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.
"I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter", by Isabel Fall, has a
clickbait title hiding some good if implausible ideas about rewriting
gender-based instincts for military use, and how the concept of
queering is still useful in that context. It's a bit rough and ready,
especially in its worldbuilding, but it works remarkably well. I
haven't previously heard of Fall but I'll definitely be keeping a
lookout for this name in future.
"Monster", by Naomi Kritzer, is a tale of biohacking and revenge, but
where it shines is in the gender relations. Predictable but solid.
"The AI That Looked at the Sun", by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko, is a
bit hazy but does its best to show why this AI became conscious in
this particular way.
"The Last to Die", by Rita Chang-Eppig, tries to say something
profound about the people who were too old for immortality treatment
when it was invented, but wanders off into reassuring platitude.
"The Perfect Sail", by I-hyeong Yun, translated by Elisa Sinn and
Justin Howe, has some intriguing ideas about integrating the
personalities of one's parallel-timeline equivalents when they're near
death, but ends up not really saying anything.
"The Ancestral Temple in a Box", by Chen Qiufan, translated by Emily
Jin, suffers in translation but has a good theme about suppressed
cultures and the transition from human- to machine-mediated art.
"Reshuffling Evolution", by Douglas F. Dluzen, is the usual high-level
overview, this time of non-protein-coding DNA.
"Charging A Brick Wall: A Conversation with Walter Jon Williams", by
Arley Sorg, gets me interested in Williams' fantasy novel, and it
takes a lot to interest me in fantasy even when it's by Williams.
"The Color of Nature: A Conversation with Victo Ngai", by Arley Sorg,
makes a decent fist of talking about visual art.
"Editor's Desk: A Bucket of Things", by Neil Clarke, tells us that his
implanted defibrillator needs maintenance, looks back on five years of
translated Chinese SF in the magazine, and tells us that nominations
will soon open for the magazine's awards.
Hugo nomination for the Kritzer, and if I see anything else this good
by Fall I'm likely to put her up for the Astounding: needs more
practice but also should be encouraged to write more.
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.