Reviews and Comments

A better than average issue, with fascinating stories by James Morrow, David Erik Nelson, Brian Trent and a hilarious story by Madeleine Robins exploring a fantastic version of "My Fair Lady" that probably deserves to be made into a play too.

• "Knock Knock Said the Ship" by Rati Mehrotra: on a spaceship that tries to tell 'Knock Knock' jokes, a former Lunar refugee working off her debt is thrown into conflict when the ship is taken over by attackers also from Lunar, who did so to get supplies for fellow refugees. Should her loyalties lie with her shipmates or with the attackers?

• "Last Night at the Fair" by M. Rickert: it's the last night at a fair, and in this fantasy, the attractions are free for all to enjoy until the break of dawn.

• "Bible Stories for Adults No. 37: The Jawbone" by James Morrow: another in a line of tales giving an SF spin to various Bible characters, this one looks at Samson, the source of his strength and what happens when it is discovered that it can be transferred to various implements and transforms them into weapons of personal destruction that echoes the gun culture in the USA.

• "Spirit Level" by John Kessel: a man attempting to sell his old house encounters the spirits of his ex-wife and father under unusual circumstances, as his ex-wife isn't dead, and the father proceeds to put him in his place via his spirit level (the carpenter's tool). Via interactions with his current lover and his elderly mother, we learn more about his current circumstances and his desires to return to an earlier life when his mother was more active and loving and his father able to use the spirit level for it proper purpose.

• "All Hail the Pizza King and Bless His Reign Eternal" by David Erik Nelson: a strange fantasy story about events that happened in the past and present around a pizza oven in a closed shop. The pizza shop was involved into a strange murder case in the past. Now, in the present, it is to be reopened, but the appearance of the Pizza King and his request for blood to 'close the circuit' would get the two characters involved in a mad dash to ward off a possible invasion of the Earth.

• "Madre Nuestra, Que Estas en Maracaibo" by Ana Hurtado: a fantasy story involving a niece who visits her family home as her grandmother is near death. But her grandmother's strange behaviour, wailing and moving in unexpected ways, may be connected to her past practice of praying for the dead who don't get to go to heaven, and only she can help her grandmother now as the ghosts return to haunt them instead.

• "A Bridge from Sea to Sky" by Bennett North: the Earth's space elevator suffers major damage at a time of budget cutbacks. Now, the only maintenance crew for the cable must find a way to fix the damage and convince the various countries to come together to keep it running.

• "Crawfather" by Mel Kassel: a story about a family 'tradition' to do battle with a huge crawfish (or crayfish) and what happens when things go wrong: a person dies and others decide to take revenge.

• "'Omunculus" by Madeleine Robins: a hilarious story involving Henry Higgins (from 'Pygmalion' or 'My Fair Lady') meeting with a man named Rossum who proceeds to provide Higgins with what he wants: an automaton who can speak. Higgins, being who he is, begins to teach it to speak Proper English and names it Eliza. Events then proceed as expected, even the ending when Higgins gets his comeuppance when the machine puts him in his place. A nicely written piece that gives an SF spin on a well known tale.

• "The Staircase" by Sephanie Feldman: a group of friends tests the 'legend' of a staircase on a hill that supposedly leads somewhere else. But when one of them momentarily vanished and then returns with a changed behaviour, are the rest of her friends willing to follow where she has gone?

• "The Monster of Olympus Mons" by Brian Trent: on a Mars being torn apart by civil war, a civilian hero stumbles into a museum for help, only to discover it inhabited by the least expected of Martian 'creatures'. They decide to complete a mission for him against the current tyrants of Mars. But they are being chased by a military officer who thinks that 'facts' should 'fit' the narrative he wants. And it is in the final confrontation between them that we discover who are the real monsters to be found on Mars.

• "The Shape of Gifts" by Natalia Theodoridou: a naturalist is gifted with the ability to see the future of the creatures and people she meets, making her wary of relationships. But when she senses the possible future of a fellow observer who is the only person she likes to meet, she has to decide whether to embrace whatever the future has in store for them.

A mild fantasy novel apparently set in Peninsula Malaysia, the story tells of a nun from the Order of the Pure Moon who decides to join up with a gang of bandits (who prefer to call themselves 'roving contractors') after a fight at a coffee house where she was working, when one of the bandits backs up her version of events that lead to the fight.

For much of the story, the fantasy elements remain muted, but the characters, their banter, and the situations she and the gang end up in drive the story. But things start to change when the nun discovers what the bandits are trying to sell to a third party. When the sale goes sour due to her intervention, a different plan is proposed by her, and this is where the story starts to give out twists to the characters, revealing that some bandits are not what they may appear at first, and also that she may also have been more than just a nun in the Order and that it may have granted her more than the normal abilities to see and affect the world in the usual ways.

By the end of the story, more is revealed about her frightening powers, and she has to make her own way in the world again, but she may not be going alone.

An interesting, light fantasy tale that starts off sounding like a tale of a misfit trying to fit into a group but ends up being another kind of story, revealing it to be a tale about relationships and different genders that feels quite normal in the context of the tale,

A collection of Greg Egan's recent stories, this collection shows the strength and breath of the author's imagination in stories that span from personal crisis, financial and biological, to ones that envelop the whole world and involve characters that think about and solve complex problems. “The Slipway” stands out as a story that involves scientists solving an astronomical problem, yet remains personal by showing that scientists are human and argue about but finally agree on the solution to a Hard SF problem.

• “The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine”: in a future when people are being replaced by machines at their jobs, one man loses his job and struggles to find work and support his family. But unusual events, like a parent who apparently makes a living secretly writing monthly porn novels or a relative who believes the machines are out to get him, start to make him wonder what kind of future is in store, especially when his own desperate plan to get money suddenly appears to succeed. Could it be yet another plan by the machines for those out of work?

• “Zero For Conduct”: an Afghan girl who is very smart 'dabbles' in chemistry and creates a long sought after material. But now living in Iran, she has to resort to trickery and deception to get enough money first to secure a patent on it before she can earn her well deserved riches. This, she will have to do with the help of her relatives who recognize her cleverness amidst a society that does not pay much heed to the intelligence of women.

• “Uncanny Valley”: a famous scriptwriter uploads a copy of himself into another body. But for unknown reasons parts of his memory are left out of the copy, rendering it almost complete. Now, after his death, the copy wants to find out why some memories were left out; and it may involve it in finding the uncomfortable truth about a period in the past when the scriptwriter was just starting out and gets involved in a potential plagiarism case.

• “Seventh Sight”: a young boy fitted with an implant to replace his failing eyesight 'upgrades' the implants by unlocking additional features that enable him to see additional shades of colour. He also gets involved with a group of teens who have also done the 'upgrades'. But what happens when technology catches up with them and lets everybody see the world in additional shades of colour like them?

• “The Nearest”: a detective investigates a disturbing family murder case. But as the case proceeds, the detective is suddenly thrown into shock when she discovers that those closest to her are not who they say they are. As she runs and hides, she learns of other people who have also discovered that those nearest to them have been 'replaced' by unfamiliar replicas. But further investigations would reveal the actual truth behind the epidemic of unfamiliarity.

• “Shadow Flock”: a lecturer at a university is suddenly involved in an 'evil' Mission:Impossible type mission when her brother is held hostage. Her skills at programming groups of small drones to perform tasks in a changing environment are key to a group's desire to steal crypto-money from several people. With no way to get the police involved and no guarantees she and her brother might be okay at the end of the caper, she subtlety modifies her code to ensure they can get away somehow, but maybe not to safety.

• “Bit Players”: what looks at first to be a strange world where the rules of gravity have gone haywire turns out to be a virtual creation, with characters who act out lives for the players who enter the world. But the characters, whose templates were scans of real people, have feelings and ambitions, and they want to push at the boundaries of their created world.

• “Break My Fall”: a trip to Mars, aided by spinning slingshots made from asteroids, turns into a crisis when the sun starts to misbehave and the fleet must seek shelter. But an emergency requires the members of one ship to take life-or-death risks to save another ship in danger.

• “3-adica”: a sequel to “Bit Players”, this story has some characters but now in another game. They have discovered how to exploit flaws and bugs in the rendering software of the game engines to transport themselves to from game to game, looking for the game called 3-adica, whose unusual mathematical rules may give them space to live out their own lives free from observation of the system administrators. But they first have to survive in this game while gathering the materials needed for that final jump, a game featuring vampires in Victorian times.

• “The Slipway”: an amateur astronomer discovers strange new stars in the sky that shouldn't be there. But it is only after more astronomers and theorists look at the strange growing patch of new stars in the sky do they start to realize the truth of what happened. A story that shows the way scientific discoveries are really made, as well as taxing the ability of the reader to comprehend what has happened.

• “Instantiation”: a sequel to “3-adica”, the characters safely living unnoticed in a place of their own making among the game worlds now need an escape, for the company that runs the games is losing money and may shut down. But to do that, they need to lure a player who uses a gaming system with a known flaw back into a game, so they can exploit the flaw to move to other servers. Complications arise when they realize the player may be logging their data movements, so they need an audacious plan to deceive the player and hide where they have gone.

Another fascinating story set in the same setting (but after the events) of the author's story, "A Dead Djinn in Cairo", this one has two agents of the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities looking into the possible haunting of an aerial tram car. But what starts off as a possible 'simple' possession by a djinn evolves into something much darker, as further investigations start to reveal the true nature of the spirit occupying the tram car.

Woven into the tale is a background of female emancipation with a vote to be taken to give women the vote, which would give the agents more food for thought in the involvement of women in their work in the future. Quite a number of interesting secondary women characters are in the story, providing some humour and alternative viewpoints.

In the end, the agents solve the case, but not without some dramatic crisis points in the story.

A fantastic book on the Rosetta space probe and its mission to explore comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (67P) from its conception, the launch, the actual mission itself and the discoveries of the comet that the mission has revealed, so far.

The book starts with a history of what we know about comets from ancient times to now, based on observations from Earth. It then covers some early space mission to explore various comets like Comet Halley. The concept and planning of the Rosetta mission is then covered, followed by the initial attempt to launch it to explore comet 46P/Wirtanen that was aborted, after the failure of a rocket that would have been used to launch Rosetta.

After an examination of the various options, 67P was chosen as the new target for Rosetta and the mission was on its way. But it didn't get there directly: Rosetta had to flyby the Earth and Mars several times to get enough velocity for the rendezvous, and it was tasked to examine other targets (like asteroids) during the journey.

Then, Rosetta arrived at 67P and, following an examination of the comet, the Philae lander was released. Rosetta then followed 67P as it approached and then left the vicinity of the sun. Finally, Rosetta itself was made to land on 67P, ending the mission. But it's not the end of the book. Based on the data from the mission, a summary of what is known about how 67P came about and how it is now is presented in fascinating detail.

If you are looking for a book that covers in detail the management and planning of the Rosetta mission, technical detail on the instruments on the probe and the running of the mission itself (including dealing with the various problems encountered during the mission), this is the book to read.

An interesting story set on a lunar colony, Artemis. The main character, Jazz Bashara, is introduced as a smuggler involved in getting minor prohibited items (like cigars) into the city for her clients. We soon learn that she has apparently made some bad life decisions early in her life that has led her to become estranged from her father and people who thought she would make something of her life due to her high intelligence.

She also has a past debt to pay off, and one day she is given the opportunity to pay if off when one of her clients proposes an audacious sabotage attempt by her in order to corner a market on Artemis. But the attempt goes wrong, and Jazz now finds herself not only a fugitive from the law, but also a target of a mob that is very angry at the sabotage. Running for her life, she has to discover who is after her and the connection to an item that she saw earlier in the story.

More of an SF thriller than a Hard-SF story like the author's previous book, "The Martian", this story also has lots of technical details, but they form more of a background to the story and illuminate how life might be like on a lunar colony. The character of Jazz is shown as not only a smart ass, but also very intelligent, and she would require her quick thinking to save herself from some life-threatening situations. But the solution to the final crisis in the story may well need her to do the ultimate sacrifice to save the city.

The story ends with a short Q&A session with the author, as well as some notes on the economics behind Artemis and getting people to the moon.

An interesting fantasy story that takes its time setting the scene before it starts to introduce its fantasy elements. The main story is told from the point of view of the grandson, whose grandfather came from Pakistan. Via the story, we learn of the grandfather's past and his relationship with a former Princess who ran a small tea stall at a eucalyptus tree, rumoured to be inhabited by a Jinn from the ancient past.

But tragedy would strike (literally) after a boy gets hurt after a fall from the tree. Amid calls to remove the tree as a menace to the community, it get destroyed by lightning, including the stall and the Princess moves away, while the grandfather gradually migrates to the US after adventures in various other places, gradually losing his memory of events apparently due to senility.

All this sounds like a perfectly normal non-Fantasy story until the second half after the grandfather passes away and the grandson gets possession of his grandfather's hidden diary. In numerous strange entries, he learns the apparent real history of his grandfather and his relationship with the princess. Determined to get to the truth, he journeys back to Pakistan.

And there is where the Fantasy start. For upon finding the original place where the eucalyptus tree used to be, he discovers himself in possession of an ancient artefact that may have come from the dawn of time and space and possessed his grandfather. And now he has to choose what is to become of it.

A well told tale that takes its time building up the story, to immerse the reader in the situation before the fascinating revelation.

An interesting tale that starts out like a fantasy story of a lowly Princess asking for the aid of a wizard to fight a demon. But when the viewpoint switches to that of the wizard, we learn that he's actually a very lonely off-world anthropologist studying the culture on a colony world and despairing at getting contact with his own home world.

In a collision of culture and world-views about magic and technology indistinguishable from magic, they (and a few others) would forge a bond as they confront the demon, which the wizard assumes is 'just' a local bully with advanced tools scavenged from the colony's initial technological days. But both would learn that the demon is more than it seems and some magic may be that: magic and not just advanced technology.

Resolving the problem of the demon may be anticipated by attentive readers, but the ending is still a nice touch as the relationship between the Princess, the wizard and the culture he is studying would change.