Reviews and Comments

A good issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by Ng Yi-Sheng, Claire Jia-Wen, A. T. Greenblatt, Matthew Marcus and Rita Chang-Eppig.

• "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng: an entertaining story based on characters and story from a local popular Singapore play, this one has a high-flying son of a matriarchal star ship giving it all up to be with his lover, who runs a horse stable. He solution to getting out from the system is rather long term.

• "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen: a digital double of the dead son of a mother is delivered to her. What she learns from the double, made up of all the public information on his son, some of which she was not aware of, would make her re-look the reasons for her son's death.

• "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt: a writer travels to a former environmental colony to learn more about the person who used to run it. Along the way, his opinions about her change the more he learns about her.

• "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall: on a world with seven pyramids, repurposed by its current inhabitants, one person works to prepare the way for its next inhabitants and another pyramid.

• "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus: an ecologist travels to a place where a special kind of tree grows that can help with their environmental problems. He sets out to try to convince the local people there not to cut down the trees; but what he discovers instead is a way of living that may be more helpful to the world in the end.

• "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken: far, far, in the future, when humanity has evolved into many different species and the sun is becoming a red giant, one species of humanity makes a special request to the people watching over what is left of the earth. They have an audacious plan to save their themselves, but it would require a balancing of the needs of the many.

• "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig: a downloaded person inhabiting a body returns to an island. This causes a sensation as she was the first person to be downloaded and her fans wonder what she want to do there. After much speculation, the answer has to do with memories and what happens when we start to lose them.

• "Outlier" by R.L. Meza: in a strange lab, where people have been 'transformed' into arachnids, one person is more aware of what is happening to her. Now she wants to escape but to do that, she may have to take advantage of one lab person whom she might consider a friend.

A follow-up to the author's "Tales from the Loop", it follows the life of a boy whose family is forced to evacuate their home when the underground abandoned Loop starts to flood their area. The book mixes evocative illustrations of robots and abandoned technology in the countryside with tales about wandering robots and conspiracy stories about alien invasions and about possible unknown life in the flood.

A fascinating book about life on an alien planet and the conflicts between it and the totalitarian human government (the Mandate) that runs the prison colony on the planet known as Kiln. The narrator of the story is Arton Daghdev, a dissident ecologist captured and sent there to help with research on the alien life. He also learns about the discovery of ruins that hints that a civilisation once flourished on Kiln, and speculations about who they might be.

As for the Mandate, it wants to make sure that all findings on Kiln match its world-view on how the universe works (basically, everything works according to the way the Mandate says it does), so Arton has an interest in finding out how life on Kiln is different and how to use it against the Mandate: for he is still a dissident in a prison camp.

The first third of the story gives an introduction to the camp and bit and pieces of Kiln life, whose biology turns out to be quite weird, but just similar enough to Earth life that it attempts to 'interface' to humans: Arton sees the results of such 'hybrids' and it is not pretty. And that doesn't stop him from joining a prison revolt that goes wrong.

As punishment, he is sent out to help collect Kiln life and find more remnants of the alien civilisation, which gives the reader a closer look at how life on Kiln works. Another disaster befalls Arton, forcing him to trek back to the prison camp. And it is during this trek that things about how Kiln life works, start to join up about and make sense to him. And it may not just help him overthrow the world view of the Mandate, but also possibly free the prisoners of the camp and answer the riddle about how civilisation rose and fell many times on Kiln.

Set in the world of the author's "Six Crimson Cranes" series, this is a prequel that tells the story of the early life of the stepmother in the series. Channari, the elder of two sisters, was left in the jungle by her father as an offering to a witch to keep her mother alive after giving birth to her younger sister, Vanna. But it backfired, for the witch wanted the younger sister. Instead, Channari returned, but with a scaly snake-like face that forever marked her and isolated her from her community, with only her younger sister as a friend. And she swore she would keep her younger sister safe, for she knows the witch will come for Vanna, for the witch desires the inner light from her younger sister's heart.

Years past and as Vanna grows up, her glowing inner light brings fame and royalty from surrounding islands asking for her hand. Channari gets separated from Vanna during a selection ceremony and fights to return to her side. In this, she is aided by her childhood snake friend and a half-dragon, half-demon fighter whom she has to trust. But the witch has also come; and during the final confrontation, trust and betrayal would turn Channari into the person she would be in the "Six Crimson Cranes" series.

A story of the powerful bond between two sisters who would not be separated despite the ugliness of one and the magical heart of the other.

The second book (or part) of the Six Crimson Cranes series, this one has Shiori facing a series of challenges as she sets out to do what she promised her stepmother at the end of the first book: return the dragon's pearl she holds back to its owner. But standing in her way are a Sea Dragon King who wants the pearl, a Daemon King who wants the pearl and her blood, and parts of her kingdom who don't like magic and only want her reduced to ashes.

While the first book developed the character of Shiori, as she struggled with her task to free herself and her brothers from a curse, this one is more action-packed with Shiori facing task after task with not much room for her relationship with her father (the Emperor), her brothers or with the prince who is her betrothed. We do get to see more of the world and the role that magic and demons play in it. One of the things that Shiori has to struggle with is whether her kingdom should continue to do without magic (and demons), or to restore the balance but on her own terms.

The ending is both expected and unexpected, with divine intervention playing a role. But on its terms, it is perhaps a proper ending to the story, leaving the characters to deal with their world on their own terms, instead of continuing with the way things were.

In a future dystopia, the head of a one corporation ensures her legacy by growing clones of herself and raising them as she was raised. The story is told from the viewpoint of a person who was chosen as the clone's host, but miscarries, causing another person to be chosen to host the clone. Both live together, and as the clone's birth approaches, the person is resigned to being discarded after the birth. But external events intrude, and now both are forced to run away from a hostile takeover and to plan a different future for the clone.

A fascinating story, mainly based on the fairy tale "The Wild Swans" but its own added elements, about a princess, her enchanted brothers and a stepmother. But the tale gets twisty towards the end as the author throws in her own variations.

Princess Shiori possesses magic, which she hides, in a kingdom where magic has been banned by the gods. But on the day she is meant to be betrothed to a prince, she runs away, setting in motion events that would cause her stepmother to curse her brothers to be turned into cranes. As for her, she is cursed to remain silent or cause the death of her brothers with every word she says and cast out of the kingdom. As she finds her brothers and struggles to return to the castle, she discovers the way to break the curse. But doing so would cause her much pain, and the journey leads through the fortress of the prince she was meant to marry.

It is here that things start to change, when she discovers the prince is not as 'barbaric' as she initially though. But conspiracies in the fortress thwart her as she struggles to complete her painful task, and she begins to get second thoughts on her stepmother, and the reasons she and her brothers were cursed. It would all come to a climax at the end as plot twists make her to realise the dangers she and her kingdom are in and what she would have to do to save it.

After successfully getting a dragon's magic, a 'witch' sets about resurrecting the family's dead children. What was not expected are 'side effects' of the magic, which would manifest a few days later and involve taking care of a baby dragon and dealing with others that are also newly born.

A better than average issue, with an interesting novella-length story by Wole Talabi, and other interesting stories by Rati Mehrotra and Alex T. Singer.

• "Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu: on music and dancing that apparently takes place in the head of a person.

• "The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra: survivors of a war rummage through a ruined city, waiting for the time when a strange library gives them access to imaginary other worlds. Only some survivors return from the visit. And when only one is left, he has to find another purpose to staying in the city.

• "We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer: a fascinating story of a machine intelligence 'mother' that is terraforming and mining a solar system to make more versions of itself. But it gets interrupted when an unknown ship, bearing an organic being, crashes. The rest of the story tells of the being's recovery, and the two of them coming to an understanding of what it means to be a mother that wants the best for their children.

• "Descent" by Wole Talabi: a fascinating tale set in a world where people live on mountains, high above the air that gets thicker and thicker at lower latitudes. Nothing is known about what is below, not even if there is a solid surface. But one man wants to know, and he gets a chance to find out, even if it may end up killing him.

• "Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc: a strange story of a 'sculpture' who has spent ages motionless; until one day it decides to move. That would lead to a journey through time and space, and perhaps the multiple lifetime of universes.

• "Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuven, translated by Sue Burke: various automated space probes, each known as Proxima One, explore space looking for signs of life. Many never see them; but others, by reprogramming themselves, see it in many different ways.

• "Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert: a mathematician who knits listens to an alien message and starts knitting out the message. What she learns may, or may not, be able to decode the message.