Recent SF readings
(Warning: some of the reviews are in French.
Warning 2: not an exhaustive list of the stories, because I concentrate of SF stories, but some texts sit on the fence.)
Neil Clarke – Best SF of the year, 2019 edition.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 4
When we were starless Simeone Heller. An alien species makes contact with a leftover AI from a human museum. A delayed first contact story filled with hope.
Intervention by Kelly Robson.
That story’s central theme is the caring attributes of a man (Jules) who fully embraces a “female” job of raising pod of children.
Une superbe histoire dont les héros sont des responsables de crèche et suivent un pod de six jeunes. C'est rare une histoire qui porte autant sur le "caring", et celle-là est une réussite pour moi. Surtout que le narrateur Jules, centenaire, montre des qualités d'affection émouvantes.
The time we have left by Alyssa Wong suit une jeune femme défigurée qui visite une copie de la leader de son ancien groupe rock, décédée accidentellement. On comprend qu’elle s’en veut d’avoir involontairement causé la mort des membres du groupe, par dépit, mais découvre au-delà de la mort que Hime avait eu une confiance inébranlable en son potentiel.
Domestic Violence de Madeline Ashby, quand les maisons intelligentes deviennent des prisons sadiques. Doublée d’une histoire d’abus conjugal. Notre HR specialist va-t-elle s’en sortir? / When too-intelligent houses become complicit in domestic abuse. The past of our MC, and the way she disposes of problems, is not clear to me.
(in English!)
Prophet on the Road, par Naomi Kritzer, A dominant AI called the Engineer divided wants to find its other pieces to reunite, pushing the guilt-ridden ex-soldier forward. As he meet a Engineer-carrying person with a piece more akin to the humans, its priorities eventually change from domination to helping.
Traces of us, by Vanessa Fogg. IA intelligences in far future, and humans in present day. A promise. To reach out, held eons later. Cute. Uploading of consciousness.
Theories of flight by Linda Nagata is set in her universe of the white destructive-creative fog that forces people to live beyond walls on hill tops. Yaphet is a secondary character from her other novel where people are “players” and reincarnation is admitted. The story is an engineering problem solved at the end, prodded by compassion. Mishon: “The fault is in the code from which I was written.”
Lab B-15 by Nick Wolven. Why is Dr Jerry Emery experiencing time loops each time he crosses the Lab B-15 door? What if is was dead and recreated, like the rich clients hoping for a second life? Good riddle. Try, reach, feel. Which is a life lesson for everyone.
Requiem by Vandana Singh. Varsha follows the steps or a dear departed aunt in a research center in the glacial north, where the aunt was studying whale’s communication, and a company sends “T-Rex robots” to dig for remaining oil. The aunt and her Eskimo lover also tried for a whale-shaped submersible now currently missing. What if… A long story well told, without violence which I appreciated. With a touch of nostalgia. The story addresses cultural gaps, Eskimo life, community sharing of the meat of one whale, and inheritance. My favorite, even if on the long side.
Sour Milk Girls by Erin Roberts. In the tedious environment of a “agency”, orphans wait to be adopted or turn 18 before retrieving their childhood memories, that technology allows to exchange engrams. Sour milk is their mood, and hot sauce is the rebellion they carry inside. Acceptation and rejection are high on the theme list.
Mother Tongues by S. Qiouly Lu tackles the engram transfer theme, too, but with languages that you can sell for someone not eager to learn. Problem is: your own brain cells gets fried in the process. But a Mandarine speaker is ready to sacrifice her mother tongue to get her girl through college.
Singles Day, by Samantha Murray, overpopulation background. We follow four persons around the world, all in difficult circumstances, all having to make a life-changing decision. Because a great ship will be leaving the over crowded Earth soon, for good. (The Rift) Yu yan, Xanthe, Tea, Carren) Over connected world. One of my fave.
Nine Last Days on planet Earth… by Daryl Gregory follows the progress of several alien invasive plant species arrived by meteor, over a life span (10 to 97!) of “LT” the narrator, and his personal/family life, a moving gay relationship and adoption of a baby girl who will grow through the story (and his mother!). The tale is not one-sided as the alien remains alien, and humanity manages to adapt (finds a microbe that helps digest the alien plant species. Lots of biology. The kind of story that prods you to revise your botanic notions.
The Buried Giant, by Lavie Tidhar. A post-apocalypse tale, told to two children by an old man in a strange junkyard besides a mountain that may or may not be the outline of a giant robot. The opening by the narrator (May), stated the truth of “We believed we had all the time” and once that belief is gone, it couldn’t be recaptured, is a tug at the heart of the human reading the same. The magic of the writing, eyes like blackberries at the end of summer” is stunning. A very good story inside a story.
The Anchorite Wakes, by R.S.A. Garcia has a stunning puzzling setting that reveals itself as we read the story of sister Nadine, living in a Church, tasked with dispensing advice, and choosing for a Harvest directed by entities unknown. But one day her senses are awoken by a little girl. Hymns involved, and many worlds with anchorites. A story of hope. More fantasy that SF.
Entropy War by Yoon Ha Lee. Entropy explained as a role-playing game, The short story didn’t work for me.
An Equation of State, by Robert Reed (300+ published, exp. author) a powerful shape shifter soldier from an alien army studies the primitive “water” creatures on Earth at first as a horse, then as a rat, then… , and their war, and gets closer empathic to them. Interesting, but the ending is unclear for me.
Quantifying Trust, by John Chu. (Dérivé de l’épisode d’une IA apprenant le racisme sur Internet.) Maya, a young Chinese-looking student experiencing racism, tries to train an IA to learn to evaluate trust. Her post-doc is a weird man-construct project named Sammy. Lots of tech details in the opening almost threw me out, until I recognized the real-life incident of the racist-trained IA exposed to Internet. But she is aware she is passing her own bias along.
At the end, she disconnect (reboot) Sammy and go out with the post-doc. Long.
Hard Mary by Sofia Samatar
Five girls living on a farm compound with strict scriptures, find a half statue from Profane Industries. They fear it is evil, but pray. One changes her battery heart. The hard Mary is a robot. They start educating her.
This is a fun weird whacked-up world story. Talking animals, robots, and the light of friendship. The end is unclear, and there’s lot to understand about this world.
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Nebula Awards Showcase 2019NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2019
Welcome to your authentic Indian experience, by Rebecca Roanhorse, a very cruel, bet efficient tale of cultural appropriation/ simulation. You root for the main character whose life is turned upside down. Second reading, since I read it first in Apex Magazine.
A series of steaks, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, is the best ever story I read, it has every quality I like in a story: dripping suspense in poverty setting, the plight of contract artists, a couple of savvy Asian protag girls with a gray-toned morals but finally OK in my book, and the printed meat question. And the narrative voice, Opening and Ending.
Weaponized Math, by Jonathan P. Brazee. The ups and down of the sniper life, with a very talented lady, and the second by second calculations of range and angle in her head. The author really plunges us inside a war zone. Plus the details of rounds, caliber, and jackets to satisfy the appetite of any gun amateur.
Utopia, Lol? by Jamie Whals. A man lands on a Tour guide to the Future led aby an over enthusiast girl-AI, into various simulations. Humanity lives plugged to simulations. The story poses the question: is an utopian existence of simulated environments satisfying in the long term? Unless the IA convinces the human to hop in a long-range probe…
p. 39 “Post singularity humanity now exists entirely as uploaded consciousness in distributed Matryoshka brains, living in trillions of universes presided over by our friendly AI, Allocator.”
So fun to read, I re-read it a second time. Lots of narrative tricks like texting between Kit and the IA.
Fandom for robots by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, is a fun story about a square boxy robot getting acquainted with an anime program featuring a square boxy robot and human, and get dragged into fanfic and fandom. A pleasant read with texting.
All Systems Red, Martha Wells. A “murderbot” android protects scientists prospecting an alien world for a company. Then when glitches in the map are revealed, and all contact with another prospect team is lost, the guileless and genre-less murderbot (who likes watching the entertaining channels it access since hacking this commander module) has to go over its repulsion of humans to help the team survive. Who is masterminding the sabotage?
A very surprising thing is that this story grows on you, and I got attached to the nameless murderbot. A very good short novel or novella. Surprised me.
Wind Will Rove, by Sarah Pinkster, a generation ship’s memory back-ups have been tempered, leaving the essentials but erasing all Literature, culture, movies, music banks, along with the simulated environments. The narrator grandmother was an astronaut and a violinist. She played the title song.
The narrator wants to revive the music. People painted, played instruments, to reconstruct a culture lost. The story plays upon the importance of music, and knowing history to avoid repeating it. But also as each one re-create an opus as they reinterpret it.
The feel and rhythm is slow, the reveal coming drop by drop about the Black out.
The last novelist / Dead Lizard in the yard by Matthew Kressel is a moving piece, even if at first I grounded my teeth: another self-reflecting story about a writer who… But it turned into a tentative friendship story in a SF setting, with death looming over and the power of creativity. When nobody reads anymore, why continue writing? The Thoughtships are a oniric means of transportation, but not the basic of the story.
Carnival Nine by Caroline M. Yoachim
A moving transposition of life with windup dolls. Fantastic piece, but… fantastic more that SF. And the counting in turns, like the spoon concept, is genial. Moving. And about caring for a disabled children and acceptation. Surprised. Fantasy?
Small Changes over a long period of time, by K. M. Szpara, is a vampire story, in a society where they are incorporated in mainstream society with regulations. And the MC is a trans man.
Clearly lettered in a mostly steady hand, by Fran Wilde, is a guided visit of a strange museum where the visitor will be changed… in more ways than one. Fantastic.
Human Stain, by Kelly Robson is a fantastic/horror story. Hang on to your teeth!
Warning 2: not an exhaustive list of the stories, because I concentrate of SF stories, but some texts sit on the fence.)
Neil Clarke – Best SF of the year, 2019 edition.
The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 4
When we were starless Simeone Heller. An alien species makes contact with a leftover AI from a human museum. A delayed first contact story filled with hope.
Intervention by Kelly Robson.
That story’s central theme is the caring attributes of a man (Jules) who fully embraces a “female” job of raising pod of children.
Une superbe histoire dont les héros sont des responsables de crèche et suivent un pod de six jeunes. C'est rare une histoire qui porte autant sur le "caring", et celle-là est une réussite pour moi. Surtout que le narrateur Jules, centenaire, montre des qualités d'affection émouvantes.
The time we have left by Alyssa Wong suit une jeune femme défigurée qui visite une copie de la leader de son ancien groupe rock, décédée accidentellement. On comprend qu’elle s’en veut d’avoir involontairement causé la mort des membres du groupe, par dépit, mais découvre au-delà de la mort que Hime avait eu une confiance inébranlable en son potentiel.
Domestic Violence de Madeline Ashby, quand les maisons intelligentes deviennent des prisons sadiques. Doublée d’une histoire d’abus conjugal. Notre HR specialist va-t-elle s’en sortir? / When too-intelligent houses become complicit in domestic abuse. The past of our MC, and the way she disposes of problems, is not clear to me.
(in English!)
Prophet on the Road, par Naomi Kritzer, A dominant AI called the Engineer divided wants to find its other pieces to reunite, pushing the guilt-ridden ex-soldier forward. As he meet a Engineer-carrying person with a piece more akin to the humans, its priorities eventually change from domination to helping.
Traces of us, by Vanessa Fogg. IA intelligences in far future, and humans in present day. A promise. To reach out, held eons later. Cute. Uploading of consciousness.
Theories of flight by Linda Nagata is set in her universe of the white destructive-creative fog that forces people to live beyond walls on hill tops. Yaphet is a secondary character from her other novel where people are “players” and reincarnation is admitted. The story is an engineering problem solved at the end, prodded by compassion. Mishon: “The fault is in the code from which I was written.”
Lab B-15 by Nick Wolven. Why is Dr Jerry Emery experiencing time loops each time he crosses the Lab B-15 door? What if is was dead and recreated, like the rich clients hoping for a second life? Good riddle. Try, reach, feel. Which is a life lesson for everyone.
Requiem by Vandana Singh. Varsha follows the steps or a dear departed aunt in a research center in the glacial north, where the aunt was studying whale’s communication, and a company sends “T-Rex robots” to dig for remaining oil. The aunt and her Eskimo lover also tried for a whale-shaped submersible now currently missing. What if… A long story well told, without violence which I appreciated. With a touch of nostalgia. The story addresses cultural gaps, Eskimo life, community sharing of the meat of one whale, and inheritance. My favorite, even if on the long side.
Sour Milk Girls by Erin Roberts. In the tedious environment of a “agency”, orphans wait to be adopted or turn 18 before retrieving their childhood memories, that technology allows to exchange engrams. Sour milk is their mood, and hot sauce is the rebellion they carry inside. Acceptation and rejection are high on the theme list.
Mother Tongues by S. Qiouly Lu tackles the engram transfer theme, too, but with languages that you can sell for someone not eager to learn. Problem is: your own brain cells gets fried in the process. But a Mandarine speaker is ready to sacrifice her mother tongue to get her girl through college.
Singles Day, by Samantha Murray, overpopulation background. We follow four persons around the world, all in difficult circumstances, all having to make a life-changing decision. Because a great ship will be leaving the over crowded Earth soon, for good. (The Rift) Yu yan, Xanthe, Tea, Carren) Over connected world. One of my fave.
Nine Last Days on planet Earth… by Daryl Gregory follows the progress of several alien invasive plant species arrived by meteor, over a life span (10 to 97!) of “LT” the narrator, and his personal/family life, a moving gay relationship and adoption of a baby girl who will grow through the story (and his mother!). The tale is not one-sided as the alien remains alien, and humanity manages to adapt (finds a microbe that helps digest the alien plant species. Lots of biology. The kind of story that prods you to revise your botanic notions.
The Buried Giant, by Lavie Tidhar. A post-apocalypse tale, told to two children by an old man in a strange junkyard besides a mountain that may or may not be the outline of a giant robot. The opening by the narrator (May), stated the truth of “We believed we had all the time” and once that belief is gone, it couldn’t be recaptured, is a tug at the heart of the human reading the same. The magic of the writing, eyes like blackberries at the end of summer” is stunning. A very good story inside a story.
The Anchorite Wakes, by R.S.A. Garcia has a stunning puzzling setting that reveals itself as we read the story of sister Nadine, living in a Church, tasked with dispensing advice, and choosing for a Harvest directed by entities unknown. But one day her senses are awoken by a little girl. Hymns involved, and many worlds with anchorites. A story of hope. More fantasy that SF.
Entropy War by Yoon Ha Lee. Entropy explained as a role-playing game, The short story didn’t work for me.
An Equation of State, by Robert Reed (300+ published, exp. author) a powerful shape shifter soldier from an alien army studies the primitive “water” creatures on Earth at first as a horse, then as a rat, then… , and their war, and gets closer empathic to them. Interesting, but the ending is unclear for me.
Quantifying Trust, by John Chu. (Dérivé de l’épisode d’une IA apprenant le racisme sur Internet.) Maya, a young Chinese-looking student experiencing racism, tries to train an IA to learn to evaluate trust. Her post-doc is a weird man-construct project named Sammy. Lots of tech details in the opening almost threw me out, until I recognized the real-life incident of the racist-trained IA exposed to Internet. But she is aware she is passing her own bias along.
At the end, she disconnect (reboot) Sammy and go out with the post-doc. Long.
Hard Mary by Sofia Samatar
Five girls living on a farm compound with strict scriptures, find a half statue from Profane Industries. They fear it is evil, but pray. One changes her battery heart. The hard Mary is a robot. They start educating her.
This is a fun weird whacked-up world story. Talking animals, robots, and the light of friendship. The end is unclear, and there’s lot to understand about this world.
Sylvia Moreno-Garcia, Nebula Awards Showcase 2019NEBULA AWARDS SHOWCASE 2019
Welcome to your authentic Indian experience, by Rebecca Roanhorse, a very cruel, bet efficient tale of cultural appropriation/ simulation. You root for the main character whose life is turned upside down. Second reading, since I read it first in Apex Magazine.
A series of steaks, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, is the best ever story I read, it has every quality I like in a story: dripping suspense in poverty setting, the plight of contract artists, a couple of savvy Asian protag girls with a gray-toned morals but finally OK in my book, and the printed meat question. And the narrative voice, Opening and Ending.
Weaponized Math, by Jonathan P. Brazee. The ups and down of the sniper life, with a very talented lady, and the second by second calculations of range and angle in her head. The author really plunges us inside a war zone. Plus the details of rounds, caliber, and jackets to satisfy the appetite of any gun amateur.
Utopia, Lol? by Jamie Whals. A man lands on a Tour guide to the Future led aby an over enthusiast girl-AI, into various simulations. Humanity lives plugged to simulations. The story poses the question: is an utopian existence of simulated environments satisfying in the long term? Unless the IA convinces the human to hop in a long-range probe…
p. 39 “Post singularity humanity now exists entirely as uploaded consciousness in distributed Matryoshka brains, living in trillions of universes presided over by our friendly AI, Allocator.”
So fun to read, I re-read it a second time. Lots of narrative tricks like texting between Kit and the IA.
Fandom for robots by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, is a fun story about a square boxy robot getting acquainted with an anime program featuring a square boxy robot and human, and get dragged into fanfic and fandom. A pleasant read with texting.
All Systems Red, Martha Wells. A “murderbot” android protects scientists prospecting an alien world for a company. Then when glitches in the map are revealed, and all contact with another prospect team is lost, the guileless and genre-less murderbot (who likes watching the entertaining channels it access since hacking this commander module) has to go over its repulsion of humans to help the team survive. Who is masterminding the sabotage?
A very surprising thing is that this story grows on you, and I got attached to the nameless murderbot. A very good short novel or novella. Surprised me.
Wind Will Rove, by Sarah Pinkster, a generation ship’s memory back-ups have been tempered, leaving the essentials but erasing all Literature, culture, movies, music banks, along with the simulated environments. The narrator grandmother was an astronaut and a violinist. She played the title song.
The narrator wants to revive the music. People painted, played instruments, to reconstruct a culture lost. The story plays upon the importance of music, and knowing history to avoid repeating it. But also as each one re-create an opus as they reinterpret it.
The feel and rhythm is slow, the reveal coming drop by drop about the Black out.
The last novelist / Dead Lizard in the yard by Matthew Kressel is a moving piece, even if at first I grounded my teeth: another self-reflecting story about a writer who… But it turned into a tentative friendship story in a SF setting, with death looming over and the power of creativity. When nobody reads anymore, why continue writing? The Thoughtships are a oniric means of transportation, but not the basic of the story.
Carnival Nine by Caroline M. Yoachim
A moving transposition of life with windup dolls. Fantastic piece, but… fantastic more that SF. And the counting in turns, like the spoon concept, is genial. Moving. And about caring for a disabled children and acceptation. Surprised. Fantasy?
Small Changes over a long period of time, by K. M. Szpara, is a vampire story, in a society where they are incorporated in mainstream society with regulations. And the MC is a trans man.
Clearly lettered in a mostly steady hand, by Fran Wilde, is a guided visit of a strange museum where the visitor will be changed… in more ways than one. Fantastic.
Human Stain, by Kelly Robson is a fantastic/horror story. Hang on to your teeth!
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