Mary Robinette Kowal. Kiss Me Twice. (Asimovs, June 2011)
Lengthy near-future police thriller in which an AI which is the detective’s constant companion, is removed from the police station.
Reviewing short SF since 2000
Lengthy near-future police thriller in which an AI which is the detective’s constant companion, is removed from the police station.
Fine as far as it goes, but it’s a short story with a simple plot twist and it does really go that far.
Neatly handled, which stories featuring computer games aren’t always.
Totally non-bogus alien buddy story.
Nicely told story looking at whether it is right to protect innocence.
A return to the setting of ‘Breathmoss’ and MacLeod gets it just right.
There’s an excellent SF exhibition at the British Library in St. Pancras running until 19th June 2011. Get along to see it if you can.
A clever story to end a strong issue.
Stories by Sheila Finch, Albert E. Cowdrey, Francis Marion Soty, Paul Di Filippo, Ken Liu, Walter C. DeBill Jr et al, James Patrick Kelly, Karl Bunker, Kali Wallace, Dixon Wragg, James Stoddard.
A lovingly crafted story from an author new to me.
Bumper double-issue full of big name SF writers. And Nick Mamatas. A very strong double issue.
There’s a xenolinguistic element, but this is part of an overall story about understanding cultures (and failing to understand them), about politics, and war, and a good conclusion to the issue.
A short but strong, tense psychological piece.
Fans of classic horror will go ape over this mashup. Great stuff.
A story with potential, but which doesn’t really deliver.
Dark satanic mills in this subterranean landscape, where the workers are repressed, and where child labour is the norm.
Entertaining techno-yarn, where things get very funky chicken.
A thoughtful consideration of ethics and moral judgments about crime and ciminality and responsibility for actions. Marvellous.
Intriguing first story from Mamatas to pass my eyes.
A consecutive short and emotionally intense story in the issue looking at the impact on humans of loss through an sfnal lens.
A short but exquisite love story, as a man deals (or not) with heartbreaking loss, to find that there are other universes where things are quite different.
A tale of djinns, sorcery, enchantment, love.
Kelly in good form in a short about a couple trying to recapture their youthful love for each other by returning to the cottage in the country where it all started.
Stories by Nina Allan, Chris Butler, Ray Cluley, Tim Lees; all good ones.
A well observed story, with a likeably incompetent protagonist, in the same milieu as Lees’ ‘The Corner of the Circle’ from Interzone #218.
Claustrophobic tension on an Earth struggling through a nuclear winter.
Short dose of campus-based academic eldritch horrors, with the dark horrors complemented by some science (“Dr. Heyschius had been at work on a special torsion field theory that took Anatoly Akimov’s work and replaced his solutions to Maxwell equations with Type IIB string theory while maintaining the “alternate” interpretations of Einstein-Cartan theory”), written round-robin.
A short piece set in a society where pheromones are the primary means of interpersonal understanding, with facial expressions and body language no longer understood.
A lengthy conclusion to Finch’s ‘lingster’ story arc. I’ve eschewed these stories, so will pass on this one.
Another effective tale drawing on Chinese culture, following his ‘The Literomancer’ and ‘Tying Knots’.
The best SF explores the human condition, and one of the trickiest elements of the human condition to successfully explore is love. Chapman does this in a great story.
Good to see a Di Filippo story again, they are way too few and far between these days.
A story that has an intriguing setting and leaves the reader wondering about what happens next.