Reading Short SF and Fantasy 3

Analog (3/12) is full of government agents, national security and elusive alien visitors this month. “Mother’s Tattoos,” a short story by Richard A. Lovett, launches from span to a ground-level look at a surveillance society; Kyle Kirkland’s “Upon Their Backs” has a government agent investigate the disappearance of some odd and possibly alien bodies; “The Ediacarian Machine” by Craig DeLancey is a case of an archaeological dig discovering an alien machine in half-billion-year-old rock. That’s in addition to the second part of Robert J. Sawyer’s novel, Triggers, which is full of Secret Service agents. Part two develops the plot some more and explains how people read each other’s memories with some quantum-mechanical jiggery-pokery. Still enjoyable.

Apex 32 (1/12) has two stories with a game show/reality TV bent, which seems a bit unbalanced. But they’re good stories, if nasty. Cat Rambo’s “So Glad We Had This Time Together” is the tale of a reality TV show featuring unreal creatures, including a vampire and a werewolf; things proceed from there. Downhill. Rapidly. “Sweetheart Showdown” by Sarah Dalton is a Miss Teen USA meets The Hunger Games kind of story, told with much snark and satire. On the nonfiction side, Jim C. Hines’s essay “Writing About Rape,” about the use of rape scenes in fiction, is a must-read.

Asimov’s Science Fiction (2/12). Robert Reed’s powerful novella, “Murder Born,” just blew me away: it posits a form of capital punishment in which killing the murderer does bring the victims back, and works that idea with rigour and emotional force. I also enjoyed “Hive Mind Man” by Rudy Rucker and Eileen Gunn, about someone who embodies trends.

Three excellent stories in Clarkesworld 64 (1/12). Aliette de Bodard’s “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” is a brilliant and moving piece about space decolonization: what happens in the aftermath of a war of liberation — to those who accomodated the regime, to those who fought — told over several generations, with a surprising point of view. Also good are “What Everyone Remembers,” Rahul Kanakia’s story about saving the world with genetically engineered roaches, and Gwendolyn Clare’s exciting first-contact space opera “All the Painted Stars.”

I would not be at all surprised to see Reed’s “Murder Born” and de Bodard’s “Scattered Along the River of Heaven” on award ballots next year.