Reviews and Comments

A story set in a future where humanity has spread far and wide in the universe via work done a subgroup of humans (disparagingly called Geckos) to terraform the worlds. Due to their work, this subgroup has become toxic to the rest of humanity, being isolated by air filters and barriers.

As the story starts, a group of these people have revolted against their work conditions and hijacked a ship and a pilot to go to the planet Pandora. Things get complicated when the pilot develops feelings for one of the Geckos. But together, they have to crack the puzzle that is Pandora, for they need to access what Pandora has access to.

After solving the puzzle and getting access, they reach their target. And it is there that puzzles and mysteries about how the Geckos and the spread of humanity really happened start to be answered. And the answers they find are not expected, and will overturn their entire worldview and their own history: but it will show a way to reunite humanity again and remake their working conditions.

A good issue of Clarkesworld, with fascinating stories by Fiona Moore, H.H. Pak and Greg Egan.

• "Wire Mother" by Isabel J. Kim: in the future where parents can be biological or digital, one daughter is unable to form an emotional attachment to her digital mother.

• "The Cancer Wolves" by Fiona Moore: in a future after the collapse of civilisation, a village now finds its flock being eaten by wolves. But instead of killing the wolves, they come up with a solution to live with them and, in the process, learn to live with each other better.

• "Crabs Don't Scream" by H.H. Pak: a 'Clerk' assigned to record the last fifteen seconds of a person's life before the world ends instead finds himself falling in love with the person. But is really love if the emotion causes him to catapult through time and space instead? The only way to find out is to force himself to observe those last fifteen seconds; but they may turn out to be his last.

• "Understudies" by Greg Egan: a boy gets help from a study aid, and finds himself developing a strong aptitude for mathematics. But is it enough to live on, when others are getting enhanced via direct connections to AIs instead? Perhaps the only way to find out it to challenge the enhanced people to a match of wits and show that AIs can only do so much when it comes to lateral thinking.

• "Giant Grandmother" by Liu Maijia, translated by Blake Stone-Banks: in a future where genetic defects are common and humanity may be in danger of dying out, one person is preparing for a change in his genetics that may preserve humanity. But before that he must have one final meeting with his grandmother, who has already gone through such a genetic change, and it now a much bigger person.

• "The Job Interview" by Carrie Vaughn: the supervisor in charge of navigation on a space station is being frustrated in her job by endless memos as she tries to find out why communications are currently glitchy. When she finally overrides authorities to find out for herself, it might be too late for the station; but perhaps not for herself.

• "In Luck's Panoply Clad, I Stand" by Phoebe Barton: after a nuclear exchange devastates the earth, one off-world human tries his best to help. But helping can be tough when the off-worlder is much bigger than earth people, but he is determined to do what he can, even when his world demands his return.A

A horror story that starts in a small town with the casual murder of five girls. As the story reveals, this is no ordinary small town, but one where that is a balance between predators (wolves) and prey (deer), with the townspeople taking on one of the roles by donning a 'skin'. But now, that balance is being threatened by a group of hunters.

Restoring the balance may require one girl who had a mystical grandmother, who had a role in keeping the balance in the past, subduing predators when required. And now, it may be up to the girl to do the same with the hunters, but doing so would require a sacrifice that only a wolf can perform.

The story skips back and forth in time around the time of the murder, slowly revealing the relationships between the girl, her grandmother and town people, and the role her grandmother did and which she now has to perform.

A fascinating book that looks that large variety of moths that can be found in the world. After beetles, the family Lepidoptera ('scaled insects') is one of the largest family of insects and this book covers all the major groups of moths except one: the butterflies, which have their own book.

The book starts with a general overview of the moths, showing their anatomy, general behaviour and biology. As caterpillars, moths are 'eating machines' while as adults, moths are 'reproductive machines', a specialisation that has enabled the group to spread out and occupy many ecological niches from the tropics to the polar regions. Moths are major pollinators (and pests of crops) and can be feeding on plants from the ground upwards, and even on aquatic plants. Some caterpillars are also predators, feeding on aphids. Moths are also a source of food for other animals (including humans), leading some to develop intimidating spines and venoms for defence.

The book then proceeds to list down the moths, arranged into families and subfamilies, listing down their major features, behaviours, ecology and so on of each family. Numerous superb photos of the eggs, caterpillars and adults are included, showing some moths with splendid patterns and colouration to rival that of the better known butterflies.

This book is not the final word on moths. Many moth species, including their life histories, are still not known to science and future genetic studies may rearrange the taxonomic family of moths. But until the next edition of the book is released, this one sits as a good, general guide to the moths of the world. A list of references is also given for those who wish to know more about moths from a specific region of interest.

A fascinating book that looks at the mathematics behind the operation of AM, FM and Single-Sideband radios to show how they work as transmitters and receivers. The book also goes through the history of such radios, from curiosities to hobbyists, to commercialisation and public broadcasting of radio channels and the creation of commercial radio shows.

Starting with the mathematics behind electronic components like resistors, inductors and capacitors, diodes, triodes, oscillators, amplifiers and so on, the author then uses mathematical identities and techniques (like the Fourier transform) to show how combinations of electronic components can be used to modulate an oscillating signal in various ways to produce an AM or FM signal. This modulated signal can then be received by a demodulator to extract back a representation of the information on the modulated signal.

The explanation for Single-Sideband Radio was interesting, as it is a topic mentioned during my engineering course but never fully explained. Here, the author first shows a brute-force method for a Single-Sideband Radio (using filters to remove a sideband) before showing other, more elegant techniques (using an 'all-pass' filter) for generating and receiving a Single-Sideband Radio signal. One interesting aspect here, that pops out of the mathematics, is that the receiver actually receives a 'scrambled' signal, where the phase components of the signal are shifted by different amounts depending on the original frequency. In practice, this phase shifting does not matter, as the human ear is able to compensate for it and still able to hear the signal.

While looking at the mathematics behind the various radios, the author also goes through the history of AM and FM radio. It starts with 'spark-gap' radios and crystal radios, which were sensitive and hard to operate and only appealed to hobbyist. The vacuum tube would herald the age of commercial radio, making radio receivers much easier to operate.

While the appeal of radio may now be less, due to the internet, it was an important technology that helped spread news and entertainment to the world, and it is good to have a book that shows how radios work mathematically, even if the actual components used to implement a radio now would be different from those used in the past.

A marvellous compendium of the wonderful lifeforms that can be found around the world. You can choose to read the book from cover or cover, dip into it randomly or by section, or search through the index for specific details. Either way, you'll discover fascinating facts and stories that will entertain you.

The book is divided into several sections, each covering a specific environment: forest, grasslands, mountains, deserts, water, cities and island. Each section contains descriptions and stories about many organisms, each one taking up about a page. Areas with interesting environments are also presented. In Atlas Obscura style, each description ends with brief information on how to see the organism or visit the area, if possible. The book also features many wonderful images, and occasional drawings, of the organisms and areas visited.

Definitely a wonderful, and concise, guide to some of the natural wonders that can be found in the world.

An exciting second part in the series. Abeni and her spirit friends continue their journey to find help to fight the Witch Priest, who is determined to conquer the world. But their journey is interrupted when they stumble into the Kingdom of the Gold Weavers, and have to go on a quest to save them from the Witch Priest.

The quest would start off with enmity between Abeni and the haughty princess of the Kingdom who joins them. But when both Abeni and the princess both lose something precious, their relationship would change and by the end, they would all realise that they need to help one another if they are to save the Gold Weavers and thwart the plans of the Witch Priest. But the Witch Priest has his own plans, one that would involve his adopted daughter hunting for Abeni and helping him to take control of the Gold Weavers.

While the first book was more of a tale of discovery for Abeni, this one is more of a usual quest-adventure for her, learning more about the world, making new friends and discovering that she may have to fulfil a destiny: but that will have to wait for another book, as saving the Gold Weavers is the main plot driving this story.

A good issue, with some excellent stories. The ones I especially enjoyed are by Sheri Singerling, Louis Inglis Hall, Koji A. Dae and Robert Falco.

• "Abstraction Is When I Design Giant Death Creatures and Attraction Is When I Do It for You" by Claire Jia-Wen: a designer who creates monsters that are bought to life to do battle with mecha-warriors is in a relationship with one of the warriors. That relationship gets strained when the designer's sister hacks his system to stop him doing what she considers cruelty.

• "Wireworks" by Sheri Singerling: a thoughtful story of a girl who is deep in grief over the death of her mother. One day, she meets a sentient robot who offers to help her get over her grief with the help of a neural chip. But is the cure worth the girl losing some of her emotional attachment with her mother.

• "Four People I Need You to Kill Before the Dance Begins" by Louis Inglis Hall: the story of a being who only lives for weeks, and is created to entertain the rulers of a wintry kingdom by dancing for them. As we learn more about the creature and other like it, we begin to understand their resentment for the situation and their desire to kill their creators to get freedom not for themselves, but for a future generation of creatures born after them.

• "Aperture" by Alexander Jablokov: a person helping to rehabilitate an abandoned asteroid discovers that his keeps encountering obstructions during his work and after that keep him from being on time at social events.

• "The Fury of the Glowmen" by David McGillveray: an advanced military AI is locked-down and destroyed. But that is only the start of the troubles that being to engulf the world, in the form of glowing men.

• "Five Impossible Things" by Koji A. Dae: an elderly person has a chance to live a 'better' life in a virtual environment. But to do so, she has to believe in the virtual world, a task made harder when she keeps making lists of the impossible things that happen in the virtual world.

• "A World of Their Own" by Robert Falco: on an Earth long abandoned by humans, the robots left behind try to help and rescue newly emerging synthetic organisms as a storm rages around them.

A fascinating follow-up that reveals more about the biology of the alien world, and how it can interact and interface with the biology of humans in unexpected ways.

In the first book, Handry gets 'Severed', resulting in his biology reverting to the original state and become unable to interact with the biology on the alien world. He now leads a group of similarly Severed people, and they have come to an accommodation with the villages of people altered to live with the alien planet's biology. But one village still fear the Severed, and it sends out a Champion to challenge and drive away the Severed.

But the Champion is the least of Handry's problems when they discover a bigger threat that has destroyed one village and is threatening another. Handry, his group and the Champion have to discover the threat that the new danger poses; a danger that the reader may be able to guess based on the interludes in the story that looks at the attempts of a group from the first colonist to try to live with the alien biology.

In the end, they all learn a little more about living together on the alien world and maybe discover not to fear each other so much.

A long but interesting history on the period known as the Renaissance, when many of the things that make up modern society, from science to humanism, came out of nowhere: of course not. As the author (a historian and fantasy writer) shows, many of the things and ways of thinking that came out of the Renaissance build on what people did in the Middle Ages (no longer the Dark Ages). These changes would continue into the Enlightenment, and then into the modern world.

The book starts by looking at one particular place: Florence. In an era where most places were ruled by royalty, Florence stood out by being a republic, officially ruled by 'elected' people. But even then, this was no modern democracy: only the elite of the elite could be elected and even then, they were subjects of patronage to various wealthy families, most notably the House of Medici, who 'called the shots' when it came to making (or gaming) the rules to their advantage.

But Florence is only a city, and can be conquered by rival cities or countries. One way to counter this was to make Florence indispensable, by promoting ancient studies and the arts and spreading them far and wide. Other rulers began to accept that acquiring culture and learning from Florence were 'better' ways of showing they were superior to their betters. This gave Florence influence and access to the 'great powers', gaining protecting in return.

The author then shows us the lives of various people during the Renaissance period, mostly from Florence, to give us a view of what life was like for elites (written history usually focus on the elites, few on the peasants) at the time. And life at that time was rough and full of intrigue and conflict. We see the rise and fall of the Medicis and the influence of Florence, and parts of the 'Great Game' as France, the Popes in Rome, the various city states of Italy (Venice, etc.) strive to gain control of Italy and of Europe.

In all of these struggles, the idea that 'there has to be a better way' starts to gain strength and are covered in a section that covers one of the most 'notorious' people in the Renaissance period: Niccolò Machiavelli. His writings on how rulers should rule would lead to modern Political Science. But at the time, his writings were a struggle to understand what the rulers of his time were doing to gain an advantage over others and what could be done to raise the condition of humanity as a whole.

The final section looks at just what the Renaissance really put forth: a lot of questions that need answers. These questions would gradually overturn the idea that ancient authority was always right, and that ideas need to be tested by questioning them and comparing them with evidence. This would lead to the idea of Progress.

Here, the author looks at current times and shows that the idea of Progress as a way to improve humanity is still a work in progress. Technological and social changes have improved mankind but also caused problems (like colonialism and racism). While much has changed, much still has to be done using concepts that rose during the Renaissance. And the author is optimistic that the future will get better, given time.

A fascinating book about Tor (The Onion Routing), starting with its origins in the American military establishment, to its current day usage as a means to anonymously connect to sites over the internet or to covertly 'leak' information. The book doesn't talk much about the technology used in Tor, but concentrates on the organisations and people who developed Tor, manage it and use it. They are the ones who will determine the future of Tor.

The book starts by looking at the Internet and the question of how to anonymously transfer data. In theory, anybody could monitor links at one or more internet service providers and determine who is sending data to whom. This was of concern to the US military, who wanted a way for overseas personnel to send data without other parties being aware of it. There were several solutions proposed, but the one they choose was 'Onion Routing'. In Onion Routing, encrypted data was sent to an entry relay, which passes the data to another relay, which then sends the data to an exit relay and onwards to the destination. Each relay only knows how to pass on the data to the next relay.

If just one person was using Onion Routing, the route would be obvious. But the military envisioned Onion Routing being used by the public. Military traffic would then be mixed in with this traffic, making it much harder to determine which packets of data are being sent by whom. Entities monitoring only the entry or exit points would only know who is using it, but not why. Of course, a 'global entity' could monitor everything, but this can not considered possible at the time (the mid 1990s). This would, of course, change in later years.

Since the military needed the public to use Onion Routing, they had to recruit technologists to 'sell the technology' to their groups. This group of people would be the security hackers and 'technology libertarians / anarchists' of that period, who saw how internet technology was being monitored (or subverted) by the government, and had an idealised vision of the technology being 'free' from government intervention or censorship. From this strange grouping of people (those who want to control the internet and those who want it to be 'free'), Tor was born.

As Tor usage grew, usability would become an issue. The creation of the Tor Browser would provide users with a 'one click' solution to use Tor, helping it to grow in popularity. This would lead to 'The Dark Web', a set of hidden (Tor) services for illegal activities like pornography or drugs. While headlines at the time might lead people to believe most of the Dark Web is Tor based, in reality such transactions are mostly done (protected by encryption) using the standard internet. What Tor did allow was anonymous transactions to be created, leading to a growth in the use of cryptocurrencies for anomymous payment, and for the dumping of information on sites like WikiLeaks.

Later on, another group of people would start to use Tor: the activist, agitating for action and using Tor as a way to hide their activities from organisations that want to stop them. Leaks at the time would also show some governments were trying to achive a 'global view' of the internet by gathering vast amounts of data from numerous providers, causing a change in Tor to counteract such measures.

Which brings us to the present. While Tor is used and does its job, it is still not very widely used, and associated with the Dark Web in the eyes of the public. Tor was initially funded by the military, but now looks to funding from various non-governmental groups and organised in a way to ensure no one person can exert undue influence on it.

In closing, the book argues that Tor is still looking for a 'killer app' that would bring about wider usage of Tor, and help the general public to secure privacy in their communications from governments that seem to want to accumulate more ways to observe when people are doing on the internet.