REVIEW: “The Final Commandment: Trey’s Story” by James Gunn

Review of James Gunn, “The Final Commandment: Trey’s Story”, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February (2018): 26-32 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Kiera Lesley.

A cautionary tale and a twist on a rampaging AI story.

In Trey’s world – Ourworld – humans evolved along similar physical and technological lines as humans on Earth. This included the creation of increasingly intelligent machines, which eventually achieved sapience. Except, that access to this supreme intelligence does not guarantee human happiness or peace on land or in the sea.

This piece was more speculative than the previous stories in this series by Gunn. I particularly liked the machines’ co-dependent relationship with humans in this piece. Often AIs are depicted as free to run and be themselves as soon as they achieve sentience, with humans only an annoyance or something that’s getting in the way. Not the case here. Trey and the other machines have helped and been used by humans in different ways across their combined history.

The image of Trey with the two lovers coiled safe inside is a lovely one. There’s a nice symbology there about human-created machines carrying their creators, womb-like, into the stars.

The layered inevitable tragedies leading up to the conclusion also built quite well, though I found it slowed through the middle around the evolution of the sea people.

However, as with most of Gunn’s tie-in stories I find the lack of context around key elements of the world found in the novel, particularly what the Transcendental Machine is and why all of these species think it can do the things they want. Because of this I found the ending a little less satisfying and uplifting than it could have been for a stand-alone piece.

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REVIEW: “On Your Honor” by Kat Weaver

Review of Kat Weaver, “On Your Honor”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

I found this story rather hodgepodge — fanciful titles and clothing and the affected speech of a genteel historical fantasy; heavily Greek names as if (but not actually) from classical myth; bits and bobs of rather generic SF elements. It seemed like it didn’t quite know what genre it was supposed to be, and not in the “genre-transcending” sort of way but in the slightly confused and muddled sort of way. Sadly, this just wasn’t the story for me; but if you like political intrigue combined with parrots, it might be the story for you.

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REVIEW: “The Seeds of Consciousness: 4107’s Story” by James Gunn

Review of James Gunn, “The Seeds of Consciousness: 4107’s Story”, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February (2018): 19-32 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Kiera Lesley.

As a species, Floran dreams were rooted to the soil; their nightmares were filled with the dread of being separated from it. But their will was stronger than their fears…

Up there as my favourite of Gunn’s series of tie-in stories for his novel Transcendental.

4107 is a Floran, a sentient plant species. The Florans have evolved over generations, growing from blissful cycles of growing in the sun and dying back to the soil, to overcoming both native and insterstellar threats, and finally reaching out to the stars on their own.

I really enjoyed the mythological feel of this piece. It feels like a creation story, except it goes far beyond creation. The long, collective memories of the Florans, reaching back to the first sprouting, and the generally long cycles Floran history has taken allows for this gradual unfolding of the Floran’s evolution. And an evolution it is! Responding to different adverse circumstances which force them to adapt and respond in order to survive which, in turn, drives their advancement in thought, technology and perspective. All the while the Florans retain a unique perspective, intelligence and problem-solving approach built from their worldview and cultural priorities. This is an alternate evolution trajectory, in some ways familiar and in other ways quite alien to a human (‘meat’) perspective and it is fascinating to watch.

As this is a background story to an existing novel, universe and character this piece may be a bit “infodumpy” or lacking in story for some. It does have an alternate history feel to it and, while I didn’t find that this hindered my enjoyment of it, it might not work for some readers.

Novel tie-ins can be tough to pull off, I think in part because you don’t want to give away the novel’s trajectory, but there needs to be enough of a conclusion to be satisfying to the reader. This story achieved that, bringing us a full history of Floran civilisation up to a set point before showing them boldly heading towards their next era. I liked that the story wrapped up in the middle of the Floran’s full story, showing us where they wanted to go, but leaving it to the reader (perhaps in the novel) to find out whether they achieved this. The ending scene was a particular highlight for me, bringing us back to a familiar cultural perspective and environment with humour and hinting at the next steps for 4107 and the Florans’ journey in the universe.

 

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REVIEW: “Barren Isle” by Allen M. Steele

Review of Allen M. Steele, “Barren Isle”, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February (2018): 130-146 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Kiera Lesley.

A team of Corps of Exploration soliders are tasked with a search and rescue operation on the Barren Isle – a remote location on the planet Coyote inhabited by often dangerous native tribes and members of a fanatical religious cult. The team’s mission is to find and retrieve two children who are believed to have made their way to the Barren Isle while running away from New Salem and the Book and Candle cult.

This is a pretty fun military scifi short. The team have good banter and personalities. The setting and stakes are drawn up fast, mostly through conversation with a few necessary blocks of historical information and context.

I found the The Book and Candle and Fletcher a bit two-dimensional as villains, though, and the protagonists were straight-up ‘good guys’ saving misguided people back to where they belonged. It was a bit simplistic in morality and character depth for my tastes. I also never felt that the danger was particularly real – our heroes never seemed challenged or threatened, which I found undermined the stakes. On the whole, however, this story delivered what it said it would on the tin and came to a neat conclusion.

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REVIEW: “Assassin in the Clouds” by Robert R. Chase

Review of Robert R. Chase, “Assassin in the Clouds”, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February 2018: 112-128 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Kiera Lesley.

Phil Fogg is working undercover as a travel writer and attempting to prevent the assassination of Dr Takashi Kamiji on a cruise ship – the Francesco Lana de Terzi – floating through the clouds on no set course except the will of the winds. Fogg must keep tabs on Kamiji, try to find the would-be assassin who is resorting to increasingly more volatile methods, and figure out why anyone would want to kill Kamiji in the first place.

This novelette has a good sequence of action events and the setting is unique while still holding a classic ‘whodunnit’, closed room (or, in this case, boat) scenario. We spend a lot of time with Fogg trying to work the case throughout the ship and it keeps the narrative humming along nicely between assassination attempts and fight scenes. The one problem I had with it was that Fogg was almost too competent and I felt this weakened the threats to Kamiji’s safety.

 

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REVIEW: “Solicited Discordance” by Matthew Hughes

Review of Matthew Hughes, “Solicited Discordance”, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February (2018): 95- 110 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Kiera Lesley.

Detective Erm Kaslo has been hired to find and bring back rich heir Delabond Shekhar, suspected of being seduced into a common scam to hunt for treasure on Bessarene – a continent on which nano and native organisms have been left to fuse and evolve into a dangerous wilderness. To make matters more interesting Delabond’s potential seducer practices ‘solicited discordance’ – an approach to living which challenges physical and intellectual comforts. However, as Kaslo follows the pair to Bessarene, he discovers that there is more going on than he initially suspected.

A neat space opera adventure story. The plot and world were interesting and the action sequences at the climax were fun. However, the narrative had a lot of dense paragraphs of description, historical context, and a lengthy section speculating on what was happening off-screen which I found slowed the pace.

The idea of solicited discordance is an interesting one – someone deliberately devoting their life to experiencing discomfort and difficulties. However, as the character in question wasn’t our perspective character, it was a bit more peripheral to the story than the title suggests.

 

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REVIEW: “The Lost City of Leng” by Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo

Review of Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo, “The Lost City of Leng”, Asimov’s Science Fiction January/February (2018): 33-65 — Purchase Here. Reviewed by Kiera Lesley.

An adventurous sequel to At the Mountains of Madness. A journalist joins an eccentric group on an expedition to Antarctica to help the “cukes” face off against Shoggoths in exchange for loot and scientific knowledge.

I’m going to state this upfront – I didn’t particularly like this novella. I enjoy new Lovecraftian work, especially set in Antarctica and one thing Rucker and Di Filippo did really well in this piece was to capture the “Good ol’ boys” adventure tone. The crew and mission were fun, the description of the subterranean lake was evocative, and the Elder Gods’ activities and motivations were appropriately fascinating and unknowable to the protagonists.

However, I found the story problematic in some ways, particularly Vivi’s characterisation and Doug’s incessant sexualisation of her. I also had some problems with Doug’s motivations, the pacing through the middle, and the subplot introduced somewhat suddenly towards the end.

There may have been more mileage for people more well-versed in Lovecraft than me – there were lots of references, shout outs and tie-ins here. I’m also wondering if there was satire or humour that just didn’t come across for me in this piece.

Overall, this piece didn’t really resonate with me and I found this a bit lacking compared to some of the more progressive and innovative contemporary Lovecraft-inspired work.

 

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REVIEW: “Borrowing Ark Sutherland” by Meghan Cunningham

Review of Meghan Cunningham, “Borrowing Ark Sutherland”, Luna Station Quarterly 33 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

The title of the story is hard to parse, until one reads the first sentence:

Like a rental bike returned with a tire puncture, Ark woke up in a stranger’s apartment.

Ark is a person, and one in very curious circumstances indeed.

The circumstances under which Ark has become someone — something — that can be borrowed are not very pleasant. Cunningham’s story is a future-set SF story, and it’s not a hopeful future, but rather one rife with segregation, destruction of nature, and sordid hook-ups.

There was a lot going on in the story that I found difficult to keep track of or to hang together in a sensible story; I often felt like I was missing a necessary piece or two, trying to figure out who the various characters were and what exactly was going on — is Ark the one borrowing or the one who is being borrowed? Half-way through the story, I was still unsure, though by the — rather abrupt — end I had figured some things out. Certainly the complexities of the story merit reading it more than once, although both times through felt more edifying than educational.

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REVIEW: “Glitch” by Lauren C. Teffeau

Review of Lauren C. Teffeau, “Glitch”, in Abandoned Places, edited by George R. Galuschak and Chris Cornell (Shohola Press, 2018): 27-37 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

The abandoned place in this story is not a real one but a virtual one — a desolate landscape built out of lines of code composed by many hands. But when the hands of the most important coder, Razor, are abruptly lost, so too are the lands that Razor constructed, and it becomes twice abandoned.

The unnamed narrator’s story is the story of why Razor killed himself, and what it was he sought to hide by doing so. Part sci fi, part horror, all just a bit too close to reality — and with an unexpected twist at the end.

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REVIEW: “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury

Review of Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains”, in Abandoned Places, edited by George R. Galuschak and Chris Cornell (Shohola Press, 2018): 19-25 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

I confess that my Bradbury exposure to date has been relatively little. I tried to read Fahrenheit 450 in high school, and never succeeded in finishing it. It’s now sat on my shelf for too long for me to pause in front of it, when I’m looking for something new to read, and think “Oh, I should give that another go.” Reading this story certainly piques my interest to go back and revisit Bradbury.

The theme of abandoned places is at the fore of this story. There are no characters, except for one lonesome dog who is too pathetic to be a true agent, there is only place, the place to which the soft rains will come, a place that used to be full of people but which is now empty and forsaken.

It’s not often that an inanimate object can successfully be the protagonist in a story, but Bradbury makes it work here.

(Originally published in 1950 in Collier’s.)

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