Clarkesworld is a monthly on-line magazine edited by Neil Clarke.
Everything is available in HTML from
the magazine's site, and
it can be bought in various other formats.
"All Electric Ghosts", by Rich Larson, is a grim cyberpunkish future,
but for once it's not a story of a can't-miss crime gone wrong. Rather
pleasing, in a sideways way.
I tug my hood back off my shaved head and hear a muffled noise of
surprise behind me. The trepanation didn't heal real well. I had to
do it myself, with an electric drill and veterinarian's anesthetic.
"The Scrapyard", by Tomas Furby - discarded veterans prove they can be
useful after all, but only because the author is on their side.
Seriously: if your life is constant pain and you have no expectation
that it will do anything but get worse, what is the point of going
on? But Furby assumes without examination that this is a thing worth
doing, and then twists his universe so that it's true.
"An Arc of Lightning Across the Eye of God", by P H Lee - a gloriously
alien alien. Not much actual plot, but I find I don't mind.
I am not a person. I am not! I am so much more than that. I am my
father's name, written by my mother's vision across time and space.
I am a hand of peace offered from the [several unintelligible signs]
to every one of you. I am a message of hope of the divine for those
confined in fire and darkness and gravity. I am my great and
wonderful purpose and I am the fulfillment of that purpose.
"National Center for the Preservation of Human Dignity", by Youha Nam,
translated by Elisa Sinn and Justin Howe – does a good job of building
up a sense of "something might be awry at the compulsory euthanasia
centre", then just ends rather than resolving any of it. Fine if you
like atmosphere.
A map of the center's layout appeared with a logo beside it, and
soon some voice actor was explaining to us about how we were about
to face the most dignified deaths possible for citizens at such a
low-income level. Then the background music changed, turning from
serious to upbeat.
"Song Xiuyun", by A Que, translated by Emily Jin - there are
"brain-controlled" cars, but nobody seems to know why (they're more
expensive to run than standard cars, and they still take someone's
full-time attention). But more seriously, this is a story that depends
for its effect on you not noticing the surprise, but the surprise is
entirely obvious from the start.
"How Alike Are We", by Bo-Young Kim, translated by Jihyun Park and
Gord Sellar, is the story of a spaceship AI which has required its
crew to put it into the "emergency backup body", but which now can't
remember why - with a blank spot in its memories which is clearly
meant to be unguessable, but isn't. There are a few good moments, in
spite of the massive dose of gender essentialism, but it's let down by
a very poor translation - nobody should have let "On the surface,
there’s a small four-wheeled rover with four wheels circling ’round
the crater" make it into print!
"Destination: Luna", by Andrew Liptak is a very brief review of the
moon in fiction (making a useful division between "wouldn't it be
amazing to fly" stories and "this is a place we might actually get to"
stories).
"Ooze and Gore: A Conversation with Nicky Drayden", by Arley Sorg
makes me interested in looking up Drayden's work, even if she does
like Kameron Hurley.
Basically, I've got three modes: Toilet humor. Dark and gritty. And
sappy love stories that will probably make you cry.
"Editor's Desk: And into Year Fourteen We Go", by Neil Clarke, admits
that the only reason the anthologies are years behind is that he isn't
writing the introductions.
Hugo nomination for the Lee.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.