Reviewing short SF since 2000
Clever approach by MacFarlane who describes photographs, posters and other images, and their background, relating to a multinational scientific expedition to Enceladus, what is found there, and the challenges faced…
In de Bodard’s Xuya series, and this includes recurrent themes of familial relationships, honour alongside big spaceships and galaxy spanning action.
Unseen aliens allow us to see inside the heads of the human characters, and for the most part it’s not a pretty sight.
Only the second published story from Devlin, not that you’d have any idea from reading it.
An alternate history, steampunky take on a comet that is passing close by us. Very close by.
Another strong, nicely observed take on his ‘nodding virus’ setting.
Cleverly done, with an automaton made in the image of Peter the Great surviving the death of the Tsar and fleeing for his (clockwork) life..
Some well-crafted stories, but an issue that feels just a little light on the fiction, with four short stories and novelettes that aren’t quite as substantial as you might like
‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ can transport a forty-something mother way back to her student days….
A young couple find something in the cellar that makes snorting cocaine looks like a healthy option….
A clever follow up to Kerr’s first installment.
Bit of a disappointment TBH as the story isn’t a sequel to Maberry’s first volume story, but a more straightforward zombie horror story.
A great balance of a human protagonist who is a rounded character, with frailty and backstory, Big Picture, technology and drama.
Another good story from Wallace.
Set against a background of nocturnal clubbing, people living like it’s the end of the world, with rain not only acidic but…
One of the shorter, but more impactful stories from the first volume continues in a similar vein
An effective story from Napper, set in a near future world feeling the effects of global warfare.
Clever story from Williams, with some nice touches (…eggplant…) as the morning after the night before becomes increasingly more than simply nursing a hangover, as..
Takes a look at testing drugs on paid volunteers, where the pay is high, but so are the risks. And when the risks get even higher…
An inventive whodunnit with a detective trying to find out whodunnit in a social where celebrity and genetic manipulation are being taken to the nth degree.
A fast-paced near-future (Jennifer Aniston is on the tv in an ‘old’ show) thriller, in which the protagonist has an AI ‘riding’ with him.
A singleton story amidst the second installment stories in this middle volume of the apocalypse trilogy.
Near future story in which a young woman with a disfiguring bone disease has to rely on sponsors logos tattooed on her skin to get the treatment for her condition. Only four pages, and it would have been good to have had more.