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Jonathan Strahan: Tomorrow's Parties (2022, MIT Press)

Twelve visions of living in a climate-changed world.

We are living in the Anthropocene—an era …

An interesting collection of stories based around the Anthropocene and the way people have adapted to it

An interesting collection of stories based around the Anthropocene and the way people have adapted to it, for good or bad. The book starts with an interview with Kim Stanley Robinson, who has written several books on the subject, and his views and thoughts on the Anthropocene. The stories I found interested in the anthology are by Meg Elison, Tade Thompson, Daryl Gregory, Greg Egan, Chen Qiufan and Saad Z. Hossain.

  • "Drone Pirates of Silicon Valley" by Meg Elison: in a future where drones deliver almost everything, a group of teens do some piracy by bringing down an occasional drone and taking its cargo. But that would lead to the desire to help those whose lives have become constrained by the done manufacturer.

  • "Down and Out in Exile Park" by Tade Thompson: a family of researchers are pulled into an unusual populated island made up of plastic near the border …

Becky Chambers: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Hardcover, 2022, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) …

An enjoyable and thoughtful read as we discover, along with the robot, what humans may need.

An enjoyable and thoughtful read about the continuing journeys of a tea monk and a robot who wants to know what humans need. Plot-wise, there isn't much; but in terms of musing over the condition of humans, nature and one robot, there is plenty.

Both the monk and the robot have returned to human civilization, with the robot eager to visit and discover more about the human area and various human communities (with one exception) eager to learn more about the robot.

Through their interactions, the robot (and us readers) learn more about the human society that rose after the robots achieve sentience and left the factories, and about how they now live in a more ecological sustainable manner while maintaining some technology.

But would it be enough to answer the question the robot first asked about what humans need and how it can help them?

Twelve Tomorrows (2018, The MIT Press)

Twelve visions of the future—by turns hilarious, frightening, and relevant—from new and established voices in …

An interesting anthology of stories about possible tomorrows, and includes a profile of Samuel R. Delany.

An interesting anthology of stories about possible tomorrows. It starts with a profile of Samuel R. Delany, by Mark Pontin and Jason Pontin. Interesting stories include those by SL Huang, Ken Liu, Liu Cixin, Clifford V. Johnson, Sarah Pinsker and Alastair Reynolds.

  • "The Woman Who Destroyed Us" by SL Huang: in a future where deep brain stimulation (DBS) is prevalent, a mother seeks against a DBS researcher who she believes altered her problematic son and made him unrecognizable to her. But when she puts her plan into motion by befriending the researcher's companion, she begins to learn uncomfortable facts about DBS and the ethics of the researcher she was targeting that would lead her to question her own motives and, perhaps, lead to reconciliation with her DBS altered son.

  • "Okay, Glory" by Elizabeth Bear: the CEO of a company suddenly finds himself trapped inside the isolated smart home he designed …

No cover

David Langford: BLIT

"BLIT" (acronym of Berryman Logical Image Technique) is a 1988 science fiction short story by …

Be wary, when AI generated images can crash the human mind.

An interesting short story involving images that cannot be processed by people's minds, killing them. A 'punk' is assigned the task of putting up such images (with proper eyewear protection) in some areas to cause disruption, but it then goes wrong, causing him to be thrown in jail. As the law has not got around to legislating against putting up such images, he expects to be set free soon. But little does he know the insidious power of such images, even when seen distorted.

Memos inserted into the story offer explanations for how the images can 'crash' the human mind (like crashing a computer, unable to process data). Written many years ago, this is a concept that, hopefully, does not come true nowadays in the era of AI computer generated imagery.

Neil Clarke: Clarkesworld Issue 193 (Paperback, 2022, Wyrm Publishing)

An average issue of Clarkesworld

An average issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by M. L. Clark, Alan Kubatiev and Gregory Feeley, and a disturbing story involving family abuse by Thomas Ha.

  • "Junk Hounds" by Lavie Tidhar: in space, there is a lot of junk. But one man's junk is another man's treasure. And one junk hound may have found the ultimate treasure, is he can get it.

  • "Coding Van Gogh" by Elaine Gao: a programmer / artist is deep at work programmatically recreating a work of art when she suffers massive injuries. When she recovers, she discovers she has lost her old job under mysterious circumstances. Her attempts to recreate one last work of art would reveal what happened the first time.

  • "Sweetbaby" by Thomas Ha: a disturbing story of a physically (and possibly mentally) deformed brother who does violent acts on his sisters while their parents try to keep them alive on a …

reviewed In Mercy, Rain by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, #7.5)

Seanan McGuire: In Mercy, Rain (EBook, 2022, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Jack Walcott was only twelve years old when she and her twin sister Jill, descended …

A strange world where a mad scientist teaches his apprentice the art of bring life back to the newly dead

(This story is part of the author's Wayward Children series, which I have never read, so I'm treating this story as it is without reference to the series.)

A story about a pair of twins who wander into another world whose main protagonist are a vampire and a 'mad' scientist, it follows one of the twins who became an apprentice to the scientist. Despite not liking things touching her bare skin, she becomes adapt in the arts of anatomy, curing ills and the ability to resurrect the newly dead. But it is all in preparation for eventually meeting her sister, who has become the daughter of the vampire. But along the way, she would have to deal with new emotions upon helping to resurrect the dead daughter of farmers and getting to know her better.

reviewed In Mercy, Rain by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children, #7.5)

Seanan McGuire: In Mercy, Rain (EBook, 2022, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom)

Jack Walcott was only twelve years old when she and her twin sister Jill, descended …

A strange world where a mad scientist teaches his apprentice the art of bring life back to the newly dead

(This story is part of the author's Wayward Children series, which I have never read, so I'm treating this story as it is without reference to the series.)

A story about a pair of twins who wander into another world whose main protagonist are a vampire and a 'mad' scientist, it follows one of the twins who became an apprentice to the scientist. Despite not liking things touching her bare skin, she becomes adapt in the arts of anatomy, curing ills and the ability to resurrect the newly dead. But it is all in preparation for eventually meeting her sister, who has become the daughter of the vampire. But along the way, she would have to deal with new emotions upon helping to resurrect the dead daughter of farmers and getting to know her better.

Ben Orlin: Math Games with Bad Drawings (2022, Running Press)

Bestselling author and worst-drawing artist Ben Orlin expands his oeuvre with this interactive collection of …

An interesting bit of trivia mentioned in the book is this unusual soccer match, which was the unintended consequence of a change to the "Golden Goal" rule in this soccer competition. The final minutes must have been interesting.

[ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbados_4%E2%80%932_Grenada ]: "On January 27, 1994, the national football teams of Barbados and Grenada played against each other as part of the qualification round for the 1994 Caribbean Cup. Due to an unusual scoring rule and the two teams' respective positions in the tournament, it became alternately in the best interest of each team to score an own goal. The result has been described as "one of the strangest matches ever".

The organisers of the tournament had imposed a rule requiring all matches to have a winner, and this was enforced with an unusual variant of the golden goal rule: the first goal scored in extra-time not only won the match, …