Reviews and Comments

A fascinating travelogue by the author as he goes around Southeast Asia looking for a remarkable group of plants: genus Rafflesia.

Rafflesia is a parasitic plant that only grows inside a group of vines, drawing nourishment from its host. But when it blooms, it produces the largest flower in the world, up to a metre across, and emits a smell of decay to attract its pollinators, mainly flies. The author has been fascinated by Rafflesia since childhood, and this journey will give him the opportunity to see various species of Rafflesia in the wild.

But the journey would not be easy. The author would journey through the Philippines and Indonesia with his local guides, consulting local tribes who know the forest. This knowledge is vital, for Rafflesia only blooms for a short while, and the author is initially frustrated, finding only unopened or already decaying flowers. But eventually the searches pay off, and they get to see (and smell) Rafflesia in full bloom.

In between the journeys, the author gives various biology lessons on Rafflesia and other plants he has searched for and seen. One part looks at efforts to try to propagate Rafflesia by human means (their seeds cannot be preserved and grown) by grafting them on to new vines. So far, only one person has managed to do this and the author visits him to try to learn how to do it.

During the journey, the author also describes various other plants seen during their journeys (some plant families mentioned in the book are familiar to me). But he also laments the destruction of the forests that he sees as he goes from place to place: at one point, he describes a whole group of brown hills in the Philippines, complete denuded of forests.

But he ends the book on a hopeful note as he talks to local people dedicated to protecting their forests and, possibly, help him keep Rafflesia and other plants alive.

Another fascinating book set in the author's Celestial Kingdom universe, involving a different cast of characters, but involving a romance between two characters originally at odds, until the plot twists show them to be intimately involved with one another.

Liyen is mortal, and becomes ruler of Tianxia (a kingdom cut off from the rest of the mortal world) when her grandfather dies during a confrontation with the Immortals. Her grandfather passed to her a gift that was meant for the Immortals; hiding it while trying to learn more from the Immortals in the hope of gaining freedom for her kingdom is the focus of the first part of the novel. But she is distracted by the Immortals' God of War, Zhangwei, whom she feels a strange attraction for.

An enemy attack during her trip to the palace of the Immortals' raises the stakes, as she feels betrayed by the Immortals by their actions prior to the attack. Yet she has no choice but to depend on the aid of the God of War to help her protect her kingdom until they discover more about the enemy's plans, or how they have escaped from the Netherworld, where they had been confined during a previous war that had involved Tianxia.

When the enemy attacks again, using magic to cut-off Tianxia from the Immortals, Liyen ends up in the Netherworld. And there, the plot twists begin, as she finds out more about her past relationship with the God of War and about the previous war. Now, she is offered two visions of a future where she emerges victorious; but in both, her kingdom ends up in ruins. Determined to avoid this, Liyen must find another path before the enemy breaks out of the Netherworld and rises again to challenge the Immortals.

Like the author's previous stories, this one features strong characters involved in a romantic relationship, while ending up in a conflict that both would rather resolve in peaceful ways. Liyen here is mortal with few of the magical powers of the Immortals, yet she feels a strong responsibility towards her kingdom and strives to find a way to protect her people and others, even if it would saddle her with hard decisions.

A book that starts somewhat slowly with the relationship between her and the God of War, but quickly picks up steam once that stakes for Liyen start to rise.

A clever story by the author that starts off like a fantasy (a rural setting with ghostly authoritatian figures) but turns out to be rooted in SF once the various elements of the tale fall into place. The story starts with Handry getting into an accident that causes him to become an Outcast. But being an outcast means more than just being expelled from the village he has lived all his life; it also means he has a lot of trouble eating food that he used to eat, and even the animals reject him for smelling different.

As he wanders from village to village, stealing clothes and the little food he can eat, he ends up in a 'city' (basically a large village) that has a job for outcasts like him and is willing to pay for it with food that he can eat. At the end of the task, he gets selected by a messianic-like outcast figure who leads him to a place that is literally from another world: a place where he can feel at home. He also learns about the history of how humans came to the planet and how they had to adapt themselves to live on what the world can provide. But in adapting, the humans have forgotten how to lead and now only follow the advice of computerised and ghostly Expert Systems (not a spoiler, as it's in the title).

A crisis develops when someone close to Handry is captured and the messianic figure reveals his plan that could devastate the villages but allow the outcasts to have their revenge. Now, Handry and the expert systems that are still running have to figure out a new way to work with the villages to give themselves a chance to improve their lives.

An interesting issue, with good stories by Samantha Murray, Gordon Li, Zhang Ran and Thomas Ha.

• "Through These Moments, Darkly" by Samantha Murray: the story of a man whose relationship with a woman turns dark when she vanishes. But how she vanished is a mystery; a mystery that may have to do with a dark matter universe that she, a physicist, thinks may be opening portals for animals (and people) to go through.

• "The Seed" by Sheri Singerling: on a watery world, an ancient device is discovered from the deep. Based on her grandmother's words, one woman thinks it is evil and tries to cast it back into the sea. But the device has other plans, and perhaps it can convince the woman to see the world differently.

• "Aegiopolis Testudo" by Gordon Li: on a world where country sized 'turtles' wander, one person, part of a research team on one of the turtles, wonders whether he is a 'parasite' on the turtle, using it for his and the company's business (research and tourism). Then an unexpected event makes him rethink his role on the turtle.

• "Still Water" by Zhang Ran, translated by Andy Dudak: a thoughtful story of a mother who wants to let her child live a life, after he is diagnosed with early onset ALS. Via two story threads, one on the mother, the other on the child, we see them live out their lives after he is apparently cured. But it is only at the end do the two threads merge, and we see the lives that they have both lived together.

• "Symbiotic" by Carolyn Zhao: a pair of explorers, neurally linked together, explore a sunken ship, only for one of them to encounter an underwater creature that also has a symbiotic link with another organism.

• "In My Country" by Thomas Ha: a man talks about how things are done in his country; how thoughts and words have to have clear meanings with no chance of re-interpretation. So how is he to deal with his son, whose stories invite reinterpretation and possible insinuations about the leader of his country?

• "An Even Greater Cold to Come" by Rich Larson: two young daughters hide in the woods with their mother from hunters. It is only towards the end, when the hunters close in, does the strange nature of their mother and her unborn son would have on the world is violently revealed.

These are works that finished in the top slots in each category of the 39th Annual Readers’ Award Poll, covering the 2024 issues of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. Overall, the stories are enjoyable, with good stories by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Greg Egan, Peter Wood, Sean McMullen, Naomi Kritzer, James Van Pelt, James Maxey and Jeffrey Ford.

Best Novellas

• "Death Benefits" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (November/December 2024): a series of short vignettes, with one main story, set in a time of conflict, when people are struggling to come to terms with the deaths of their loved ones, and struggle with their emotions as they receive their death benefits. In the main story, one person is convinced that her loved one is still alive, and only an investigator can discover the truth.

• "Death and the Gorgon" by Greg Egan (January/February 2024): a cave collapse kills a guard and causes the frozen heads of a cryogenic company to thaw. The investigation, involving an AI software Sherlock, would lead to a group with extreme longtermism ambitions, with short-sighted ways to achieve their goals. But it would also lead to doubts about the use of AI software as an investigative aid when its suggestions could cause an investigator to take deadly risks.

• "Proof of Concept" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (January/February 2024): an investigator on a spaceship is called to the scene of a murder. What she discovers will turn out to be more than just a murder, involving family abuse, over dependency on ship systems and a proof of concept attack that may affect other ships.

• "Une Time Machine S’il Vous Plait" by Peter Wood (March/April 2024): four people take a ride in a rocket powered by tachyons. Then, a malfunction sends their minds back into the past, where they now have an opportunity to change the future. One is an actress in a Canadian Star Trek-like show who wants to change the depiction and role of women in the show; the other is the star of the show (the Captain) who only wants things to remain the same. The other two are siblings who will now struggle to control their family's restaurant business. Who will change the future, and will it be for the better?

• "Wildest Skies" bySean Monaghan (November/December 2024): a disaster strands one member of a space exploration crew on an alien planet. Rescue comes in the form on aliens with a different way of communicating. But a subsequent exploration of the local area would reveal how the disaster happened, and how it is related to a series of unusual sculptures found in the area.

Best Novelettes

• "After the Winter Solstice" by Sean McMullen (January/February 2024): on another planet falling into deep winter, a group of explorers strives to make measurements of their distant sun. But to get the measurements will take courage, and some deceit among the explorers.

• "Charon’s Final Passenger" by Ray Nayler (March/April 2024): in an alternate history, alien technology allows the Allies to defeat Nazi Germany and push back the Soviet Union. Now, a person must search the recent memories of a dead person to discover if secrets have been passed to the Russians.

• "The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea" by Naomi Kritzer (September/October 2024): a married academic family moves to a small town. There, she discovers a beach and a group of seals that she is startled to discover were the ones she was doing research on years ago, but then lost her data on them. Struggling to gain some academic recognition while editing her husband's research paper, she opens up to the locals in the town and learns about the town's unusual history and founding myth involving selkies. Then, she makes a discovery that would upend her relationship with her husband; resolving it may involve the intervention of unusual forces.

• "The Rattler" by Leonid Kaganov, translated by Alex Shvartsman (May/June 2024): a TV crew attempt to make a live broadcast about an alien known as the Rattler, which can apparently (and semi randomly) kill people anywhere in the world at the rate of one person a second. It is only when they interview a mathematician, do they get an apparently rational explanation for its behaviour and what must be done to stop it. But it would require a collective (cowardly) action.

• "This Good Lesson Keep" by James Van Pelt (July/August 2024): a fascinating look at a future where a teacher initially struggles to keep her students interested while they are distracted by their own gadgets. Then she leads the class into staging their own version of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" and the class not only discovers a fascinating for the play, the play itself becomes part of a drama between two students who want to be together, but are being kept apart from parental pressure.

Best Short Stories

• "A Gray Magic" by Ray Nayler (September/October 2024): a woman faces death while feeling alone. Then, a gadget offers her advice that's makes her re-evaluate her thoughts on what to do in the time remaining.

• "An Unplanned Hold" by Zohar Jacobs (September/October 2024): the ghost of a man continues to haunt a space control centre, unnoticed. As the years past, and a new moon landing is in progress, the ghost sees a problem. Perhaps solving the problem is its final task.

• "Mere Flesh" by James Maxey (November/December 2024): one person is preparing for the launch of an AI assistant that can help and guide people with dementia to remember things and perform actions. But things might be getting out of hand when the person's father does unexpected things, guided by the AI. When one very unexpected thing occurs, the person must decide whether the AI may have 'taken over' his father's body for its own ends.

• "Sunsets" by Lavie Tidhar (March/April 2024): a person from Mars visits Earth, hoping to find a sunset that will help her deal with the pain of losing her companion on Mars.

• "The Adherence" by Jeffrey Ford (January/February 2024): a man meets an old friend, and they reminisce about their past. The man lost his wife when she turned to dust, a 'side effect' from being surrounded by too many cheap imitation furniture and objects from one company. Then he discovers that there may be a way he can bring her back, but it may not be in the form that he expects.

An interesting collecting of stories from an interesting writer. Not all the stories are to my taste (which is more into Worldbuilding and Hard SFF) but they reveal the concerns the author has with society's interaction with the LGBT community.

What follows are individual reviews of the stories in the collection.

• As Good As New: the world has ended, apart from one person. In the aftermath, she finds a genie in a bottle who can grant her three wishes, including the wish to restore the world. But an off-hand comment by the genie makes her pause: so while thinking about the wishes, she has conversations with the genie, which turned out to be a former play critic. This suits her fine, as she is a former writer of plays (now studying to be a doctor). In the course of the conversations, she gets an idea for a new play and, in the process, come up with three wishes that may just save the world.

• Rat Catcher’s Yellow: a woman gets a Cat Kingdom game for her partner, who is suffering for a neurological disease (Rat Catcher’s Yellow) and is only responsive when playing the game. And it turns out the partner is very good at the game, to the point where an organisation asks them to join a competition. And it is at the competition that the woman discovers that she doesn't have to be alone in taking care of others with the affliction.

• If You Take my Meaning: a follow-up to a book by the author (who suggests skipping the story to avoid spoilers), it concerns a girl who goes on a journey to get alien tendrils embedded into her. The tendrils enable a person to send and get emotional messages from others, and she wants to use it to send political messages. But it is only after the surgery does she realise that she has another mission to fulfil.

• The Time Travel Club: a club of people who talk about their fictional time-travels is shown a real time-travelling machine. Problem is, the machine moves objects only through time and not space, so it ends up somewhere else (since the Earth has moved). Close to giving up after other plans to use the time machine fail, one girl convinces the group to try one more time to make the machine work. The end result should be expected to those who know what happens to people to make the first time travel journey.

• Six Months, Three Days: a man who can see the future dates a girl who can see alternate futures. Their lives together for six months and three days would be full of love and conflicts over what kind of future can they have when one expects events to always happen while the other sees alternative events that can happen.

• Love Might Be Too Strong a Word: a on city sized ship heading to a colony world, a 'higher' level pilot falls in love with a 'lowly' general cleaner and sets out to woo the cleaner. In between the romantic letters being sent, we see a ship where genders have been split between different types of city inhabitants (the gender for the pilot is 'Be') making you wonder how such trysts are seen and handled by the ship's inhabitants.

• Fairy Werewolf vs. Vampire Zombie: a 'wild' story mostly set in a bar that hires a fairy singer before discovering the fairy is also a werewolf. Her singing makes a person falls for her: a person who later is found to be a vampire and a zombie and has designs on her. The only way out is, via a spur of the moment thought, a karaoke contest. But that doesn't go as planned, leading to general mayhem.

• Ghost Champagne: a depressive project manager, who also moonlights as a comedian, sees a ghost that looks like her. Her thoughts on the ghost, and wondering what she did to become one, only make the ghost appear closer to her and become more of a mental and physical distraction. Until one day, at a wedding, she 'steals' the drink the ghost is holding. The effects would cause a re-evaluation of her mental condition and to see things from the ghost's perspective that would change her own life.

• My Breath is a Rudder: in a future San Francisco, now protected by a sea wall against the sea, an artist is contemplating the mural she has been asked to create on a section of the wall, to help remind the inhabitants about the ocean they can no longer see and the danger it represents.

• Power Couple: a couple who want to Change the World start a relationship, but it gets interrupted by their studies. Then, the girl gets an idea on how to delay their relationship until they have done their work, which involves hibernation. You have to read the story to see how this idea for delayed gratification turns out.

• Rock Manning Goes For Broke: a hilarious story set in a future America whose society is crumbling. Rock Manning is a well-meaning person who loves to do stunts and gets involved with a girl doing film studies, which means lots of short meme-type films will no storyline but lots of dangerous stunts, distracting people as the world slowly goes to bits. But things get serious when a school bully becomes a big-time bully and tries to enlist him into making films for him to gain support; or else. And we follow their lives, we see a country tearing itself apart.

• Because Change Was The Ocean and We Lived by Her Mercy: in the future, when climate change has raise sea levels by metres, society is slowly rebuilding itself. We follow a person as he leaves a city which he feels is becoming too civilised and moves to a fringe town to lead his own life. But the call of civilisation is strong.

• Captain Roger in Heaven: one woman meets another; to keep her interested, she invents a sex prophet on the spot. This snowballs into a popular cult that is picketed by other religions, claiming that the sex cultist are going to (of course) Hell. Then, a device reveals where people go after death, and now the cult will have to invent a kind of heaven for themselves to go to.

• Clover: a cat abandoned by a girl is given to a couple by a mysterious person. After the cat settles in, another stranger gives them another cat. The first cat is not happy with this. But then the second cat does something unexpected, and now it is up to the one member of the couple and the first cat to do all they can to protect her from the strangers.

• This is Why We Can’t Have Nasty Things: two friends get together for the last time at a bar that is closing down, with one of them contemplating moving away.

• A Temporary Embarrassment in Spacetime: a hilarious story of two people who engineer a heist from a large space organism. They then discover a stowaway, and offer to infiltrate a planet to find out information about a weapon, in return for being able to open a restaurant (their dream). Events would bring the organism and weapon together in a rather embarrassing climax.

• Don’t Press Charges, and I Won’t Sue: a disturbing story about a person who is abducted by the government to undergo a rather radical gender change treatment to give the person the expected 'body' type to match the gender. Further tension is raised in the story when one of the administrators of the treatment is a long-time friend who is now in two-minds over the treatment.

• The Bookstore At The End of America: a bookshop on the border between an independent California and the rest of the US is a meeting point for people on both sides. But a crisis between the countries forces people to shelter in the shop, and now they have to manage their tensions in the only was possible in a bookshop while waiting for the conflict to end.

• The Visitmothers: aliens grant 'wishes' to certain people who seek them. But like genies, you have to be careful what you wish for. One girl who wishes not be alone any more gets her wish answered in a most unusual way.

An interesting story of a two characters on opposite sides of a war fought through time. It begins with Red finding a letter with the words, "Burn before reading," which turns out to be from her adversary, Blue, who teases and challenges her before their next encounter. This time war is fought between two forces, Agency and Garden, who move agents (like Red and Blue) through time to tease and alter events so that, far in the future, victory is theirs.

Each chapter features an event as seen by Red or Blue, in alternate, with a hidden letter discovered by one or the other once victory (or defeat) is tasted by one or the other. But after a few rounds, the tone of the story changes, as both Red and Blue start to talk about their past, and their lives during the war. Then, events happen that show that at some time in the past, their lives have intersected with each other, thought they may not be aware of it at the time. It is then that romance and love being to blossom between the adversaries, an affair that both have to keep hidden from their masters.

At the end, as adversaries, one is given the task of killing the other, with not way out without betraying the other. Yet, there may be a way, and it may involve a shadowy character that has been following their steps, but not revealed until the end of the book.

A short but nice book on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), covering its history from conception to launch and commissioning, followed by chapters that look at how the JWST has changed the way we look at the solar system, the stars, the galaxies in the universe and how the universe began.

Starting as a planned next generation telescope after the Hubble Space Telescope, the first chapters cover the various ideas that were discussed over what astronomers want the new telescope to do. Politics and budget considerations would cause changes in the design and management of the telescope. Finally, after numerous delays and near cancellation, the JWST was launched, deployed successfully and began to return data that was better than expected.

The next chapter looks at JWST's contributions to planetary science. At one point, the JWST was not planned to do much observation in the solar system as it lacked a tracker to lock on to moving objects in the solar system. This was overcome by using an alternative method that proved to work better than expected: when the DART probe collided with Dimorphos (a moon orbiting the asteroid Didymos), JWST was able to track it and provided valuable data on the result of the collision. JWST was also able to provide spectroscopic data on the planets and their moons, helping to determine what elements and chemistry was happening on them.

Next, a look at what JWST can say about the nearby stars is covered. The JWST is able to detect exoplanets orbiting the stars by various methods, and even do spectroscopic analysis of the exoplanets' atmosphere. While tantalising signs of potential biochemistry have been detected, none have yet to meet the high standard (5 sigma) that mark a discovery.

Going further, the next chapter looks at the galaxies that dot the universe as seen by the JWST. Details on the evolution of stars and galaxies have helped cosmologist get a better idea of how galaxies have evolved throughout the universe.

Finally, the JWST looks past the galaxies and back in time to the period when the universe was still young. Where there have been headlines about "JWST breaking the cosmos", what JWST has actually done is provide even more data that are helping cosmologist refine their models of the cosmos, helping to give us a better picture of how the universe works.

A wonderful collection of three novels of a "China that never was", featuring the narrator, Number Ten Ox, and Li Kao, an ancient sage and scholar with "a slight flaw in his character". Originally published in the 80s and 90s, this reread still finds the stories enjoyable, humorous and full of wonderful myths and details.

The first book, "Bridge of Birds", is the most enjoyable and introduces us to Number Ten Ox. His village is preparing for a large silk harvest, when disaster strikes. Worse, the children in his village (of a certain age) are struck down with a sickness. Ox is tasked with going to Peking to find a scholar who can figure out what happened and how to cure the children. The person Ox eventually finds is an inebriated Li Kao, which turns out to be the only one willing to listen to Ox and help. From there, the story builds up and gradually turns into a quest to find the Great Root of Power which may be able to cure the children. But this quest is also wound tied up with another quest: the search for the Princess of Birds, for both are part of the same story. Through lots of hilarious twists and turns, and strange coincidences that makes Li Kao wonder if Heaven is also involved, they travel the length and breath of China and finally get a triumphant ending that makes all of China celebrate.

The second book, "The Story of the Stone", is at a smaller scale. The abbot of a village in a valley seeks out Li Kao to investigate the murder of a monk, which the abbot fears may be the work of the Laughing Prince, a historical ruler of the valley that once worked and tortured the villagers for his own gains and amusement. During the investigation, Ox hears a compelling tone (that Li Kao does not hear due to his 'slight flaw'), which Li Kao later deduces is the 'soul sound' of a stone. But the stone that produced the sound that Ox (and other villagers) heard and followed would need an especially powerful 'soul', which Li Kao finds referenced in an ancient tale about a stone that was touched by a Goddess. The story of this particular stone would become linked to the murder when further investigations (including a subconscious trip to Hell) show how that ancient tale is not yet over, but could well cause the deaths of all involved, unless they can separate fact from legend and uncover the reason for the murder of the monk.

The third book, "Eight Skilled Gentlemen", starts with a "vampire ghoul" interrupting an execution. But from there, it builds up into a tale involving "Eight Skilled Gentlemen" and eight special bird cages that arise from the myths of pre-Chinese aboriginal peoples. For some reason, food (cooking and preparation of) plays a large humorous part in the story. The ending would involve a race that would determine whether Heaven would turn its back on Earth, unleashing a calamity.

An interesting issue, with good stories by Ryan Cole, Anna Burdenko, Yukimi Ogawa and Koji A. Dae.

• "From Enceladus, with Love" by Ryan Cole: a spaceship on its way to Enceladus has two stowaways: one is a girl, hoping to reunite with her mother there, while the other is a new 'intelligence' that wants to play games with her. A crisis emerges when the stowaway is found and the intelligence wants her back.

• "Pollen" by Anna Burdenko, translated by Alex Shvartsman: on a new planet, one girl attempts to survive while waiting for rescue. For while the planet is suitable for human life, it has one lifeform that produces hallucinogenic pollen as a way to attract prey. The tricky thing is for the girl (and the reader) to distinguish between what is real and what is just a trick of the mind while waiting.

• "Mindtrips" by Tlotlo Tsamaase: a woman with emotional problems is required to take pills that open up her internal mental states in an attempt to get her to confront her inner demons. But the people giving her the pills may have another reason for doing so, related to a murder investigation.

• "Those Uncaring Waves" by Yukimi Ogawa: a curious story about artists on an island who have the ability to 'paint' patterns on people, and through those patterns and the ink used, influence the body. One day, the artist discovers her paint is not as she expected. Tracing the source of the contamination would lead her to a woman with mental problems and even stranger body problems. Resolving the woman's problems would lead her to another person who has a secret related to the use of patterns and government attempts to change society.

• "Hook and Line" by Koji A. Dae: on a generation ship in space, one of the few remaining spiritualist struggle to pass on her ability to connect with the spirits of those left behind on Earth. In the end, a compromise would be reached between her and the people on the ship who now know little of Earth.

• "The Sound of the Star" by Ren Zeyu, translated by Jay Zhang: a visitor travels to many worlds, encountering strange sound scapes.

• "Funerary Habits of Low Entropy Entities" by Damián Neri: on the many ways death is honoured; from a planet with cicada-like forms to a concious photon.

A story based on an East Asian mythology about the Red Thread of Fate, it involves Sai, a poor man running a teahouse with his ailing mother. He has the ability to see people's Red Threads of Fate and, as a side business, he helps and guides people to find their Fated One, who is at the other end of the thread. But a mystery surrounds Sai, for his own Thread is not red, but grey and fraying: and he has never sought out his own Fated One.

But one day, he buys what are purported to be dragon scales, a miracle cure. The scales come to the attention of the cruel Emperor, who orders Sai to find the dragon, or else. His search would take him through a battle, where his thread would suddenly react in an unusual way.

He would, of course, find the dragon. But the search would also lead him to discover his Fated One, and go on a journey to escape the Emperor. He would also discover the reason behind his grey Thread, a reason that dismays him. But it is during the final confrontation with the Emperor that Sai discovers who he really is, and the reason for the Emperor's hunt for dragons.

A story in the Fantasy-Romance vein, but laced with scenes of violence (as warned by the author at the beginning) that show off the cruelty of the Emperor, but also the desperation of Sai and the dragon to escape. In the end, they do escape the Emperor, but not before suffering high emotional anguish, which makes the impact of the ending even more fitting.