Reviews and Comments

An average issue of F&SF, with interesting stories by Stefan Slater, Prashanth Srivatsa, Madalena Daleziou, David D. Levine, Dane Kuttler and Robert Reed.

• “Cowboy Ghost Dads Always Break Your Heart” by Stefan Slater: a lovely tale of a boy with a ghost for a dad. The boy goes through life, half unseen by others. But it is only after he goes to find his ghost dad does he discover that life has much to offer, even to those who are half ghost.

• “A Creation of Birds” by Teegan Moore: in a strange afterlife, a woman is accompanied by a bird as she explores her new world. But she is often called back to her previous life by emotional memories with her mother. In the end, she, the bird and her emotions over things left under in her life would combine to give her some closure and acceptance of her new circumstances.

• “Floating on the Stream that Brings from the Fount” by Prashanth Srivatsa: a fascinating story set in a space empire where stories fuel an Engine to generate the fuel needed for interstellar travel. But the stories are running out, unless a small group of explorers can find a legendary source of stories. As it turns out, some of the explorers would find themselves playing a part in the stories they find.

• “The Past Is a Dream (The Launch of a Blacktopia)” by Maurice Broaddus: a story set as a series of interviews and recordings of the efforts of Ghana to set up and launch its own spaceships in a rather African way.

• “To Give Moon Milk to a Lover” by Madalena Daleziou: an unusual fantasy story of a girl who likes to make cutouts of the moon and a witch who can call down the moon to extract milk from it. Over the years, the girl is troubled over her relationships with other people, but perhaps the moon milk may help her.

• “The Bucket Shop Job” by David D. Levine: a man stuck on Titan at a mining job gets the chance to join a team hoping to steal some valuable indenture contracts. In the end, it is up to him to decide what to do with the valuables when he gets the chance to scam the team himself.

• “Oracle” by Morgan L. Ventura: a short short about a visit to an oracle in the ruins.

• “Off the Map” by Dane Kuttler: a family with many problems is given a chance to start life anew in a new community. At first, it all seems well. Then a storm blows away the disguise. But the family, and their new friends, would be undaunted by the challenges.

• “Persephone’s Children” by C. B. Channell: based on the Greek myths, this story has Persephone and two of her children, Melinoe and Zagreus / Dionysus, meeting together. But it goes wrong when Dionysus tempts them with his drink, causing horrors to be unleashed on the world.

• “Best, Last, Only” by Robert Reed: set part of Reed's "Great Ship" stories, this one tells the story of one particular alien who calls themselves the Best (because they are the best alien species) who are on their way to colonize a new world. Via interactions with some of the immortal humans on the Great Ship (which is travelling through the Milky Way Galaxy), we learn more about the way of life of the alien which evolves around their more gruesome way to get food and the changes that occur when the alien species is, via negotiations and accident, is reduced to one survivor and its relationship with another human survivor when other events occur during the travels of the Great Ship.

A nice anthology of SF (science fiction) from around the world, showing that SF can encompass viewpoints from around the world and is not solely a western phenomenon or told from the viewpoint of a western person. Stories that I especially enjoyed were by Nadia Afifi, Lavanya Lakshminarayan, Isabel Yap, Saad Z. Hossain, Xing He, Nalo Hopkinson, Pan Haitian, Jacques Barcia, Dilman Dila, Bef, Wole Talabi, William Tham Wai Liang, Usman T. Malik, Julie Novakova, T.L. Huchu, Samit Basu and Neon Yang

• "The Bahrain Underground Bazaar" by Nadia Afifi (Bahrain): an interesting story of an old woman waiting to die from cancer. To pass the time, she visits the Underground Bazaar, to be immersed in the memories of people who have died. But one memory she experiences haunts her, and she must find out more about the person involved. The journey of discovery would change her attitude towards her coming death and her relationship towards her son and daughter-in-law.

• "The Ten-Percent Thief" by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (India): like Robin Hood, the thief wants to rob from the rich, who live in a climate controlled environment, to give to the poor, who survive in what remains of Bangalore. The latest thief would involve not money, but a way to give the poor a glimpse of a better world.

• "At Desk 9501" by Frances Ogamba (Nigeria): one man works in a company that 'saves' people on the verge of death by 'donating' life from the workers. But the man begins to have doubts about his life-saving work when he starts to have dreams about the people he has saved, and those that he couldn't, and the dreams start to bleed over into his reality.

• "Milagroso" by Isabel Yap (The Philippines): in a world where lab-grown food has been apparently perfected and replaced our usual food, one man (who helps produce the lab food) brings his family to a festival in his hometown where a food miracle, caused by a patron saint of food, happens. His reaction to the miracle would cause a conflict in his view that manufactured food is good, and our usual food is bad.

• "Bring Your Own Spoon" by Saad Z. Hossain (Bangladesh): in a future where much of the world's environment is hostile to life, a homeless man and a djinn, woken after a long slumber, dream of opening a 'restaurant' for the less fortunate. At first, their dream comes true as people donate food and other items to be cooked by the man. But then, the dream has to end when the corporations who run what is left of the world take notice.

• "Blue Grey Blue" by Yukimi Ogawa (Japan): in a region selling spectacles for people whose eyes and bodies are coloured, one man, whose eyes can become blue from strong emotions, meets a woman who is interested in his eyes. Only later does he learn the reason for her interest in his eye colour when a drastic colour change happens to his colleague.

• "Your Multicolored Life" by Xing He (China), trans. Andy Dudak: a slave and a revolutionary each escape imprisonment by different sets of machines. They meet and find that a land without run by machines is not to their liking. In the end, they exchange lives to try to live in each other's lands.

• "The Easthound" by Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaica): in a world where becoming an adult turns you into a beast, a group of children survive the best they can. But they are always on the watch for one of their own suddenly changing and, as the story shows, it can happen to anybody at anytime.

• "Dead Man, Awake, Sing to the Sun!" by Pan Haitian (China), trans. Joel Martinsen: in a world where the walking dead are a reality, some of the dead want to take over the world, but others just want to 'live' quiet lives, waiting for a chance to make that final wish that would finally release them into actual death.

• "Salvaging Gods" by Jacques Barcia (Brazil): in a future when everything is disposed of, a little girl finds the remains of a computing god and brings it back to life. The god begins to grant wishes, but as in all such stories, it does not end well.

• "The Next Move" by Edmundo Paz Soldán (Bolivia), trans. Jessica Sequeira: on an alien world, a soldier fighting an insurgency snaps and begins shooting at anybody he sees. The next move to stop him would be up to a senior officer and an armed observer in charge of a high altitude weapon.

• "The Clay Child" by Dilman Dila (Uganda): an unusual story about a living robot that wants to create a child. Its attempts to gather enough material to do so always fails. Eventually, it goes to a tree that legend has it gave rise to the robots and asks it for help. The tree would indeed help to give it a child, but perhaps one that the robot didn't ask for.

• "To Set at Twilight In a Land of Reeds" by Natalia Theodoridou (Greece): in a future where sentient machines do the harvest on a farm, one person visits to perform some repairs. As the story shows, sentience has enabled machines to bond with people and to also experience loss.

• "The Beast Has Died" by Bef (Mexico), trans. Brian L. Price: in an alternate steampunk history, Mexico is under the control of European powers and Pablo Benito Juárez García is in exile and dying. But an audacious plan by rebels may save him and allow him to return to liberate Mexico.

• "Twenty About Robots" by Alberto Chimal (Mexico), trans. Fionn Petch: a series of vignettes about robots that may or may not have existed and how they interacted with each other and with humanity.

• "The Regression Test" by Wole Talabi (Nigeria): an interesting story about a woman bought in to test an AI that is supposed to be a replica of her famous dead mother. Her test method would reveal that something is not right; but can she hold on to that fact when she discovers that she is in a trap set up to make her pass the AI as her mother.

• "Kakak" by William Tham Wai Liang (Malaysia): a story of an android maid who runs away from the employer. As we learn the story of why she ran away, as well as the story of another android servant abused by people, you may start to wonder if perhaps the androids are more human than the abusers.

• "Beyond These Stars Other Tribulations of Love" by Usman T. Malik (Pakistan): a man wants to continue taking care of his elderly mother, even as he goes on an interstellar trip. The solution would be mind-bending and soul stretching.

• "A Flaw In The Works" by Julie Novakova (Czech Republic), trans. by author: a ship at the edge of the solar system is contacted by aliens. How to respond would be one problem the two aboard the ship have to consider: the other is how to hide who they really are and the tragic events that occurred on Earth in the recent past.

• "When We Die On Mars" by Cassandra Khaw (Malaysia): a group prepares to go to Mars to prepare it for colonization. Team members gradually drop out until those that are left are ready for what is to come.

• "The Mighty Slinger" by Karen Lord and Tobias S. Buckell (Barbados/Grenada): in a future where humanity has spread throughout the solar system, a plan is being developed that may involve 'wiping' the surface of the Earth clean for 'redevelopment'. But not if the miners and poorer people of the asteroids and Earth can stop it, with the help of a Caribbean singer known for his lyrics that can move the masses.

• "Corialis" by T.L. Huchu (Zimbabwe): on an alien world, humans survive by integrating the bacteria from the world in their microbiomes. But it is not enough to ensure their survival, unless they also give and not just take from the environment.

• "The Substance of Ideas" by Clelia Farris (Italy), trans. Rachel S. Cordasco: two people in a kibbutz on an alien plant explore a derelict spaceship and discover a form of life that appears to give ideas when consumed. It is only later that result of consuming such ideas may not be for the better.

• "Sleeping Beauties" by Agnieszka Hałas (Poland), trans. by author: a pilot on a spaceship transporting sleeping bodies for a dictatorship looks back on his life. But a tragedy happens on the ship and, in a final twist, it leads to a realization that his choices have been made in vain.

• "Waking Nydra" by Samit Basu (India): a story where the legend of Sleeping Beauty, as retold over the ages, appears to come true in a rescue mission to a space station that was attacked by alien beings.

• "Between The Firmaments" by Neon Yang (Singapore): on a world where gods have been enslaved, and their powers abused by the conquerors, one of the few remaining free gods hides as a labourer. One day, he meets another god and their relationship blossoms in secret. But it would all end when the conquerors need a new god to finish their work. Now the god must decide whether to fight to save his world.

• "Whale Snows Down" by Bo-Young Kim (South Korea), trans. Sophie Bowman: deep sea denizens wonder at what is happening to the world above them when large quantities of food looking like snow start to rain down. Perhaps it is the end of a world?

• "The Gardens of Babylon" by Hassan Blasim (Iraq), trans. Jonathan Wright: a strange, wandering story of a man assigned to translate an old story into an interactive game.

• "The Farctory" by K.A. Teryna (Russia), trans. Alex Shvartsman: in a world slowly being leached of reality, a man searches for answers in the Farctory. But what he finds instead is a race through a made up world to get to the truth of what is happening to the world and what he has to do to be reunited with the one he loves.

An average issue with interesting stories by Gregory Feeley, Cao Baiyu and Natasha King.

• "Symbiosis" by D.A. Xiaolin Spires: in the future, only selected individuals can become pregnant. This particular mother is initially aghast at being selected. But as the pregnancy progresses, she becomes attached to the foetus; perhaps too attached.

• "The Fortunate Isles" by Gregory Feeley: in the far future, an unknown narrator tells the story of a time when humanity has ventured to Neptune and is now preparing to enter its depths in search of places to live.

• "Anais Gets a Turn" by R.T. Ester: a story of a woman who, due to apparent bad luck, loses a contract as a graphics designer and later her job. It then turns out that it may not be bad luck, but the workings of a latent 'world intelligence' that had involved her in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, as explained to her by a worker for a corporation she meets. And now she has a chance to affect what the intelligence may do by being involved in the next interation of that game.

• "Zhuangzi's Dream" by Cao Baiyu, translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu: a man, who would be a famous philosopher in the future, goes to sleep, and we see the fantastic dreams he has. But the last part is the most fantastic, as a butterfly from the future visits and possibly changes the past; or does it?

• "Sharp Undoing" by Natasha King: in a future where information and memories can be transferred by 'slots', killing the slotted person, one such person is pursued and captured by a local gang leader eager for the information being held. Little does the gang leader know that this particular person has a different kind of slot personality that would change who is in charge of the outcome of the slotting procedure.

• "Pearl" by Felix Rose Kawitzky: in an observatory looking for dark matter, one lower class person in charge of maintenance lets loose slugs that appear to be able to concentrate dark matter, leading to consequences that would blur and sharpen what can be seen of dark matter.