REVIEW: “The Falling” by M V Melcer

Review of M V Melcer, “The Falling”, Clarkesworld Issue 178, July (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

The world is falling, and there is a race against time and a “monster” in the sky that’s coming to devour the world.

The engineers try as hard as they can to save the world, but the most they have been able to do is delay the inevitable. After a few years our narrator then becomes an engineer and works to make the world safe, even while trying to escape the clutches of the solar system devouring monster.

This world works on points allotted to everyone, based on which they can live and work in particular rings. It’s not a very pleasant way to organize a society, but people have accepted it. And just like humanity in general, here too there is a streak of happy abandon, even while being acutely aware of the grave possibilities.

There are secrets, classified information, and terrible choices for people to make, and the narrator makes their own choice at the end.

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REVIEW: “I’m Feeling Lucky” by Leonid Kaganov

Review of Leonid Kaganov, “I’m Feeling Lucky”, Clarkesworld Issue 178, July (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

What a fantastic story! I read it twice. Once really quickly because the story was super engaging, and the second time to just enjoy the details and savor the story. I’m usually a slow reader of short stories because I feel the medium deserves full attention to detail, but stories like this one come along where I just can’t help myself.

Time jumps through temporal clips form the basis of our protagonist’s story. He comes from a world where people started to take advantage of this fact, and rushed headlong into the future in order to arrive at a better world. A world that would be ready for them to enjoy, not really considering that there might be a not-so-great world waiting, not considering that maybe all the time jumps are making things worse.

It’s interesting to see where our protagonist ends up and the journey he takes to get there. A lovely little story.

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REVIEW: “Tidings” by Jayne Moore Waldrop

Review of Jayne Moore Waldrop, “Tidings,” Luna Station Quarterly 22 (2015): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.

Content note: Infertility; racism.

This was a sensitive, delicately written story revolving around Ruthie, and her struggle to conceive with her husband Joe, and her great-aunt Astrid, who too had faced barrenness all her life. When Ruthie receives a phone call that Astrid has died, aged 92, neither she nor the reader expect what follows afterwards at all. I spent much of the story anxiously awaiting the resolution, utterly unable to predict it, and if I didn’t quite get what I was waiting for, I got a very sweet happy ending.

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REVIEW: “Preserved in Amber” by Samantha Murray

Review of Samantha Murray, “Preserved in Amber”, Clarkesworld Issue 178, July (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Spaceships are always a great way to start a story, but this ship is a bit different. It looks different, it’s goal is different, and it communicates differently.

We switch between two points of view – one is of a scientist trying to decipher the message coming from the spaceship, the other is another scientist farther in the future who has a different task at hand.

Memory is a strong part of this story, seeping into feelings, thoughts and conversations for both women. Another tale from this Clarkesworld issue about the transient nature of time, with the emphasis here being on the transient nature of humans in time. Longing, memory, and feelings collide to make this a powerful novelette.

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REVIEW: “When the Sheaves Are Gathered” by Nick Wolven

Review of Nick Wolven, “When the Sheaves Are Gathered”, Clarkesworld Issue 178, July (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

A story revolving around Johnny and his chosen family. Gaps in memory that are slowly but surely getting larger, to the extent of forgetting people entirely. Aided by hints of a folk song that takes on a tragic, terrifying color. A childhood memory that brings a certain type of solace.

The walls are closing in, but only metaphorically, because the world is getting larger and lonelier otherwise. A twist comes and makes things better, but the overarching feeling of the transient nature of memory remains. Time is fickle and we are reminded of this through the tale in various ways.

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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.

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REVIEW: “Promises We Made Under A Brick-Dark Sky” by Karen Osborne

Review of Karen Osborne, “Promises We Made Under A Brick-Dark Sky”, Clarkesworld Issue 178, July (2021): Read Online. Reviewed by Myra Naik.

Just beautiful. This issue starts off strong and how! Our narrator is a strong, courageous woman and contributes greatly to the beauty of this story.

I’ve said beauty twice already, and I realize that this story really is deserving of that adjective, though the description of the world and the lives lived within it are often anything but.

Osborne’s vivid imagery and fresh descriptions add a different texture to the story, and her clever use of language reveals all in due time. A stark world, a type of God, fear and mistrust, love, code and prayer, and above all, hope.

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