REVIEW: “Post Hacking for the Uninitiated” by Grace Chan

Review of Grace Chan, “Post Hacking for the Uninitiated”, Clarkesworld Issue 205, October (2023): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Straight into the action with this one! A sharp yet soft tale of things lost or taken away, and what it takes to take the power back. With hints of a much larger space opera world-building going on in the background, I’d love to see more stories set in this universe. The story stands very well on its own, of course. The parts that focus on Orin’s thoughts and memories are particularly poignant.

A bittersweet story that left me wanting more!

REVIEW: “He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars” by Grace Chan

Review of Grace Chan, “He Leaps for the Stars, He Leaps for the Stars”, Clarkesworld Issue 178, July (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

I do love futuristic fiction where the protagonists are really sweet and a little different from the usual science-oriented folks. This piece of speculative fiction was set in a future where people have soma projections of themselves and can go wherever they please, without actually going anywhere.

Yennie lives exactly such a life, and he’s a musical star on the rise. But does he want the success because he wants it himself, or because he was genetically selected and predetermined to want it?

Freedom, but not really. Happiness, but maybe not truly. Privacy, not even a pretense of. But hope, friendship and love finds a way.