REVIEW: “Bulkheads Make the Best Neighbors” by Ian Randal Strock

Review of Ian Randal Strock, “Bulkheads Make the Best Neighbors”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact January/February (2020): 116–117 (print) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Permanent inhabitants in Earth’s orbit (possibly asteroid miners) have grown tired and resentful of the planet’s interference in their affairs. They have long yearned for independence but lack the necessary firepower to directly confront Earth. During a council session, a spacer named Maggie comes up with a clever plan: what if they smashed asteroids into tiny pieces to create a permanent “wall of junk” around earth? That will block off the planet and “keep the groundhogs [Earthers] down where they belong.”

There’s not much I can say about this story other than it is incredibly short, so short as to appear incomplete. It gives the impression that it is merely a scene from a larger story, the rest of which got mistakenly left out. For one thing, blocking off the entire planet seems like a massive overreaction to the simple burden of extra paperwork. A little more elaboration on behalf of the author would have helped put the story in proper perspective. Moreover, the author has decided to spell out the uncharacteristically “southern” dialects of the spacers, something that I always find a bit of a nuisance (let alone offensive), although here it is not so bad as to make the story unreadable. Overall, the story feels much more like a quick writing exercise than a complete piece of flash fiction.

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REVIEW: “Welcome to the New You: Terms and Conditions for the iCRISPR Gene-Editing Kit” by Douglas F. Dluzen

Review of Douglas F. Dluzen, “Welcome to the New You: Terms and Conditions for the iCRISPR Gene-Editing Kit”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact January/February (2020): 121–123 – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

This was a fun little short short (or flash fiction, if you will), structured in the form of an ad email to a hypothetical customer who began the online purchase of a gene-editing kit but never finished it. The contents of the email outline the benefits of the company’s various gene-editing kits in an attempt to encourage the customer to complete their purchase. The terms and conditions of the product are also included in the email.

I enjoyed the humor and wit of the story, even though most of it was quite on the nose. A nice touch was the company’s name, uGENIX (like eugenics), which unfortunately, does not sound all that implausible. Most poignantly, the included “Terms and Conditions” were just more thinly veiled advertisements of the product, including an obvious plea for the user to petition their representative about governmental regulations against gene editing.

But here at uGENIX, we believe you should have access to your own genome in its entirety.

Overall, a rather well done and humorous story that should take about a minute or two to read.

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REVIEW: “Wheel of Echoes” by Sean McMullen

Review of Sean McMullen, “Wheel of Echoes”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact January/February (2020): 72–81 – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Contains spoilers.

A producer in a recording studio comes across an old, 17th century recording device that contains the voice of Shakespeare performing Hamlet. A young voice actress, Kirsty, and an esteemed scholar of Shakespearean literature, Prof. Wilson, are invited to examine it. While Kirsty can appreciate the recording for what it is, the professor goes bonkers on account that the discovery will invalidate his work, as well as the work of countless other Shakespearean scholars. According to Professor Wilson, that is simply unacceptable.

“Wheel of Echoes” is one of those stories that has a great premise but a rather disappointing execution. An archaic recording of Shakespeare – and the fact that he may have been a lousy actor – is a genuinely neat idea. For about a third of the story, McMullen weaves an engaging mystery that culminates in the exciting revelation of the recording device. But as soon as that is done, the plot slips rapidly into implausibility. The characters are largely relegated into stereotypes whose actions are difficult to justify – or even understand. Prof. Wilson, especially, is depicted as an outright caricature of the “stuck-up academic,” unrealistic to the point of malintent. The story feels more like an expression of the author’s personal biases against academics than a serious examination of what would happen had such a device been discovered. The finale was a major letdown.

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REVIEW: “Claudette Dulac and the Devil of the North” by Genevieve Sinha

Review of Genevieve Sinha, “Claudette Dulac and the Devil of the North”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue Number 294 (January 2, 2020): Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer. 

This is the tale Claudette tells a newspaper reporter about how she—a skinny, sixteen-year old trapper’s daughter—came to tangle with the mysterious Devil of the North. Basically, she did it by following her own good judgment while ignoring the sexist advice of male authority figures. “Young ladies who listen to others ‘bout their place don’t get much done at all,” she reasons.   

The story is set in a steampunkish version of the Canadian north, replete with skinner-bots and a number of cleverly named electric-powered guns. These include the ‘Lectric Oathkeeper, The True Heart, Lightning’s Fury, and The Foreboding of Beasts. But my favorite is The Wife’s Beloved, “a quadruple-barreled invention so noisy it was used only as a last resort but so called because every man who’d used it came home to his wife.”    

Like its companion story in this issue of BCS, the plot is not what’s best about this yarn. In fact, the ending seemed a bit anticlimactic. However, the setting and narrative voice more than make up for it. In short, it’s another fine story from a magazine well worth reading.   

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REVIEW: “The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid” by Mazen Maarouf

Review of Mazen Maarouf, Jonathan Wright (trans.), “The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 171-214 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Oh, my. Just…oh my. This was by far the strangest, most bizarre (and longest!) of the entire collection. One part science fiction, two parts surrealism, with a blithe disregard for anything so basic as laws of nature. It was unapologetic in its oddness, and every page was a turner. I can’t even begin to summarise the plot, only say that this story hooked me in a way that none other in the anthology did, and it was an excellent way to close the collection out.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Association” by Samir El-Youssef

Review of Samir El-Youssef, Raph Cormack (trans.), “The Association”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 143-151 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The premise of this story is both utterly unexpected and delightfully apt:

Since the 2028 Agreement, the people of the country … had decided that forgetting was the best way to live in peace. The study of the past was forbidden (p. 144),

meaning, among other things, that suddenly, the occupation of “historian” no longer existed.

But, as shouldn’t be surprising, forbidding the study of history doesn’t prevent people from studying history, and plenty of covert historians still exist, including Professor Omar Hijazi, age 68, who is found dead in his apartment one night. The police rule it an accident, a byproduct of a theft gone bad, but petty journalist Zaid at the Daily Diwan disagrees. He sets off to find the truth, and what he discovers is way bigger, and way more oppressive, than he imagined.

It feels weird to say it about such a dystopian story, but this was really a fun read.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Commonplace” by Rawan Yaghi

Review of Rawan Yaghi, “Commonplace”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 153-160 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Smuggler Adam deals in sedatives, but no amount of sedatives will take away his nightmares of his sister, Rahaf, who was 15 when she went into the Eastern Land, and in retaliation was attacked and left for dead on their doorstep. In the end, there is only one way he can banish those nightmares, and that is to retrace her steps.

This is the sort of story where there is not much plot, not much that happens, but yet the title feels very apt: The story is told as if the events in it are commonplace, ordinary, even though they are so clearly extraordinary.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Final Warning” by Talal Abu Shawish

Review of Talal Abu Shawish, Mohamed Ghalaieny (trans.), “Final Warning”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 161-169 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Every morning the citizens of Ramallah bathe their eyes in the rising sunlight. No one expects a morning to come when the sun doesn’t rise. There is no light, there is no power, electronics do not work, engines do not work, everything in the city has come to a standstill. Apocalypse has come.

But only to Palestine. A message comes to the region: “Cut it out” (p. 168). The earth’s rotation will be restored, the power of electron-based energy will be restored — but only when the borders are redrawn and everyone commits to justice. This isn’t just about Palestine, though: This is the only way to prevent the entire galaxy from succombing to nihilism.

Ramallah is a multi-faith city, filled with Muslims, Christians, and Jews, as well as athiests, and Abu Shawish explores the ways in which the end of the world is interpreted through each of the three lenses.

Two footnotes explain to the non-Arabic-speaking reader some terminology left untranslated.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “These Wondrous Sweets” by Tony Pi

Review of Tony Pi, “These Wondrous Sweets”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue 294, Jan. 2, 2020 — Read online. Reviewed by Richard Lohmeyer.

This is the fifth story in what appears to be a continuing series. (Two of the earlier stories also appeared in BCS and were finalists for Aurora and Parsec awards.) Don’t worry if you haven’t read the previous work; I hadn’t either, but references within the current story make it easy to understand what has gone before.  

Ao, who creates and sells blown caramel figurines, lives in Chengdu, China and has two of the more novel “superpowers” I’ve encountered in SF/F: the ability to “pour his soul” into his caramel creations and conjure animals from water. In previous stories, Ao apparently used these powers to help save the life of the Pale Tigress, the mystical, tiger-like protectoress of the city. However, the Tigress was seriously wounded (as was Ao) in a confrontation with the Ten Crows Sect, which has somehow allied itself with a demon in hopes of seizing power in the city.  

The current story primarily involves Ao’s attempt to create a diversion so that a doctor can get to the Tigress and treat her injury without giving away the Tigress’ hiding place. To do this, Ao fashions a Tigress-shaped caramel figurine, expands its size with water, then sends his consciousness into it. This provides Ao a measure of control over his creation. However, as another character wryly observes, “plans always go wrong,” and most of the story involves Ao’s increasingly desperate attempts to improvise as the Ten Crows Sect closes in. 

Thin on plot but strong on ambience and action, this is a story worth reading. 

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REVIEW: “Application 39” by Ahmed Masoud

Review of Ahmed Masoud, “Application 39”, in Basma Ghalayini, ed., Palestine+100, (Comma Press, 2019): 117-141 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I said in the review of the anthology that as a whole, the stories are dark and not very hopeful. This is one that bucks the trend — alternating hopeful and hilarious — for the first half of the story, at least. Rayyan and Ismael pull a prank: They submit an application to the International Olympic Committee for the State of Gaza (by now its own independent city-state) to host the summer Olympics in 2048 — only eight years away. What neither of them ever dreamt is that the application would be taken seriously and be successful. For the first four years, planning goes smoothly, even ahead of schedule! But Gaza isn’t without its enemies, and in the final four years before the games, it becomes increasingly clear those enemies won’t let the games go off without a hitch, and both Rayyan and Ismael are caught in the center of it all. By the end of the story, it was no longer very hopeful at all.

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment