Allen Steele. Ticking. (Solaris Rising 2)
After a plethora of zombie and vampire stories of late, nice to see a somewhat different post-apocalyptic story, in a multi-perspective story which does something quite rare in such stories.
Neal Asher. Memories of Earth. (Asimovs October/November 2013)
Notwithstanding a bee sting to my uvula, a short story which I enjoyed!
Charlie Jane Anders. The Time Travel Club. (Asimovs October/November 2013)
Time travel but through the lens of an individual part of a time-travellers ‘self help’ group. Truth be told I struggled to engage with the story, unable to make a connection to either the characters or the narrative.
Robert Reed. Bonds. (Solaris Rising 2)
Intriguing story from Reed. The narrator describes the rise to fame of an autistic young man, whose fame comes through a pseudo-science that becomes globally popular.
Lavie Tidhar. The Core. (Interzone #246, May-June 2013)
Another short installment in the ‘Central Station’ sequence – and I’m just a bit worried that some of the implications of what happens are lost on me as I can’t remember the detail from previous stories!
Kristine Kathryn Rusch. When Thomas Jefferson Dined Alone. (Solaris Rising 2)
Rusch takes a look at the ghosts that supposably haunt The White House, taking a slightly different view on time travel – by seeing it through the eyes of academic research.
Priya Sharma. Thesea and Astaurius. (Interzone #246 May-Jun 2013)
Beautifully re-telling of the Greek myth of the minotaur, told through a re-telling of the myth, which varies slightly, and sfnally, from the myth.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2013. (ed Catherine Asaro, Pyr 2013)
With a lovely cover design by Grace M. Conti-Zilsberger, and illustration by Julie Dillon, this fat beauty has a lot of excellent fiction. And poems. And non-fiction.
Asimovs September 2013
Drop-dead gorgeous cover by Kinuko Craft, and the pick of the stories from Ian R. MacLeod and Benjamin Crowell.
Benjamin Crowell. A Hole in the Ether. (Asimovs September 2013)
Excellent, cautionary story from Crowell, which loks at the potential risks of technology, allied with decisions made on copyright and IPR, on our future.
Brad R. Torgersen. Ray of Light. (Nebula Awards Showcase 2013)
A bit more about people, and a bit less about science that you tend to get in Analog.
E. Lily Yu. The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees. (Nebula Awards Showcase 2013)
Elegantly written, a cautionary entomological political tale of colonialism, arrogance, suppression, repression, anarchism and the, in the end, the futility of it all, especially in the face of higher powers.
Nick Harkaway. The Time Gun. (Solaris Rising 2)
Harkaway has fun (as does the reader) with this story of a ne’er-do-well who finds his attempt at a spot of thieving lends him in a whole heap of trouble. Him and the rest of the world…
Neal Williamson. Pearl in the Shell. (Solaris Rising 2)
A cautionary tale from Williamson, with the Victaz crew steaming through public transport in London, creating, on the fly, mashups of music they purloin electronically from fellow travellers.
Eugie Foster. Whatever Skin You Wear. (Solaris Rising 2)
A neat story from Foster, with a twist in the tail, or, in fact, a couple of kinks in the tale. ZOMG
Ferrett Steinmetz. Sauerkraut Station. (Nebula Awards Showcase 2013)
Excellent story that looks at three generations (all female) ekeing out a living in a deep space refill station. A real page-turner. And still online.
Dominica Phetteplace. What Changes You, What Takes You Away. (Asimovs September 2013)
Charming little coda to A Flower For Algernon (referenced in the text, alongside The Rats of NIMH).
Jay O’Connell. The Universe We Both Dreamed Of. (Asimovs September 2013)
Gentle story that looks to answer the Fermi Paradox and confirm the Drake Equation, through a young man offered the chance, following first contact, to reach for the stars, leaving humanity to its ultimate fate.
Tom Purdom. A Stranger from a Foreign Ship. (Asimovs September 2013)
A story with an interesting conceit that rather misses the opportunity it offered, and ends up in hectic pell-mell thriller with the protagonist mind-hopping quickly enough to disorientate this reader, let along himself.
Adrian Tchaikovsky. Feast and Famine. (Solaris Rising 2)
Tchaikovsy is an author not previously known to me. From the author bio he appears to have a fantasy bent rather than an sf bent, but this story is pretty much hard SF out of somewhere like Analog. A spaceship crew is on a mission to solve a mystery. Except..
Lavie Tidhar. The Memcordist. (Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirtieth Annual Collection)
Tidhar provides quality, neatly picking up the gap left by Charles Stross not writing much in the way of short SF these days. Here he follows, in an nonlinear fashion, the thoughts and actions of a man whose entire life is shared with the farfuture version of twitter/facebook etc.
Paul McAuley. The Man. (Year’s Best Science Fiction Thirtieth Annual Collection)
Set in McAuley’s Jackaroo universe, a great little story of an elderly beachcomber who finds a man at her remote door. Who he was, or what he is, is a mystery, perhaps tied in with the ancient semi-submerged alien factories on the nearby beaches of the remote planet gifted to humanity by the Jackaroo.
The Year’s Best Science Fiction. 30th Annual Collection. (ed Gardner Dozois, St. Martin’s Press, 2013).
After two slightly slimmer volumes, #30 returns to a chunkier size – huzzah!
Dale Bailey. The Bluehole. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2013)
An evocative piece of horror, taking the reader to the early 1980s, and a hot summer, with two teenagers with time to spend in getting into trouble – albeit with a soundtrack just a bit different to the American norm (The Undertones, The Jam, and, praise be The Slits).
James Lovegrove. Shall Inherit. (Solaris Rising 2)
Another excellent father/child relationship story and a neat idea, as the autistic son fits the profile for an interstellar journey, setting up a poignant departure.
Nancy Kress. More. (Solaris Rising 2)
Crackling little story from Kress, who has been producing quality near-future socio-political stories for a l-o-n-g time (it’s over 20 yrs since ‘Beggars in Spain’!).