Will Ludwigsen. The Ghost Factory. (Asimovs October/November 2012)
Well handled story, about a now-empty ex-mental institution – empty save for the ghosts, the echoes of who lived there.
Reviewing short SF since 2000
Well handled story, about a now-empty ex-mental institution – empty save for the ghosts, the echoes of who lived there.
The title of the story works better here in the UK, with 999 as the telephone number for the emergency services. Reaves inverts that number, and, as you might guess, this tale of paramedics and their conveyance takes a nasty turn…
Fiction this month from Lavie Tidhar, Helen Jackson, George Zebrowski, Guy Haley, Jim Hawkins, Tracie Welser. Cover art by Jim Burns.
In Leningrad, under siege, there is something even more horrible than the starvation and the shelling…
Further adventures of teen Beck Garrison on the independent seastead communities, facing up to the latest challenges, with her dad, as ever, on her case.
Chilling, nightmarish horror as a man and his son try to escape from some strange caverns – leaving them far different from when they entered.
A few years hence, but teenage girls are still teenage girls. Young Janice and her friends lead a recognisable life to contemporary teens, with some high tech improvements, including a skin-colour changing capability, to combat the threat of melanoma.
Quaker Thomas finds a runaway slave outside his cabin, followed in due course by one seeking the return of the slave to his owner.
Short vignette from a new author to me. In a repressive, totalitarian regime, a group of young people whose opportunity for revolt during the day is limited, gather during the night to party, and to plot.
A beautiful story from Mirabelli, that blends hard SF, theoretical (and historical) mathematics and physics, with a story of painfully heartbreaking humanity. Mind you, I am a bit of a sentimental old fool – but I defy you to read about Richard Feynman’s letter to his dead wife without tears forming.
Nicely told story set against a backdrop of a US being hammered by a flu pandemic.
Effective story of a displaced person and a displaced people, in which Johnson uses a shared dreamspace VR to good effect.
As with the last Hawkins story in Interzone, this one left me cold – it reads like a quickly written novelisation of an average TV drama.
Neat take on the post-fall of humanity trope. A visitor arrives in the remaining village on the planet Dimhope, and through his use of some advanced tech, he teases stories out of some of the villagers – full humans, and those that are less so.
Bailey picks up where Bradbury left off with ‘A Sound of Thunder’, in a time travel story with bite.
Drier than a dry martini, Arthur provides a blackly humorous look at life on an orbiting habitat for the ultra-rich, and how the wealthy inhabitants behave, how their spoilt children mis(behave) and the lives and loves of a diplomat, a journalist, and a droid who is more than she seems.
Stories by Alex Irvine, Matthew Hughes, Desmond Warzel, Judith Moffett, David Gerrold, Ken Liu, Dale Bailey, Albert E. Cowdrey, Robert Reed. From bovine to canine, and issue that spans the genres.
You would think that with a 12-week old cocker spaniel puppy sitting on a rug quietly at my feet as I write this I’d be as receptive as I would ever be to a story about dogs. Nah. ‘Nuff said. Move along now. I’m gonna read me some SF.
A clever, understated story from Reed, that looks at those in our society who aren’t quite what they seem. Just who is the alien amongst us? And who is to decide?
A story that doesn’t quite make the step up from relatively routine adventure on a spaceship, with a female lead who gets knocked out as regularly as Frodo in LoTR.
The teen years at school can be bad enough, but when you’re enrolled in the kind of school Reed posits, with werewolves and vampires and bears oh my being the majority of the school population.
Near-future post-icecap-melt story, that looks at some of the risks to the previously inaccessible wilderness of the Antartic.
A Chinese invasion of Mongolia leads to an epic journey for an itinerant American travel. The story has a great sense of place, although it did drag a bit for me,as repeated daytime journeys across the barren desert and night-time communion with Mongolian spirituality had a draining affect on me (although not as much as on the protagonist).
Stories by Indrapramit Das, Jason Sanford, Theodora Goss, Ian Creasey, Ted Reynolds, Aliette de Bodard, Bruce McAllister, Gord Sellar. Some strong, some good, some weak. Read the review to find out which is which!
Far future warfare carried out by post-human entities, in a clever, complex short story like Charles Stross used to write.
An Arcturian living amongst us finds a passion for philately, as his kind help the human race from destroying itself, and in the simple act of writing letters to seek used postage stamps, a lot about humanity can be learnt.
Part of AdB’s ongoing ‘Xuya’ sequence in which we take a peek into the mind of a ship, as echoes and dreams from the past show us steps made on its journey in a previous life.
Two wisecracking Harlem barbers find a car left outside their barbershop is a most righteous automobile.
In which F&SF regulars Morrie and Jimmy carry out some spooky sleuthing in Texas.
Stories by Neal Asher, Joel Richards, Colin P. Davis, Alan Wall, Tom Purdom, Linda Nagata, Karl Bunker, Naomi Krtizer, Leah Cypess, Ken Liu.
Stories this month by Alexander Jablokov, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Jason Sanford, Garrett Ashely, Lavie Tidhar, Michael Cassutt.
Stories this month by Vylar Kaftan, Matthew Hughes, David Erik Nelson, M. Bennardo, Robert Reed, John Chu.
Stories this month by Alaya Dawn Johnson, Will McIntosh, Kit Reed, Suzanne Palmer, James van Pelt, Nancy Kress.
Stories by Steven Popkes, Ken Liu, Chris Beckett, Mike Resnick, Sandra McDonald, Robert Reed.