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.
Archive | Individual Stories
The Individual Stories category has two types of content : 1 – the stories I read in magazines and anthologies and review straight away, rather than waiting to complete the magazine or anthology and reviewing it all in one go. I started doing this in 2010; 2 – stories published as standalone ‘chapbooks’, or published online, or otherwise as a singleton. There are a couple of dozen stories of this nature, reviewing during the 2000s, which are available here.
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…
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.