Published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies ; Issue #225, May 11, 2017 This is a wonderful story. I actually don’t want to say anything at all about it, because I think not knowing any details is best. So that’s all I’m going to say. Just read it, you won’t be disappointed.
Humanity is dying out. Climate change. Terrorism. Disease. People have accepted that these is no future, just a slow decline and then they’ll be no more. The colonies on Mars have resulted in death, there will be no new missions to Mars. Humanity is resigned to extinction. Susannah doesn’t have any more hope than anyone […]
First published by Uncanny A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy in May 2017. Okay, this is wonderful. There is something about Ursula Vernon’s writing that just works so well with my brain. I love her no nonsense characters, and her gentle subverting of tropes. Well, not always gentle, there can be trampling underfoot of […]
Published in Apex Magazine, August 2017 This is one of those short stories that I just didn’t gel with, I think I needed it to be longer… defeats to purpose of a short story, I know, but I needed to know a bit more about the ending. This isn’t, I don’t think, and problem with […]
Published in Uncanny Magazine, Sept/Oct 2017. Issue 17. Short stories often don’t really work for me. Either too little happens or too much. Also being so short they often don’t have enough time and space to devote to character development. And that’s often what makes a story, long or short, work for me. But I […]
The Books of the Raksura ; 1 So after reading the wonderful murderbot books1 I wanted to read more by Wells. And this is the first book in the The Books of the Raksura which is nominated for Best Series in the 2018 Hugos I figured this was a good place to start. The main […]
Published in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine September/October 2017 – read it online Ever since the “blackout” when a virus attacked their database the inhabitants of a generation ship have prioritised a way of keeping their history alive. Whether that is historical events from earth, or specific tunes or re-enactments of popular films, the Memory Project […]
Originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine #132, September 2017 Bot 9 has just been activated after a long time offline. The Ship it serves has a huge list of to-do activities and it has been tasked to track down an Incidental, a pest infestation. But Bot 9 is slightly concerned that something is going on that […]
Dominion of the fallen ; 1.5 Thuan and Kim Cuc and attempting go gain entrance to House Hawthorn. Every year the House accepts applicants, tests them, and maybe takes them in. For the Houseless in Paris this is a path of possible safety, without a House you have very little hope. But Thuan and Kim […]
This is a short but fascinating book. Written in 1992 it details the growth of hard-line right-wing religious individuals and organisations and their efforts to keep Ireland Catholic. I’ll admit that the blurb sounds fairly conspiracy theory “Probes the shadowy world of the right-wing forces that plotted the 1983 referendum on abortion and the 1992 […]
Translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou Oh, this is a beautiful book. The art work is just lovely, I love the style of it. Simple, often black and white, but with some full colour spreads. It is really wonderful. And the art matches the story. Hélène used to have friends, but then something happened, […]
2018 Hugo Award Finalist – Best Novelette Originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine #124, January 2017 I really enjoyed this novelette/short story, call it what you will. It takes an interesting idea, printing meat and mixes it up with forgery and crime and then adds in some great characters for that aspect that always makes stories […]