Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Snapshots. (Analog May 2014)
Characterisation and family relationship are handled well, which is as well as otherwise it’s a fairly weak story.
Sarah Frost. Bodies in Water. (Analog May 2014)
A nicely told story that feels much more like an Asimov’s story, and I may well fish out the previous stories by Frost in Analog to read.
C. Allegra Hawksmoor. The Labyrinth of Thorns. (Interzone #250, Jan-Feb 2014)
A story that I struggled to engage with as a story that I was reading, as I was more aware of the story that C. Allegra Hawksmoor was writing.
James Patrick Kelly. Declaration. (Asimovs March 2014)
A group of teens are doing home work – rewriting the American Declaration of Independence, as they are in the mood for revolution, but will it be just a virtual one?
Dominica Phetteplace. Through Portal. (Asimovs March 2014)
A story in I-IIIIIIIIIIII sections, starting off with every parents’ nightmare – a child wandering off and getting lost.
Asimovs March 2014
Not a particularly strong issue, with only the Cat Rambo likely to stick in the mind.
Tobias S. Buckell. System Reset. (The End is Nigh (The Apocalypse Triptych))
A story that bodes well for the pre-apocalypse anthology just out from John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey.
Cat Rambo. All the Pretty Little Mermaids. (Asimovs March 2014)
Altogether a very assured and believable story about people, relationships, and gender.
David Tallerman. Bad Times to be in the Wrong Place. (Interzone #250, Jan-Feb 2014)
Good characterisation and a clever idea, the the focus on subtle and human.
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam. The Damaged. (Interzone #250, Jan-Feb 2014)
The Damaged referring to the 1 in 100 that come off the Playmatez production line not quite right, and end their short robotic lives homeless, or living in a subway or dumpster.
Robert Reed. We Don’t Mean To Be… (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2014)
First story in a while from Reed, and it’s a short story, but that doesn’t stop Reed from writing on a large canvas – a chase of a couple of billion years on a galactic canvas.
Genevieve Williams. The Redemption of Kip Banjeree. (Asimovs March 2014)
A ‘fast-paced first story’ from Williams in Asimovs, and it is truly so. It doesn’t waste any time setting up the story, and by golly it certainly gets to the end breathlessly quickly.
Sean Monaghan. Walking Gear. (Asimovs March 2014)
A bit of alien tech, a stump with X marks the spot, but mostly about relationships…
Claudio Chillemi and Paul Di Filippo. The Via Panisperna Boys in ‘Operation Harmony’ (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2014)
An alternate history that doesn’t quite do it for me.
Sarah Brooks. Trans-Siberia : an account of a journey. (Interzone #249, Nov-Dec 2013)
The seven day journey from Beijing to Moscow can only be travelled by train, and it goes through some very strange country, and it is said that none who make the journey come through without being changed…
Interzone #249 (Nov-Dec 2013)
Stories this issue by Tim Lees, Jason Sanford, Lavie Tidhar, Claire Humphrey, John Shirley, and Sarah Brooks, and all of them good ones.
John Shirley. The Kindest Man in Stormland. (Interzone #249, Nov-Dec 2013)
Stormland being the coast of the US a couple of decades hence, where climate change has created a near-permanent storm front, which has devastated the coast and Charleston in particular.
Alex Irvine. For All of Us Down Here. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan/Feb 2014)
Nice take on the Singularity, from the perspective of teen whose parents ‘Singled’ when he was a toddler.