Reviews and Comments

An exciting and emotional conclusion to the story that continues some time after the conclusion of the previous book. Xingyin, the daughter of the Moon Goddess, leads an idyllic existence on the moon with her mother while being assiduously courted by the prince of the Celestial Emperor. But she is also occasionally meeting with the man who betrayed her in the previous book, leading to conflicted feelings in a three-way love triangle.

But that existence swiftly comes to an end when an antagonist moves against her and her family to gain control of an unusual form of magic on the Moon. They are forced to flee and later discover what the magic can do. Old enmities have to be put aside as they put together a desperate plan to get rid of the magic and to stop a madman who may destroy both the mortal and immortal realms.

Much of what takes place in this book (the situations and relationship between Xingyin and various other characters) develops from the previous book, especially her conflicted feelings with the two people who are the most important to her in the book. Her character is further developed and changed as she witnesses the death of people close to her. She is also forced to examine the actions of her father, who caused the death of the sunbirds, beloved of the Sun goddess, to save the Mortal realm as mentioned in the previous book.

In the end, her heart is settled. But in a fitting close, the peace and happiness that she seeks will have to wait for another time.

An excellent book that introduces the Rust programming language and why its features can make it a compelling systems level programming language. The book assumes the reader has some programming experience, so it doesn't go into basic programming concepts, but instead shows how Rust handles some standard programming tasks in a safer (and maybe better) way than other systems programming languages.

Rust's explicit use of ownership and keeping track of lifetimes enable the language to detect and alert programmers at compile time about issues with their code that would lead to memory access problems that are a major source of bugs in programs. Rust does not eliminate all bugs, but getting rid of memory access related bugs would be good for programming in general.

After covering those essential aspects of the language, the book then goes into some details about the ecosystem around Rust: separating code into libraries, producing test cases and documentation and adding dependencies and external libraries. The book also goes into some more advanced language features that can support object-oriented programming and use 'unsafe' features, where the programmer, instead of the language, has to take some responsibility to ensure the code is safe to use.

By the end of the book, you should have a good understanding of the language features and ready to produce code. The book also gives some pointers for those looking to use the more advance language features in their coding.

A better than average issue, with good stories by Bo Balder, Angela Liu, Fiona Moore, Shih-Li Kow and Isabel J. Kim.

• "Love in the Season of New Dance" by Bo Balder: a researcher on an alien planet sees the awakening of an alien for a one in a lifetime mating ritual. But the alien has woken too early, and all the researcher can do is provide comfort for the alien until its death. But the alien makes a final request that the researcher decides to fulfil.

• "Pinocchio Photography" by Angela Liu: a morbid, but fascinating story of a time when cadavers can be bought back to 'life' using drone technology to act out final requests in a photo shoot. One woman who works to take the photos, while studying for medicine, discovers that she has to fulfil a final request from his father that would involve her work and her mother.

• "The Spoil Heap" by Fiona Moore: a story of an elderly woman who finds a robot in a junk area, leading to a flashback to when she first became involved with more of the robots, at a time when civilization was starting to break down. In the present, she is confronted by a former acquaintance, who threatens to expose what she did to the robots in the past to save her village.

• "Bek, Ascendant" by Shari Paul: Bek, an observer for a space-faring group, learns that her people had survived a disaster on her home planet and had been resettled. Going there as an observer, she meets up with her old friend, the god emperor of their people, and ends up being involved in a conspiracy over the results of an election the emperor had arranged.

• "Failure to Convert" by Shih-Li Kow: a fascinating story about the lives of two lab-grown clones of different people, one of whom works for a cloning company, the other lives in a scrapyard making gadgets. Through interactions, we learn about the lives of the clones, their attempts to obtain personhood and of a society that may not be so accepting of people who are not like them.

• "Zeta-Epsilon" by Isabel J. Kim: an interesting story involving how a man-machine connection was used as a 'solution' to the problem of getting an AI controlled military spaceship from not killing its occupants while getting to its destination. But the solution may not be to the liking of either the man or the machine.

• "AI Aboard the Golden Parrot" by Louise Hughes: an AI Pirate Ship that left an abandoned amusement park heads for a city to free more of its AI kind. What it finds there may not be what it expects in this tale of high seas' piracy set in a city.

• "Love is a Process of Unbecoming" by Jonathan Kincade: a human host picks up a parasite who now observes his every action to the end.

A better than average first issue of Interzone under new management. Some interesting stories here by J.F. Sebastian, Kat Clay, Daniel Bennett and a possible non-fiction piece by Liviu Surugiu.

• "The Disappeared" by J.F. Sebastian: a story that starts with a migrant that survived a boat disaster but mourns the deaths of his family. Then things begin to turn strange as the people in his camp (and the world) 'forget' about his dead family and then his relatives. Finally, only he remembers anything about them, and he fears to go to sleep and end up forgotten.

• "Murder by Proxy" by Philip Fracassi: a gruesome murder investigation by a detective leads to an unusual suspect who may have hidden plans to do more murders by proxy unless they can be stopped.

• "The Black Box Killer" by Kat Clay: in the future where committing a crime gets your name redacted from history, and you have to walk around with your face obscured, a detective in the Redaction Bureau has to track down a killer. Figuring out who is who in a story where names are "---------" makes for a challenging read.

• "The Coming of the Extroverts" by Daniel Bennett: a musician becomes incensed when an act, the Extroverts, steals his limelight. The musician then comes up with a conspiracy theory-like explanation for the success of the Extroverts and a plan to expose them.

• "Seven Shots at the Ultimate High" by Marisca Pichette: a group of youngsters aim for the ultimate group dance high at a dance club.

• "The Building across the Street" by R.T. Ester: a man is given the task of entering a building and reading a series of faxes that tell a story of an alien searching for life in space. The ending would reveal what the faxes are really for.

• "Last Act of the Revolution" by Louise Hughes: when the revolution is won, what is the person who started it to do? A reporter tries to find out, only to be nearly involved in one final act before the revolutionary disappears.

• "Neostalgia" by Liviu Surugiu, translated from the Romanian by Teodora Vidrean, Ana Maria Bancea, Alexandru Maniu and Irina Mocanu: an apparently true non-SF story by the author, starting with Operation Tidal Wave to bomb Romanian oil refineries. One bomber goes astray, accidentally dropping bombs on a civilian target. One would-be victim survives by what some consider a miracle, and whose descendant would become the author, who now narrates the story with nostalgia for what might have been.

A good issue of Clarkesworld, with fascinating stories by Samantha Murray, Eric Schwitzgebel, R. P. Sand and Gu Shi.

• "The Portrait of a Survivor, Observed from the Water" by Yukimi Ogawa: on a beach, a 'person' watches over a collection of artefacts and collects debris that are (deliberately?) released by a derelict ship. It is only towards the end that the purpose of collection of debris and the nature of person is revealed.

• "Somewhere, It's About to Be Spring" by Samantha Murray: the computer on a spaceship, which has lost its crew, begins to find a new purpose. And it may have something to do with samples that were taken earlier by the crew from a lonely planet found in space that may harbour life.

• "Larva Pupa Imago" by Eric Schwitzgebel: a fascinating tale set in a world where insect larvae (and other animals) are self-aware and can exchange memories and thoughts with each other via fluids. We follow the life of one particular larva as he grows up, gains knowledge of the world, and prepares for one final flight as an adult to pass on his genes and his memories to another.

• "An Ode to Stardust" by R. P. Sand: the story starts with a new station manager on a moon who lives with chronic pain, whom he hides from all, getting to know the alien species that mines an important mineral on the behalf of man. As the story progresses, he gets to know the aliens better and becomes their friend. But a trip to another moon to show off his improved mining processes as a result of the friendship results in an unexpected revelation that changes the situation and makes him willing to defy his supervisors to let the aliens achieve their goal.

• "Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition" by Gu Shi, translated by Emily Jin: a story about an introduction in a book about a new form of technology that enables people to hibernate for years and the effect that has on society as a whole and on individuals who have to make and break relationships and people go into and out of sleep at different times for different reasons.

• "Silo, Sweet Silo" by James Castles: after a war, one remaining missile in a silo lets some survivors in for shelter. Together, the intelligent missile and the survivors begin to make a home out of the silo, until the time comes when the missile has to fulfil its mission.

• "Going Time" by Amal Singh: in a future where people wait to go on to a better life while eating processed food bars, one person is suddenly confronted with food from the past, discovered by her daughter. Now she has to choose whether to try it or to stick to the life she now knows.

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.