with its narrator telling of a boyhood family mystery concerning an uncle who was briefly married to a woman called Maddy. After the couple had divorced and the uncle had remarried Maddy still turned up every year for Xmas. One long wall dissolved into a\u00a0street scene. Except the \u201cstreet\u201d looked more like black satin carpeting than a roadway, and nothing about the native\u00a0architecture was human. Structures were more grown than built,\u00a0full irregular blobs and jumbled angles that made at least one\u00a0man uneasy. A dwarf red star stood fixed to a sky thick with pink\u00a0dust and glittering machines, and the carpeted street was jammed with aliens. Not one species or ten species, but\u00a0countless shapes marching and dancing while producing all\u00a0manner of purposeful noise. And deep inside that mayhem stood\u00a0one very familiar figure: A woman presumed dead but now\u00a0leaning against what resembled an upright badger. I spotted her\u00a0hair, dark as always but longer. Age had done nothing to the\u00a0pretty face. And with all of the surprises raining down, I was a\u00a0little startled to find the lady acting chummy with an animal. Maddy never struck me as the sort to keep pets.<\/em><\/p>\n Even though the ending is a little weak\u2014this involves the efforts to find out where Maddy is and\/or contact her\u2014it is an interesting story whose narrative has the same exponential trajectory as the slopes of Pinpoint\u2019s private mountain.<\/p>\n Breathe<\/em><\/strong> by Cassandra Khaw is about a woman deep in an alien sea observing algae growing with a view to estimating when it will be ready for harvest. Most of the story is a description of her claustrophobic discomfort, and the paragraphs are regularly punctuated with \u2018Breathe,\u2019and you do rather wonder why a borderline claustrophobic and unstable personality would be put into a situation like this. Anyway, there is also some back and forth conversation with her lover on a parent ship\/submarine (spoiler) before it is attacked by larger creatures. She saves the day by causing a fire with her flare gun, although how this is caused underwater is not explained. Jonas and the Fox<\/em><\/strong> by Rich Larson is set in on a colony planet that has recently undergone a revolution. The husband and wife who feature in the story have two boys who are the narrators. One of them, Damjan, is the host to his uncle\u2019s personality. Damjan was brain dead after falling from a Godtree; his uncle Fox was involved in the revolution but fell from grace in a power struggle and needed somewhere to hide. Away from Home<\/em><\/strong> by Luo Longxiang tells of the planetship Phaeton, and focusses on two characters in particular, Weihan and Han Dan. Shortly after they meet the Phaeton suffers a meteor shower and they have to take shelter before abandoning it amongst much loss of life.<\/p>\n A sudden explosion shook the bunker, with a roar that seemed to crack the heavens and split the earth. Moments later, urgent knocking could be heard outside the blast doors. Weihan opened the doors, coming face to face with Police Chief Zhao. His two hairy legs sticking out from under his nightshirt, he waved a still holstered pistol in Zheng\u2019s face, shouting, \u201cYou have to get to the emergency escape pods! The meteor shower broke the sun!\u201d Weihan ends up a refugee on another planetship in the fleet, and returns to his\u00a0parent\u2019s home along with Han Dan. Weihan is reconciled with his father and goes to flight academy. Han Dan is not who she seems to be. Tough Times All Over<\/em><\/strong> by Joe Abercrombie (Rogues<\/em>, ed. George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, 2014) is about a courier in a disreputable city of thieves and cutthroats who is in the process of delivering a special package when she is robbed. The thief himself is in turn relieved of the package and so it goes until the end of the story, a daisy chain of similar events. However, (spoiler) as with most daisy chains you end up back where you started\u2026. A Heap of Broken Images<\/em><\/strong> by Sunny Moraine (We See a Different Frontier: A Postcolonial Speculative Fiction Anthology<\/em>, edited by Djibril al-Ayad & F\u00e1bio Fernandes, 2013) tells of an alien guide conducting human visitors around genocide sites. The killings were by Earth colonists on the indigenous alien population. There isn\u2019t any real story or narrative arc here, just endless questions and agonising by the guide. See my final comments about the Khaw story above.<\/p>\n The non-fiction this issue includes a strong cover, Ananiel, Angel of Storms<\/em><\/strong>, by Peter Mohrbacher.\u00a0Destination: Venus<\/em><\/strong> by Andrew Liptak is an article about the reality of Venus and how it has (or has not) been correspondingly portrayed in fiction.\u00a0Transcendent Transformation: A Conversation with James Gunn <\/em><\/strong>by Chris Urie is less a conversation\u00a0than a short plug for Gunn\u2019s latest novel Transcendental<\/em>, the second in a trilogy.\u00a0Another Word: Strange Stars<\/em><\/strong> by Jason Heller is another short, almost inconsequential, piece about the intersection between SF and rock music. It doesn\u2019t do much more than mention a few examples.\u00a0Editor\u2019s Desk: Stress Relief<\/em><\/strong> by Neil Clarke closes out this issue giving some of the magazine\u2019s recent story nominations and wins in various awards.<\/p>\n In conclusion, another mixed bag. I think I am beginning to notice common characteristics in some of the fiction that Clarkesworld<\/em> publishes: perhaps more on this next time.<\/p>\n This magazine is available at Amazon UK<\/a>, Amazon USA<\/a>, Weightless Books<\/a> and elsewhere<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Galactic Central link ISFDB link Other Reviews: Greg Hullender\u00a0and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank Robert L. Turner III, Tangent Online Sam\u00a0Tomaino, SF Revu Various, Goodreads Fiction: Left Behind \u2022 short story by Cat Rambo \u2665 The Universal Museum of Sagacity \u2022 novelette by Robert Reed \u2665\u2665\u2665 Breathe \u2022 short story by Cassandra Khaw \u2665\u2665 Jonas […]<\/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":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clarkesworld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-yt","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137","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=2137"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2152,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2137\/revisions\/2152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nISFDB link<\/a><\/p>\n
\nGreg Hullender\u00a0and Eric Wong, Rocket Stack Rank<\/a>
\nRobert L. Turner III, Tangent Online<\/a>
\nSam\u00a0Tomaino, SF Revu<\/a>
\nVarious, Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n
\nLeft Behind<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Cat Rambo \u2665
\nThe Universal Museum of Sagacity<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Robert Reed \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nBreathe<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Cassandra Khaw \u2665\u2665
\nJonas and the Fox<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Rich Larson \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nAway from Home<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Luo Longxiang [translated by Nick Stember] \u2665\u2665
\nTough Times All Over<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint novelette by Joe Abercrombie \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nA Heap of Broken Images<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Sunny Moraine \u2665<\/p>\n
\nAnaniel, Angel of Storms<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Peter Mohrbacher
\nDestination: Venus<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Andrw Liptak
\nTranscendent Transformation: A Conversation with James Gunn <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 by Chris Urie
\nAnother Word: Strange Stars<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Jason Heller
\nEditor\u2019s Desk: Stress Relief<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Neil Clarke<\/p>\n
\nThe narrator, Shi, enters the\u00a0virtual world that has been created for Jones to inhabit during the voyage. While Shi is in Jones\u2019s virtual world she notices it is impressively detailed but\u00a0also gets the impression that something is not quite right. The rest of the story charts Shi\u2019s second and third visits during which she starts a dialogue with Jones and discovers that she\u00a0is reluctant, in fact openly hostile, about the plan that has been suggested by her children
\nThere are other aspects to this story as well. Shi\u2019s generation are into body modification and gender fluidity, and Shi has decided to present as an eleven year old girl. There is also material about Shi\u2019s job insecurity worries.
\nThese different parts don\u2019t gel and I found the story both unconvincing and dull. In particular, the virtual reality and gender fluidity aspects of the story seem very tired, and I found it\u00a0hard to believe this is written by the same writer that gave us Red in Tooth and Cog<\/em> in the March\/April F&SF<\/em>.<\/p>\n
\nThe central section describes the narrator\u2019s adult life as an accountant for a huge company called Pinpoint (which has absorbed Google and Apple), and the extended-life and AI-rich world he lives in. (One of the side details is that the company is so rich it has its own private mountain for its employees where, after the gentle slopes at the base, it becomes increasingly difficult the higher up you go.)
\nFinally, the story becomes a First Contact story that involves a massive amount of video feed from countless alien civilizations\u2014and the company AIs have found Maddy in those video feeds….<\/p>\n
\nThis is a good example of a SF story that concentrates on its descriptive writing, style, characters and their state of mind, relationships, etc., with the story very much taking a back seat.<\/p>\n
\nThe story alternates between the two boys\u2019 point of view after the older brother, Jonas, shows Damjan\/Fox a one-seat spaceship hidden in a disused Granary. Fox sees the ship as a way off the planet.
\nThere is nothing particularly original here but this is an engaging story that is developed competently.<\/p>\n
\nEvery planetship had its own massive, fusion-powered artificial sun that orbited in a fixed path, providing a never-ending stream of light and heat. Without its sun, a planetship would freeze solid.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nThere is a little more story to this but it is really more of a travelogue describing the fleet of planetships that the story is set on and, with one wonder following another, is slightly reminiscent of the Jules Verne story I recently read in the first issue of Amazing Stories<\/em>. This is all readable enough stuff, albeit very unsophisticated\u2014perhaps readers will get something from the modern Chinese take. With that in mind, the rating is a generous one.<\/p>\n
\nThere is no obvious fantasy content in this bar its setting and, if ultimately pointless, it is an light hearted and entertaining enough tale.<\/p>\n![\"rss\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sfmagazines.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/16x16\/rss.png?resize=16%2C16&ssl=1\" "\\"Subscribe")
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