Steve Rasnic Tem. The Carl Paradox. (Asimovs January 2014)
A lightweight course to cleanse the palate during a multi-course repaste.
Reviewing short SF since 2000
A lightweight course to cleanse the palate during a multi-course repaste.
An effective glimpse at the impacts, on a global and personal level of dislocation due to the passage of time.
A short, cautionary tale, looking at an all-too-plausible (un/desirable?) future in which the whole wealth of human knowledge is at your fingertips/physical artefacts such as books and magazines are consigned to the dustbin of history.
An interesting story, which follows a young man who wakes up far, far into the Earth’s future.
An elderly couple are on a trip they make every five years – to Phoenix Sanctuary, where people (and pets) are kept ‘suspended’ whilst cures for their ailments are found.
A clever little story to end the issue.
A deceptively affecting short story from Tem.
The Goldstein and Rusch stories start and finish the issue strongly, with the other stories being good without being great. Other stories by Crowell, Cooper, Steinmetz, Oltion, Resnick, Robyn, Tem.
The collection successfully brings together a litte bit of sf, a lot of speculative fiction, fantasy, horror and thrillers, but which all work together and which don’t leap out as being stories of that ilk, but simply good stories with a shared setting.