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.
Colin P. Davies. The Fighter. (Asimovs, June 2011)
Fine as far as it goes, but it’s a short story with a simple plot twist and it does really go that far.
Felicity Shoulders. Apocalypse Daily. (Asimovs June 2011)
Neatly handled, which stories featuring computer games aren’t always.
Alan DeNiro. Walking Stick Fires. (Asimovs, June 2011)
Totally non-bogus alien buddy story.
Carol Emshwiller. All the News That’s Fit. (Asimovs June 2011)
Nicely told story looking at whether it is right to protect innocence.
Ian R. MacLeod. The Cold Step Beyond. (Asimovs, June 2011)
A return to the setting of ‘Breathmoss’ and MacLeod gets it just right.
Out of this World : The British Library, London.
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.
James Stoddard. The Ifs of Time. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011).
A clever story to end a strong issue.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011.
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.
Kali Wallace. Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011).
A lovingly crafted story from an author new to me.
Asimovs. April/May 2011.
Bumper double-issue full of big name SF writers. And Nick Mamatas. A very strong double issue.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Becalmed. (Asimovs, April/May 2011)
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.
Jack Skillingstead. The Flow and Dream. (Asimovs, April/May 2011)
A short but strong, tense psychological piece.
Esther M. Friesner. The One That Got Away. (Asimovs, April/May 2011).
Fans of classic horror will go ape over this mashup. Great stuff.
Tom Purdom. A response from EST17. (Asimovs, April/May 2011).
A story with potential, but which doesn’t really deliver.
Christopher Barzak. Smoke City. (Asimovs April/May 2011).
Dark satanic mills in this subterranean landscape, where the workers are repressed, and where child labour is the norm.
Rudy Rucker. The Fnoor Hen. (Asimovs, April/May 2011)
Entertaining techno-yarn, where things get very funky chicken.
William Preston. Clockworks. (Asimovs, April/May 2011).
A thoughtful consideration of ethics and moral judgments about crime and ciminality and responsibility for actions. Marvellous.
Nick Mamatas. North Shore Friday. (Asimovs, April/May 2011)
Intriguing first story from Mamatas to pass my eyes.
Mike Resnick. The Homecoming. (Asimovs, April/May 2011)
A consecutive short and emotionally intense story in the issue looking at the impact on humans of loss through an sfnal lens.
Michael Swanwick. An Empty House with Many Doors. (Asimovs, April/May 2011)
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.
Francis Marion Soty. The Second Kalandar’s Tale. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011)
A tale of djinns, sorcery, enchantment, love.
James Patrick Kelly. Happy Ending 2.0. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011)
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.
Interzone #233, March-April 2011
Stories by Nina Allan, Chris Butler, Ray Cluley, Tim Lees; all good ones.
Tim Lees. Crosstown Traffic. (Interzone #233, March-April 2011)
A well observed story, with a likeably incompetent protagonist, in the same milieu as Lees’ ‘The Corner of the Circle’ from Interzone #218.
Ray Cluley. Tethered to the Old and Dying. (Interzone #233, March-April 2011)
Claustrophobic tension on an Earth struggling through a nuclear winter.
Walter C. DeBill, Jr., Richard Gavin, Robert M. Price, W.H. Pugmire, Jeffrey Thomas, and Don Webb. Night Gauntlet. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011)
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.
Chris Butler. Tell Me Everything. (Interzone #233, March-April 2011)
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.
Sheila Finch. The Evening and the Morning. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011).
A lengthy conclusion to Finch’s ‘lingster’ story arc. I’ve eschewed these stories, so will pass on this one.
Ken Liu. The Paper Menagerie. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011).
Another effective tale drawing on Chinese culture, following his ‘The Literomancer’ and ‘Tying Knots’.
Jason K. Chapman. The Architect of Heaven. (Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue #56, May 2011)
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.
Paul Di Filippo. A Pocketful of Faces. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Mar/Apr 2011)
Good to see a Di Filippo story again, they are way too few and far between these days.
Nina Allan. The Silver Wind. (Interzone #233, March-April 2011).
A story that has an intriguing setting and leaves the reader wondering about what happens next.