Black Powder by Maria Dahvana Headley

It was a strange and interesting story that had the mood of something that Stephen King and Quentin Tarantino could have co-written.

It had s foreboding heaviness of ancient curses, threatening wildlife, abandoned places and unstoppable violence.  I loved the style of the narration and the character of The Hunter.

Sadly, the story fell apart somewhere and I found myself wishing the story would just end.  I felt it suffered from too many world-building elements.

It was that world-building that grabbed me at the start.


This needs to be a novel with room to breath.

Maria Dahvana Headley's website - https://www.mariadahvanaheadley.com/

Maria Dahvana Headley

Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance by Tobias S Buckell

Gotta love that title.

I had a bit of trouble understanding the world Buckell created but, once I did, it was wholly original and terrific.

It's a morality tale that involves uploaded consciousness, near-immortality and the idea of the singularity that went way past anything I have imagined so far.

That said, it was a pure story of humanity, morality, justice and greed.

It was strange.

It was familiar.

I loved it.



Tobias S Buckell's website - https://tobiasbuckell.com/

Tobias S Buckell

Cannibal Acts by Maureen McHugh

If you can get past the first scene you’ll be okay.

It’s the end of the world and humanity is dying out.

In a secluded town on the Alaskan coast, a small group of people are trying to survive while “at war” with a neighbouring group of survivors.

The scariest part of the author’s story is the realization that society is a very fragile thing.  We can only be “American,” “Japanese” or whatever if all of our systems function properly if we can be kept healthy and fed.

This was a chilling story mostly because the apocalypse is only a year or two in the past. What is normal for us is gone so quickly.

I think this story might keep me up tonight.

Well told.

Maureen McHugh

The Orange Tree by Maria Dahvana Headley

I found this to be an interesting way to start a dark February morning.

A broken, sick and troubled poet commissions a carpenter to create for him a golem.  He hopes it will cure him of his crushing loneliness.

But he is not as alone as he imagines.  The influence of others is all around him, even in his creation.

This story was beautiful and disturbing.  There was the feeling of powers held in check by will or simple chance that gave it a foreboding atmosphere.  And yet, it was beautiful and sad and spoke to the fleetingness of life.


It was a surprising story that will stay with me to be sure.

Maria Dahvana Headley's website - https://www.mariadahvanaheadley.com/

Maria Dahvana Headley

The Wretched and the Beautiful by E Lilly Yu

A timely story about refugees.

But these are not Syrians crossing borders, these are aliens crash landing on a beach and asking for protection from a ravaged homeworld.

It doesn’t take long before humans that are affected by the integration start to resent it and the ugly bigotry toward “the other” begins.

Yu has taken the highest traditions fo SF to reflect ourselves back to us.

The story is short and brings home the message effectively.

I was so happy to have read it.

E. Lilly Yu's website - http://elilyyu.com/

E Lilly Yu

Carnival Nine by Caroline M Yoachim

What a wonderful story.

Touching and familiar but wholly original to me. 

In it, we follow the life of a young wind-up girl who, presumably, lives in the house of a master modeller. 

Her world is a quiet one but when the carnival train pulls in she is swept up in the romance of joining them and exploring her world. 

But life is seldom as simple as that.  For every new beginning, something must end.  In this case, it is the guilt of leaving her family behind. 

I loved the warmth and humanity of this story. 

The author is extremely talented. 

Highly recommended. 

Caroline M Yoachim - http://carolineyoachim.com/

Caroline M Yoachim

ZeroS by Peter Watts

This was a military SF story set in a dystopian future.

A dying soldier is given a second chance by agreeing to be uploaded where his consciousness can then be installed into combat bodies and sent on mission after mission.

Eventually, he realizes the nature of his work and begins to wonder if he has made a tragic mistake.

While reading this, I kept thinking of how John Scalzi used a similar premise to recruit soldiers in his Old Man's War series.  The trouble is that the older you get the more you come to see the world in your own way and question authority.  It can be difficult to control veterans.

I liked the story enough but part of what frustrated the protagonist frustrated me as the reader.  In battle, he is kept from seeing the whole field of engagement so neither could I.

It was a well-told story written by a skilled author.

Peter Watts' website - https://www.rifters.com/index.htm

Peter Watts

Church of Birds by Micah Dean Hicks

A dark fantasy about a boy who had been cursed to be a swan for six years.

When the curse was lifted he was only partially restored being left with one arm and one wing.

What would life be like for a kid if he had that kind of disfigurement?

The story was well written, I felt for the kid, but dark fantasy is just the kind of story that doesn't work for me.  It's a genre thing.


Micah Dean Hicks website - https://micahdeanhicks.com/

Micah Dean Hicks

Don't Press Charges and I Won't Sue by Charlie Jane Anders

This was an interesting, though odd, look at a twisted kind of eugenics.

It was a horrifying story of watching the transfer of life energy and consciousness from a person of "questionable" ethics to the body of a dead person, who had displayed better moral character.

Oh, it was an ugly situation made worse by the desire of the transferred to live.

Startling.

Charlie Jane Anders' website - http://charliejane-anders.tumblr.com/

Charlie Jane Anders

Tasting Notes on the Varietals of the Southern Coast by Gwendolyn Clare

Oh my.

A disturbing and grotesque look at the hubris of war.  We follow the journal entries of the Emporer's vintner, who follows behind the battle lines to take stock of the conquered countries' wine offerings.

This story left me breathless and staring out the window.

Stunning work.

Gwendolyn Clare's website - http://www.gwendolynclare.com/

Gwendolyn Clare

The Greatest One-Star Restaurant in the Whole Quadrant by Rachael K Jones

This was quite the entertaining and entirely creepy story about a group of escaped cyborgs looking for freedom.

On one hand, it is an exploration of human ingenuity and obsolescence.  On the other, a look at free will and trying to rise above one’s station.  There is also a poke a social media tied in with machine logic.

It read like something Douglas Adams could have written albeit on one of his darkest, most depressed days.

There was an ick factor here that made me wrinkle my nose but it was darkly funny too.

This story stayed with me for a couple of days.

Rachael K Jones' website - https://rckjones.wordpress.com/

Rachael K Jones

The Resident by Carmen Maria Machado

A writer goes off to a lakeside retreat to work on her novel among other artists in residence.

It was well written but was not my cup of - anything.

This was straight up literary fiction, where a broken person goes off to continue being broken and returns home just as broken as before. Nothing happens to the character, she doesn't grow or learn much.

Which is just fine.  But when I read, I am looking for an adventure, I want to read about a place or situation that is outside my daily life.  I want to be moved by a character overcoming something. To read about somebody’s navel-gazing self-doubt is not inspiring or interesting to me.

We can all get stuck in our own inadequacies and roll around in it to the culmination of nothing.  What good does that do?  Isn’t life better when we are working to a goal?  When we grow?


I hate being so negative about the story, it seems to me that it was a disservice to the author to include it in a Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology when it is nothing of the sort

I felt cheated of my time with this story.

Carmen Maria Machado's website - https://carmenmariamachado.com/

Carmen Maria Machado

Brightened Star, Ascending Dawn by A. Merc Rustad

Oh, I loved this story.

I have a soft spot for spaceship AI's, I don't know why.  Perhaps it's because I've always felt like the ships are characters too, so when they have a voice, it's pretty special.

In this story, the ship Ascending Dawn discovers a stow-away and decides to keep it secret, even though it goes against her protocols.

We quickly learn that this is a massive Space Opera, the ship and crew are operating in a galactic dictatorship where deviations from expected actions have startling consequences.

This was a terrific tale and I dearly hope there is more, I am hooked.

A highlight of the entire collection.

A. Merc Rustad's website - https://amercrustad.com/

A. Merc Rustad

The Last Cheng Beng Gift by Jaymee Goh

A rather interesting story about the afterlife.

Mrs. Lim has been dead for years but is still very interested in her children.  Every year gifts are made to the dead and Mrs. Lim is often unhappy with the offering from her daughter, Hong Yin.

An interesting exploration of the afterlife is made and how decisions can be made to influence the world of the living.

It was a charming story where understanding is discovered.

I liked it very much.

Jaymee Goh

The Hermit of Houston by Samuel R. Delany

To use a term from this story, it was a batshit crazy world, in large part because the narrator was an unreliable source.

The future sees humanity returning to a kind of tribalism where countries and borders no longer exist.

Certain parts of our present world remain, Facebook has been replaced by Handbook, the internet is still there, movies too and there is a space program hinted at.

But because society is highly localized, our ability to get a full picture is hindered.  Which is the point, I am sure, but I was continually frustrated by this fact.

I am uncertain about what I got out of it.  A planet without countries is naturally the default setting on Earth, but since I’ve only ever known this kind of political system, I found the concept difficult to accept.

Political entities, such as countries, no matter how incredibly flawed, have served to move humanity forward and to view the world from a higher vantage point.  To return to the microcosm of the tribe would be the bleakest evolution I could imagine.

So I guess it is an apt story for our times.

Writing these reviews sometimes helps me to make sense of what I read.  In The Hermit of Houston, I found the setting much more compelling than the story itself.

Interesting stuff.

Samuel R Delany’s Wiki page - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_R._Delany

Samuel R Delany

Loneliness Is In Your Blood by Cadwell Turnbull

Oh!  Yuck!  The opening scenes of this story made me cringe.  Yup, I still don't like horror.

But I read on and it became something more, something sadder.

If you consider that even monsters, be they human or otherwise, have a backstory and needs, then you can appreciate some of the consequences of being immortal.

There was a gloomy, twisted logic to the narrator's life.

This made the story worth telling but I was still disturbed by every word of it.

Well told but icky.

Cadwell Turnbull's website - https://cadwellturnbull.com/

Cadwell Turnbull

Justice Systems in Quantum Parallel by Lettie Prell

I liked this one.

A person is in a prison cell waiting for his sentence to be imposed.

While waiting he drifts in and out of lucid dreaming states where he explores other possible judicial systems.

The exploration of the topic is relevant for our time, or any other really.  We are at a crossroads on this planet where humans will have to re-imagine absolutely everything, from how we drive and fly to how we power our economies.

When we reengineer our societies many of the social norms may come into scrutiny.  What other ways are there to judge those that have committed a crime?  What if we changed the definition of some crimes?  What if the victims had direct influence in punishment?

Fascinating topic.

Ad well told too.

Lettie Prell's website - http://lettieprell.com/index.phtml

Lettie Prell

You Will Always Have a Family : A Triptych by Kathleen Kayembe

This was an interesting story about love, betrayal, revenge and discovery.

It revolved around a complicated family relationship after the mother dies.  The father blames a son and betrays his love.

Choices are made that only require forgiveness or contrition to resolve.

It was at once a horrifying story that changed with each perspective switch.  Highly original and well told.  I was glad it was so much more than just a ghost story.

There is a lot to unpack here.  Let yourself take a breath at the end of each section and trust the author to bring you to an original conclusion.

Well told.

Kathleen Kayembe's website - https://www.kathleenkayembe.com/

Kathleen Kayembe

Destroy the City with Me Tonight by Kate Alice Marshall

Honestly, I just didn’t get it.

The story drifts in and out of reality, the protagonist gets some kind of disease where she becomes a city and a city becomes her while she becomes invisible to people in it.

Sorry, it was just overly strange and made no sense to me.

On to the next story,

Kate Alice Marshall's website - http://katemarshallbooks.com/

Rivers Run Free by Charles Payseur

If this is fantasy - give me more!

It was a terrific story which sheds a light on humanity’s exploitation of the Earth’s water resources.

Four rivers take human form and are on a quest to find the sea.  It was lovely, sad and served as a warning of a possible future.

Reading this confirmed a feeling that I’ve been having for quite some time; that we, humans, are at the limits of what our world can endure.  We must change our ways to live in harmony with the natural systems.  In this story, the rivers want that too.

Terrific stuff, very imaginative and cinematic.

Charles Payseur