RogerBW's Blog

Clarkesworld 157, October 2019 20 October 2019

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.

[Buy this at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

Previous in series: Clarkesworld 156, September 2019 | Series: Clarkesworld | Next in series: Clarkesworld 158, November 2019

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.

Search
Archive
Tags 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s 3d printing action advent of code aeronautics aikakirja anecdote animation anime army astronomy audio audio tech base commerce battletech beer boardgaming book of the week bookmonth chain of command children chris chronicle church of no redeeming virtues cold war comedy computing contemporary cornish smuggler cosmic encounter coup covid-19 crime crystal cthulhu eternal cycling dead of winter doctor who documentary drama driving drone ecchi economics en garde espionage essen 2015 essen 2016 essen 2017 essen 2018 essen 2019 essen 2022 essen 2023 existential risk falklands war fandom fanfic fantasy feminism film firefly first world war flash point flight simulation food garmin drive gazebo genesys geocaching geodata gin gkp gurps gurps 101 gus harpoon historical history horror hugo 2014 hugo 2015 hugo 2016 hugo 2017 hugo 2018 hugo 2019 hugo 2020 hugo 2021 hugo 2022 hugo 2023 hugo 2024 hugo-nebula reread in brief avoid instrumented life javascript julian simpson julie enfield kickstarter kotlin learn to play leaving earth linux liquor lovecraftiana lua mecha men with beards mpd museum music mystery naval noir non-fiction one for the brow opera parody paul temple perl perl weekly challenge photography podcast politics postscript powers prediction privacy project woolsack pyracantha python quantum rail raku ranting raspberry pi reading reading boardgames social real life restaurant reviews romance rpg a day rpgs ruby rust scala science fiction scythe second world war security shipwreck simutrans smartphone south atlantic war squaddies stationery steampunk stuarts suburbia superheroes suspense television the resistance the weekly challenge thirsty meeples thriller tin soldier torg toys trailers travel type 26 type 31 type 45 vietnam war war wargaming weather wives and sweethearts writing about writing x-wing young adult
Special All book reviews, All film reviews
Produced by aikakirja v0.1