Vandana Singh. Wake-Rider. (Lightspeed Magazine #55, December 2014)
A great balance of a human protagonist who is a rounded character, with frailty and backstory, Big Picture, technology and drama.
Reviewing short SF since 2000
A great balance of a human protagonist who is a rounded character, with frailty and backstory, Big Picture, technology and drama.
A story that is mostly internal to the protagonist : her thoughts, dreams, nightmares, hopes. Not a story with a simple storyline, and it’s ambiguous, and all the better for it.
A neat balance of humanity and renewable energy, and the potential for human and community growth.
A very clever story, blending the future with historical and non-Western sensibilities, and story within a story, or rather, a meta-story. And it’s online, so why not read it?
As ever, a strong collection of stories, albeit fairly ‘safe’ in terms of a relatively narrow range of sources.
..believable characters with human frailties in a sadly believable environment devasted by the impact of those frailties.
Stories by : Alastair Reynolds, Ann Halam, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Cory Doctorow, Daryl Gregory, Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, Jason Sanford, Jeff VanderMeer, Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell, Kathleen Ann Goonan, M Rickert, Mary Rosenblum, Michael Swanwick, Neil Gaiman, Paolo Bacigalupi, Robert Reed, Rudy Rucker, Sue Burke, Ted Chiang, Ted Kosmatka, Vandana Singh.
As ever, chock full of high quality SF, with the annual summation providing SF with an ongoing reference and reading tome which we should not take for granted. Here’s to the next 25 years! Stories by : Alastair Reynolds, Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert, Brian Stableford, Bruce Sterling, Chris Roberson, David Moles, Elizabeth Bear, Greg Egan, Gregory Benford, Gwyneth Jones, Ian McDonald, James Van Pelt, John Barnes, Justin Stanchfield, Kage Baker, Keith Brooke, Ken MacLeod, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Michael Swanwick, Nancy Kress, Neal Asher, Pat Cadigan, Robert Reed, Robert Silverberg, Stephen Baxter, Ted Chiang, Ted Kosmatka, Tom Purdom, Una McCormack, Vandana Singh
Stories by : Albert E Cowdrey, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Brendan Dubois, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Christopher Rowe, Colin P. Davies, Daniel Abraham, David Moles, Eleanor Arnason, James Patrick Kelly, James. L. Cambias, Kage Baker, M. John Harrison, Mary Rosenblum, Michael F. Flynn, Nancy Kress, Paolo Bacigalupi, Pat Murphy, Paul Di Filippo, Paul Melko, Peter F. Hamilton, Robert Reed, Stephen Baxter, Terry Bisson, Vandana Singh, Vernor Vinge, Walter Jon Williams, William Sanders.