REVIEW: “Candide; Life-” by Beth Goder

Review of Beth Goder, “Candide; Life-”, Clarkesworld Issue 179, August (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A hauntingly beautiful story. The August issue starts off strong!

Seva is a lovely person – a focused, determined, and talented musician. One day, she experiments with a different form of art called emotion capture, one that she has no training or practice in.

Self-doubt is but a natural part of the process of learning something new, but having people who support you goes a long way. Here, it goes in the other direction. But strength comes to us in many different ways, and so it does for Seva as well.

A story about different types of art, trust, self worth, emotions, feelings, and the particular feeling of taking a leap of faith.

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REVIEW: “True Colors” by Beth Goder

Review of Bethe Goder, “Rite of Passage”, Analog Science Fiction and Fact September/October (2020): 79–80 (Kindle) – Purchase Here. Reviewed by John Atom.

Julia visits an AI that can allegedly read a person’s brain patterns and produce their perfect version of a work of art. But when Julia goes through the process, all she gets is a blank painting with nothing but layers of white on it.

Reading “True Colors,” I got the impression that there’s a deeper meaning in the painting metaphor, but I’m not entirely sure I get it. Something about the “deeper layers” of Julia’s personality, perhaps. I don’t there’s enough there to really come to a conclusion. Still, it was an a neat story and I enjoyed the idea of the artistic AI using something akin to machine learning to generate someone’s “perfect” work of art.

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REVIEW: “Pulling Secrets from Stones” by Beth Goder

Review of Beth Goder, “Pulling Secrets from stones”, Luna Station Quarterly 35 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Rachel has too many memories, and “when the secret memories rubbed up against the regular ones…the magic became duller”. So she stored her memories in stones, locking each secret up in a rock, and hiding the rocks in a lake where the touch of water meant she could still access them when needed. But then drought came and now her memories are lost. Rachel cannot find them again until she can master her fear of what they contain.

This story weaves the speculative and the ordinary together in a marvelously seamless way, very enjoyable.

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