Reviewing short SF since 2000
Another classy story from the pen (or presumably the keyboard) of Albert E. Cowdrey, whose stories engage you quickly and keep you engaged throughout, which is not as simple as it sounds!
Near-future story with limited SFFnal elements.
Another year, another volume, but this year, also another shelf.
A neat story from Mason, almost a quarter of a century since her last story in this magazine.
Wexler, Naylor and Das the pick of the issue for me.
A near-future rock and roll road story, with a band ekeing out a living playing live, in the face of immersive 3D holo performances by the Big Name Bands keeping the potential audience members home for the most part.
A prehistory story from Bennardo (so why is it in an SF magazine I wonder??).
A lot in the story to like, and I’m putting it onto the short list for The Best SF Short Story Award 2015.
An intriguing story from Nayler, evidently an American who has spent some/a lot of time in Europe, and there’s a very European feeling to this story.
A clever idea for a trilogy from Adams/Howey, and they had me keeping an eye open for the appearance of volumes on Amazon, and pleased to have the POD volumes on my shelves.
A singleton story with a fairly bog standard post-zombie apocalypse action element to it, but the setting is an interesting one and makes it stand out in a way that will prevent the reading mis-remembering it as an episode from a zombie film or TV episode.
Liu brings his story of an uploaded father (or the bits of him that are left in cyberspace following his death) and his daughter, to a satisfactory, and ultimately logical end.
Napper and Stufflebeam the pick of the issue for me.
An especially strong issues with Bao Shu a particular standout.
Bookended by two emails, a twitter stream transcript tells the story of @DolphinMemeGirl who takes on the treatment of captive dolphins, as SETI/cetaceans come together.
The course of true love does not run smoothly for this pair of chronomancers. Or, to be clearer, they take their time over their love, and that of others, and that is too high a price to pay.
A trickster tale with a difference.
A story which reads like the work of a novice writer
Final instalment of Wellington’s ‘high octane’ zombie apocalypse story.
Winters’ first two story instalments were quite unique – no confusion over which asteroid strike/virus story with his story of the inhabitants of Earth embracing THE WORD OF GOD. All except one girl, unable to hear the voice and embrace the rapture.
‘Mapp and Lucia’ with a smidgeon of SF thrown in.
A good read from an author new to me, although Wexler has published several novels.
The illustration to this story by Vince Haig shows a young woman in a smart brocade evening gown with an enormous mushroom growing from her head (in an attractive sort of way) and he’s pretty true to the story.