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Lightspeed Magazine, September 2018
LIGHTSPEED #1 was launched in June 2010, and now eight years later, we've reached a milestone: Issue 100. To celebrate, we're publishing a super-sized issue, with ten original stories--more than twice the amount of original fiction than usual--plus ten reprints and some special nonfiction to boot. And to make things even more commemorative, the vast majority of our fiction in this issue, both original and reprint, comes from our most frequently published fiction contributors—the LIGHTSPEEDiest writers to ever LIGHTSPEED. It's a distillation of what we're made of, and we're beyond excited to share it with all of you.
Our cover art this month comes from Hugo award-winning artist (and fifty-three-time LIGHTSPEED illustrator) Galen Dara, illustrating new science fiction from Vylar Kaftan: "Her Monster, Whom She Loved." We also have new SF from Carrie Vaughn ("Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana"), Adam-Troy Castro ("The Last to Matter"), Ken Liu ("The Explainer"), and Sofia Samatar ("Hard Mary"), plus reprints from A. Merc Rustad ("How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps"), Charles Yu ("NPC"), Caroline M. Yoachim ("Stone Wall Truth"), An Owomoyela ("Travelling Into Nothing"), Seanan McGuire ("Frontier ABCs: The Life and Times of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher"), and David Barr Kirtley ("They Go Bump").
On the fantasy side of the ledger, we're featuring new work from Maria Dahvana Headley ("You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You"), Cadwell Turnbull ("Jump"), Genevieve Valentine ("Abandonware"), Sam J. Miller ("Conspicuous Plumage"), and Kat Howard ("A Brief Guide to the Seeking of Ghosts"), plus we have reprints from Yoon Ha Lee ("The Coin of Heart's Desire"), Theodora Goss ("Elena's Egg"), Charlie Jane Anders ("The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest"), and Jeremiah Tolbert ("The Girl with Sun in Her Head").
We've also got an array of nonfiction features, including a special celebration of our contributors' and staff members' favorite LIGHTSPEED stories of all-time, and then our novel excerpt this month is from Gene Doucette's THE SPACESHIP NEXT DOOR.
Our cover art this month comes from Hugo award-winning artist (and fifty-three-time LIGHTSPEED illustrator) Galen Dara, illustrating new science fiction from Vylar Kaftan: "Her Monster, Whom She Loved." We also have new SF from Carrie Vaughn ("Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana"), Adam-Troy Castro ("The Last to Matter"), Ken Liu ("The Explainer"), and Sofia Samatar ("Hard Mary"), plus reprints from A. Merc Rustad ("How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps"), Charles Yu ("NPC"), Caroline M. Yoachim ("Stone Wall Truth"), An Owomoyela ("Travelling Into Nothing"), Seanan McGuire ("Frontier ABCs: The Life and Times of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher"), and David Barr Kirtley ("They Go Bump").
On the fantasy side of the ledger, we're featuring new work from Maria Dahvana Headley ("You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You"), Cadwell Turnbull ("Jump"), Genevieve Valentine ("Abandonware"), Sam J. Miller ("Conspicuous Plumage"), and Kat Howard ("A Brief Guide to the Seeking of Ghosts"), plus we have reprints from Yoon Ha Lee ("The Coin of Heart's Desire"), Theodora Goss ("Elena's Egg"), Charlie Jane Anders ("The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest"), and Jeremiah Tolbert ("The Girl with Sun in Her Head").
We've also got an array of nonfiction features, including a special celebration of our contributors' and staff members' favorite LIGHTSPEED stories of all-time, and then our novel excerpt this month is from Gene Doucette's THE SPACESHIP NEXT DOOR.
306 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2018
23 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
John Joseph Adams
370 books990 followersJohn Joseph Adams is the series editor of BEST AMERICAN SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY. He is also the bestselling editor of many other anthologies, such as ROBOT UPRISINGS, DEAD MAN'S HAND, BRAVE NEW WORLDS,WASTELANDS, and THE LIVING DEAD. Recent and forthcoming books include WHAT THE #@&% IS THAT?, OPERATION ARCANA, PRESS START TO PLAY, LOOSED UPON THE WORLD, and THE APOCALYPSE TRIPTYCH (consisting of THE END IS NIGH, THE END IS NOW, and THE END HAS COME). Called “the reigning king of the anthology world” by Barnes & Noble, John is a two-time winner of the Hugo Award (for which he has been nominated nine times), is a seven-time World Fantasy Award finalist, and served as a judge for the 2015 National Book Award. John is also the editor and publisher of the digital magazines LIGHTSPEED and NIGHTMARE, and is a producer for Wired's THE GEEK'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY podcast. You can find him online at www.johnjosephadams.com and on Twitter @JohnJosephAdams.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
September 30, 2018
You can see all my zine reviews for late September 2018 at: https://1000yearplan.com/2018/09/29/t...
Carrie Vaughn’s “Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana” is a steampunk flavored sci-fantasy adventure in which an airship carrying a British princess and her military escort (the Harry and Marlowe of the title) crash lands on the previously uncharted South Pacific Island of Ahomana. The two passengers survive and their injuries are healed by the Polynesian natives, who possess technology far beyond what the Brits are capable of. The two castaways want to return home, but Ahomana has survived for generations by remaining hidden, and the island’s leaders won’t let them leave. I loved the backstory: aliens called Aetherians visited the Earth long ago and left behind artifacts that humans used to develop advanced technology. The central conflict of the story focuses on the contrast between the European powers who wield Aetherian tech to build weapons of war and the Polynesians on Ahomana, whose application is more constructive. Vaughn offers a modern twist on a familiar colonial adventure narrative, and I enjoyed that all the players have good intentions while their goals cross purpose. I have some nagging questions about the story’s inciting incident, and some reservations about the ending. Overall, it’s a solid adventure tale with likeable characters.
Most depictions of artificial intelligence in fiction focus on the aftermath of machine self-awareness; only on rare occasions is the evolutionary process the focus of attention. In Ken Liu’s “The Explainer”, an engineer responds to a service call for a domestic AI that has malfunctioned on multiple occasions (not letting a family member in the house, burning dinner, etc.). Because the model, called Allie, evolves based on its relationship with the household it serves, the engineer can’t simply check its programming, because many of the algorithms that govern its thinking are self-taught. Liu offers some interesting propositions on how AI could one day integrate into our daily lives, and displays his usual flair for lucid, well-crafted storytelling. The story offers little in the way of conflict or tension and is more like an interesting vignette your co-worker relates to you at the office.
Sam J. Miller’s “Conspicuous Plumage”, set in (or around) the 1950s, finds teenager Bette Rosenblatt devastated by the brutal murder of her beloved older brother, Cary, a college-aged dancer. She wants to understand, even experience, what happened to him in his last moments. Hiram, a classmate of Bette’s, has a reputation for helping others “see” things, and Bette convinces him to go with her to the murder scene. In Miller’s stories, the characters’ seek outward expression for their inner lives, often with fantastical results; Bette describes Cary’s body literally transforming into birds when he danced, a spiritual reality that trumps any objection from those who refuse to witness such grace. The tragedy of the story is that it is not just his art but his sexuality that demands expression as well; the inner life that makes him loved by so many also makes him reviled by others. We suspect what’s coming before Bette sees the truth of his death. That the truth of his life outshines the horror of its end is the story’s great achievement.
A group of young Mennonite girls find a robot behind a barn and name her “Hard Mary” in Sofia Samatar’s gentle, refined sci-fi novelette. Years later the company that made Mary sends a representative to reclaim their property, but the women of the town aren’t willing to give her up. The best thing about “Hard Mary” is its depiction of life in the town of Jericho, especially how its old-fashioned, gender-based division of labor affects the women in the community. The sequence depicting the everyday frustrations and obstacles the narrator, Lyddie, goes through just to do something as mundane as making breakfast is one of the story’s high points. While it is understandable that Mim – the independent, headstrong (and unmarried) member of the group who shows an aptitude for engineering – would want to defend Mary, we never come to understand why the entire community is so invested in protecting her. There is no indication that Mary is intelligent, much less sentient, or has any kind of personality, or has befriended anyone. Mary herself (itself?) gets little time on the stage, despite the long word count in a story named for her. My admiration for Samatar’s prose and her objectives can’t overcome my lack of involvement in the plot’s main conflict. Also, calling the big evil corporation “Profane Industries” is a little on the nose.
Carrie Vaughn’s “Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana” is a steampunk flavored sci-fantasy adventure in which an airship carrying a British princess and her military escort (the Harry and Marlowe of the title) crash lands on the previously uncharted South Pacific Island of Ahomana. The two passengers survive and their injuries are healed by the Polynesian natives, who possess technology far beyond what the Brits are capable of. The two castaways want to return home, but Ahomana has survived for generations by remaining hidden, and the island’s leaders won’t let them leave. I loved the backstory: aliens called Aetherians visited the Earth long ago and left behind artifacts that humans used to develop advanced technology. The central conflict of the story focuses on the contrast between the European powers who wield Aetherian tech to build weapons of war and the Polynesians on Ahomana, whose application is more constructive. Vaughn offers a modern twist on a familiar colonial adventure narrative, and I enjoyed that all the players have good intentions while their goals cross purpose. I have some nagging questions about the story’s inciting incident, and some reservations about the ending. Overall, it’s a solid adventure tale with likeable characters.
Most depictions of artificial intelligence in fiction focus on the aftermath of machine self-awareness; only on rare occasions is the evolutionary process the focus of attention. In Ken Liu’s “The Explainer”, an engineer responds to a service call for a domestic AI that has malfunctioned on multiple occasions (not letting a family member in the house, burning dinner, etc.). Because the model, called Allie, evolves based on its relationship with the household it serves, the engineer can’t simply check its programming, because many of the algorithms that govern its thinking are self-taught. Liu offers some interesting propositions on how AI could one day integrate into our daily lives, and displays his usual flair for lucid, well-crafted storytelling. The story offers little in the way of conflict or tension and is more like an interesting vignette your co-worker relates to you at the office.
Sam J. Miller’s “Conspicuous Plumage”, set in (or around) the 1950s, finds teenager Bette Rosenblatt devastated by the brutal murder of her beloved older brother, Cary, a college-aged dancer. She wants to understand, even experience, what happened to him in his last moments. Hiram, a classmate of Bette’s, has a reputation for helping others “see” things, and Bette convinces him to go with her to the murder scene. In Miller’s stories, the characters’ seek outward expression for their inner lives, often with fantastical results; Bette describes Cary’s body literally transforming into birds when he danced, a spiritual reality that trumps any objection from those who refuse to witness such grace. The tragedy of the story is that it is not just his art but his sexuality that demands expression as well; the inner life that makes him loved by so many also makes him reviled by others. We suspect what’s coming before Bette sees the truth of his death. That the truth of his life outshines the horror of its end is the story’s great achievement.
A group of young Mennonite girls find a robot behind a barn and name her “Hard Mary” in Sofia Samatar’s gentle, refined sci-fi novelette. Years later the company that made Mary sends a representative to reclaim their property, but the women of the town aren’t willing to give her up. The best thing about “Hard Mary” is its depiction of life in the town of Jericho, especially how its old-fashioned, gender-based division of labor affects the women in the community. The sequence depicting the everyday frustrations and obstacles the narrator, Lyddie, goes through just to do something as mundane as making breakfast is one of the story’s high points. While it is understandable that Mim – the independent, headstrong (and unmarried) member of the group who shows an aptitude for engineering – would want to defend Mary, we never come to understand why the entire community is so invested in protecting her. There is no indication that Mary is intelligent, much less sentient, or has any kind of personality, or has befriended anyone. Mary herself (itself?) gets little time on the stage, despite the long word count in a story named for her. My admiration for Samatar’s prose and her objectives can’t overcome my lack of involvement in the plot’s main conflict. Also, calling the big evil corporation “Profane Industries” is a little on the nose.
June 10, 2019
Review for TRAVELLING INTO NOTHING, AN OWOMOYELA, ~18 p., ★★★¼☆
She was offered the comfort of a drug-induced apathy. She refused.
A story about a second chance. With a catch? More of an exploration of self than of space. A conscious and curious ship. A neural interface. Awareness, revelation and acceptance. Resolution and an open end—not a fan of those.
I can‘t decide if I liked this story or not. I definitely disliked the main character. There was unexplained backstory, that I would have preferred to explore more.
More by the author: http://an.owomoyela.net/fiction
She was offered the comfort of a drug-induced apathy. She refused.
A story about a second chance. With a catch? More of an exploration of self than of space. A conscious and curious ship. A neural interface. Awareness, revelation and acceptance. Resolution and an open end—not a fan of those.
I can‘t decide if I liked this story or not. I definitely disliked the main character. There was unexplained backstory, that I would have preferred to explore more.
More by the author: http://an.owomoyela.net/fiction
December 30, 2024
How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps
by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor ⭐⭐⭐⭐,5
This is one of those short-stories that start on an okay level and then toward the end suddenly rocket into amazing territory. It almost made me cry... The MC Tesla is at bad place most of the time and still, she is deeply loved by her chosen family around her and this is definitely what made me love the story, but not the only awesome thing about it. It is a story of queer joy despite the bleak reality and I loved that. This was my first story by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor and I'm sure it won't be the last, added their Friends For Robots: Short Stories to my tbr!
Read it for free here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
Discussion thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Her Monster, Whom She Loved by Vylar Kaftan ⭐⭐⭐
The title of this one caught my attention, so I decided to give it a go. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't that original either. I still liked the ending though.
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
The Coin of Heart’s Desire by Yoon Ha Lee ⭐⭐⭐⭐,5
Beautifully written short-story about a very young, newly crowned empress and a dragon. The story isn't that special, it actually pretty closely follows one common fairy-tale trope , but the way it's written elevates it on entirely new level. I would have liked it a bit better if the ending was a little bit clearer. But it was good the way it was. I'm pretty quickly becoming Yoon Ha Lee fan 🤭
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
Jump by Cadwell Turnbull ⭐⭐⭐,5
I thought this was going to be a silly short-story about teleporting, but it turned out to be a pretty serious relationship study. Not exactly for me, but not bad either. Glad to have tried this new to me author!
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I’ll Pretend Like I Never Met You by Maria Dahvana Headley ⭐⭐,5
I had high hope for this one, because I previously read Astronaut by Headley, which is a completely brilliant piece of flash fiction. Sadly this was just bizzare and I didn't really like it. It wasn't incompetently written though, this was very much what it wanted it to be. It just wasn't the thing I wanted to read. You might possibly enjoy this if your thing is reading about people who are utter mess.
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
This is one of those short-stories that start on an okay level and then toward the end suddenly rocket into amazing territory. It almost made me cry... The MC Tesla is at bad place most of the time and still, she is deeply loved by her chosen family around her and this is definitely what made me love the story, but not the only awesome thing about it. It is a story of queer joy despite the bleak reality and I loved that. This was my first story by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor and I'm sure it won't be the last, added their Friends For Robots: Short Stories to my tbr!
Read it for free here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
Discussion thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Her Monster, Whom She Loved by Vylar Kaftan ⭐⭐⭐
The title of this one caught my attention, so I decided to give it a go. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't that original either. I still liked the ending though.
Ammuya birthed five hundred gods, followed by a monster. That was her first mistake. The gods tormented the monster because they feared it.
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
The Coin of Heart’s Desire by Yoon Ha Lee ⭐⭐⭐⭐,5
Beautifully written short-story about a very young, newly crowned empress and a dragon. The story isn't that special, it actually pretty closely follows one common fairy-tale trope , but the way it's written elevates it on entirely new level. I would have liked it a bit better if the ending was a little bit clearer. But it was good the way it was. I'm pretty quickly becoming Yoon Ha Lee fan 🤭
Despite the dragon’s protection, it was difficult to breathe through the dream of ocean, and difficult to move. Even the color of the light was like that of rain and lightning and foam mixed together. The smell of salt grew stronger, interspersed curiously with the fragrance of chrysanthemums. But then, it was better than drowning.
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
Jump by Cadwell Turnbull ⭐⭐⭐,5
I thought this was going to be a silly short-story about teleporting, but it turned out to be a pretty serious relationship study. Not exactly for me, but not bad either. Glad to have tried this new to me author!
They made another lap around the park. By the time they decided they needed to walk back home—a full forty-five minutes away—they were way too tired to make the journey. They considered a cab, but Mike had a better idea.
“Why don’t we teleport?” he asked.
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I’ll Pretend Like I Never Met You by Maria Dahvana Headley ⭐⭐,5
I had high hope for this one, because I previously read Astronaut by Headley, which is a completely brilliant piece of flash fiction. Sadly this was just bizzare and I didn't really like it. It wasn't incompetently written though, this was very much what it wanted it to be. It just wasn't the thing I wanted to read. You might possibly enjoy this if your thing is reading about people who are utter mess.
Wells chews the teabag for sobriety, tasting black leaves like a terrible fortune, drops a twenty from the tricksack on the bar and follows her. He feels himself getting hard.
Read here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...
February 16, 2024
I read "How to become a robot in 12 easy steps," by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor. Definitely an emotional journey, but worth it to reach the end.
January 28, 2019
An excellent and wide-ranging selection of top talent!
Litmags are always a mixed bag but even so, this one's standouts stand out more than most (Adam-Troy Castro, Sam J. Miller, Genevieve Valentine, Cadwell Turnbull,)
Well worth a peruse and seemingly designed to bring back Lightspeed's most noteworthy talent, in which case, great intro to the mag as well.
Litmags are always a mixed bag but even so, this one's standouts stand out more than most (Adam-Troy Castro, Sam J. Miller, Genevieve Valentine, Cadwell Turnbull,)
Well worth a peruse and seemingly designed to bring back Lightspeed's most noteworthy talent, in which case, great intro to the mag as well.
Read
July 3, 2019Full disclosure, I have not read the entire magazine. I intend to at some point, but for now I am focusing on work reading and catching up on the 2019 Nommo Shortlist. I bought this issue in order to read Sofia Amatar's Hard Mary, which is nominated for the Novella category. The following quotes are only from her story.
~It was the eve of Old Christmas, the night the animals speak with the tongues of men, and we knew very well that if we could manage to walk around the barn seven times, each of us would see the man she was to marry.~
~'It could have something bad inside.'
'We could all have something bad inside.'~
~I felt she wanted to forget where she was from, to forget everything that had happened to her and start over, here, with us. She was good at it, too.~
~I remember the night he told me, "A man must have a noble pursuit," and I knew that if he asked, I'd marry him.~
~It's not a sin to take things other people have thrown away.~
~Memory Means feeling that something is not for the first time.~
~It was the eve of Old Christmas, the night the animals speak with the tongues of men, and we knew very well that if we could manage to walk around the barn seven times, each of us would see the man she was to marry.~
~'It could have something bad inside.'
'We could all have something bad inside.'~
~I felt she wanted to forget where she was from, to forget everything that had happened to her and start over, here, with us. She was good at it, too.~
~I remember the night he told me, "A man must have a noble pursuit," and I knew that if he asked, I'd marry him.~
~It's not a sin to take things other people have thrown away.~
~Memory Means feeling that something is not for the first time.~
own-but-unread
March 15, 2019Listened to "You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You" by Maria Dahvana Headley on 3/14/2019 (2.5-3 stars)
October 16, 2019
3.0⭐ “They have precious knowledge. Shouldn’t it bring them closer together?”
**spoilers**
If you’re following my reviews, thanks for rolling with me ♡
It’s the fifth season of Stitcher’s LeVar Burton Reads, and we’re gifted with “Jump” by Cadwell Turnbull.
Awh, this was so good. Impossible not to get in your feelings on this one.
I can say from experience that it’s so hard to hold onto a relationship when you and your partner start changing in ways that aren’t negative, but maybe, incongruous to the values and traits that brought you together.
Cadwell, that was really beautiful, man. Really.
On a note to the scifi, I’ve seen for-fun physics vids and threads about the possibility of a human passing through a wall on a fluke through the phenomenon of quantum tunneling. The odds are staggeringly low. To paraphrase from commenter Humanino in this thread, wait long enough and diamonds will appear in your pockets, but you might wanna get a job in the meantime.
Still, for the sake of romance, imagine being the heinously lucky (or unlucky) subject of that one in a billion, trillion, jillion, katillion, zillion chance. Imagine grabbing your backpack, heading toward the bedroom door and all of a sudden, you’re in the hallway.
TF must that do the psyche, right? How do you go on with the rest of your goddamn day? I don’t even see how one could. We have to call into work now. We gotta take a minute.
At least Mike and Jessie have witness. Together or apart, they’ll always know they didn’t go it alone. More still, there's too much evidence of intent and design in their miracle. They invoked it. I can see why Mike is so desperate to recreate it. Burden of proof, right?
Thanks for reading, and If you wanna chat about the latest LBR episodes, hit me up in the comments and come meet with us at LeVar Burton Reads: The Community on Facebook.
- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.
**spoilers**
If you’re following my reviews, thanks for rolling with me ♡
It’s the fifth season of Stitcher’s LeVar Burton Reads, and we’re gifted with “Jump” by Cadwell Turnbull.
Awh, this was so good. Impossible not to get in your feelings on this one.
I can say from experience that it’s so hard to hold onto a relationship when you and your partner start changing in ways that aren’t negative, but maybe, incongruous to the values and traits that brought you together.
Cadwell, that was really beautiful, man. Really.
On a note to the scifi, I’ve seen for-fun physics vids and threads about the possibility of a human passing through a wall on a fluke through the phenomenon of quantum tunneling. The odds are staggeringly low. To paraphrase from commenter Humanino in this thread, wait long enough and diamonds will appear in your pockets, but you might wanna get a job in the meantime.
Still, for the sake of romance, imagine being the heinously lucky (or unlucky) subject of that one in a billion, trillion, jillion, katillion, zillion chance. Imagine grabbing your backpack, heading toward the bedroom door and all of a sudden, you’re in the hallway.
TF must that do the psyche, right? How do you go on with the rest of your goddamn day? I don’t even see how one could. We have to call into work now. We gotta take a minute.
At least Mike and Jessie have witness. Together or apart, they’ll always know they didn’t go it alone. More still, there's too much evidence of intent and design in their miracle. They invoked it. I can see why Mike is so desperate to recreate it. Burden of proof, right?
Thanks for reading, and If you wanna chat about the latest LBR episodes, hit me up in the comments and come meet with us at LeVar Burton Reads: The Community on Facebook.
- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.
February 23, 2019
Rating and review for the following stories only:
"Stone Wall Truth", Caroline M. Yoachim ****
My second Yoachim's work and I really liked it! Told from the POV of a magical surgeon/executioner, it delved into one's perception about judgment of the so-called guilty: who should do it, if at all.
"You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You", Maria Dahvana Headley ***
A strange tale about a failed magician who liked to pick up strange women at the bar, I am not certain if I liked it or not. Maybe I don't.
"Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana", Carrie Vaughn ***
Set during the Victorian era, a Princess of Wales and her pilot beau went down with their airship and found the technologically advanced Wakan...I mean, Ahomana. Entertaining enough at the start, with predictable ending.
"Stone Wall Truth", Caroline M. Yoachim ****
My second Yoachim's work and I really liked it! Told from the POV of a magical surgeon/executioner, it delved into one's perception about judgment of the so-called guilty: who should do it, if at all.
"You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You", Maria Dahvana Headley ***
A strange tale about a failed magician who liked to pick up strange women at the bar, I am not certain if I liked it or not. Maybe I don't.
"Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana", Carrie Vaughn ***
Set during the Victorian era, a Princess of Wales and her pilot beau went down with their airship and found the technologically advanced Wakan...I mean, Ahomana. Entertaining enough at the start, with predictable ending.
June 2, 2020
"Jump" by Cadwell Turnbull
A story of a failing marriage dressed up in the notion that the couple once had been able to teleport together. */12*
This was enjoyable, but I fear I missed the first "jump" due to a fire breaking out in town that I could see from my office window.
But this was enjoyable, and though I didn't connect with the main character, I connected with the story.
And I found it more enjoyable with LeVar's thoughts on the story at the end. I don't know if I would have made the metaphorical connection simply because of my distraction.
But I do rather like the idea of what happens 'AFTER'.
A story of a failing marriage dressed up in the notion that the couple once had been able to teleport together. */12*
This was enjoyable, but I fear I missed the first "jump" due to a fire breaking out in town that I could see from my office window.
But this was enjoyable, and though I didn't connect with the main character, I connected with the story.
And I found it more enjoyable with LeVar's thoughts on the story at the end. I don't know if I would have made the metaphorical connection simply because of my distraction.
But I do rather like the idea of what happens 'AFTER'.
August 17, 2022
Many good things to say here. I read this collection over a long span of time, so I revisited each story to give them due. In all, an impressive collection with varied writing styles, approaches, and themes but united with clarity of purpose.
Not every story is my favorite but I appreciated them all. Ones that stood out to me as especially intriguing or compelling reads worthy of revisiting later are marked with an asterisk. "The Last to Matter" is probably the strongest, most compelling work to me; it feels darkly cinematic and challenges convention. "They Go Bump" is really well crafted.
*"Her Monster, Whom She Loved" by Vylar Kaftan
--a sweeping mythological portrait of the creative and destructive forces that shape the universal story.
"Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana by Carrie Vaughn
--a sort of moralistic anti-colonialism adventure tale involving mysterious tech and a British airship in the South Pacific.
*"The Last to Matter" by Adam-Troy Castro
--a spectacularly imaginative and expansive story about what one would seek when all things are beyond their natural end.
"How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps" by A. Merc Rustad
--list-based emotional bob-and-weave with humor, sadness, and insecurity that feels like a surrogate for gender, sexuality, and identity fluctuations (with some suicidal ideation but ultimately ending on at least a relatively happy plateau).
"The Explainer" by Ken Liu
--a swift kick twist on sentient AI packaged into a consumerist nannybot visited by a repair technician.
"Hard Mary" by Sofia Samatar
--a long and ambitious story that imagines a world of religious peasants whose young lives are interrupted by their embrace of a piece of old tech in the form of a discarded sort-of-android whom they nurse back to operation.
*"NPC" by Charles Yu
--a cute, thrilling, playful venture where you strive for love and freedom despite being subjected to the cyclical mundanity of life's missions and the spaces between.
"Stone Wall Truth" by Caroline M. Yoachim
--a dark and challenging story of pain, torture, dominance, and failed redemption with colonialism overtones where the border between body, soul, identity, and politics is blurred and interrogated.
"Traveling Into Nothing" by An Owomoyela
--an identity-blender piece where a character connects to a ship and becomes more and less than what she is or was.
"Frontier ABCs: The Life and Times of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher" by Seanan McGuire
--a refreshing space Western with an Asimovian bent featuring a guardian of peace who knows how to fight and how to teach.
*"They Go Bump" by David Barr Kirtley
--Twilight Zone quality creeping sci-fi horror told involving invisible soldiers and something else.
"Abandonware" by Genevieve Valentine
--a heavy rabbit hole of a story tinged with loss and longing that unpeels as we bounce between the narrator's life and her attention to a sad anomaly at the edges of the rich world of a video game.
*"Jump" by Cadwell Turnbull
--a marvelous tidy little relationship story about expectation and teleportation tinged with the unwritten sense of couple debating having a child or trying to recapture something precious and fleeting.
"The Coin of Heart's Desire" by Yoon Ha Lee
--a tightly wound origin story fable concerning an empire, empress, and a dragon.
*"You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You" by Maria Dahvana Headley
--a wild pseduo-noir pseudo-romance that roller-coasters through the story of a magician of questionable repute and a rough backstory related to a mysterious woman and a child.
"Conspicuous Plumage" by Sam J. Miller
--a slow-burning story of children maturing through adolescence, being misfits, being bullied, having unique magic gifts that mark them for better or worse.
"A Brief Guide to the Seeking of Ghosts" by Kat Howard
--a meditative flash piece driven by language and repetition to rotate facets of ghosts in our landscape before the reader's view.
"Elena's Egg" by Theodora Goss
--a strange somewhat unstable tale with magical touches to an account of infidelity within a totalitarian nation.
"The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest" by Charlie Jane Anders
--a darkly humorously fairy tale that spoofs and exposes the cruelty imposed by national borders and the cascading horrors of war, inequality, and inequity.
*"The Girl With the Sun in Her Head" by Jeremiah Tolbert
--a touching vignette that whirls and whorls like a poem with a delicacy like that of color on the eyelids when one's eyes are pressed shut and the sun illuminates them nonetheless.
Not every story is my favorite but I appreciated them all. Ones that stood out to me as especially intriguing or compelling reads worthy of revisiting later are marked with an asterisk. "The Last to Matter" is probably the strongest, most compelling work to me; it feels darkly cinematic and challenges convention. "They Go Bump" is really well crafted.
*"Her Monster, Whom She Loved" by Vylar Kaftan
--a sweeping mythological portrait of the creative and destructive forces that shape the universal story.
"Harry and Marlowe and the Secret of Ahomana by Carrie Vaughn
--a sort of moralistic anti-colonialism adventure tale involving mysterious tech and a British airship in the South Pacific.
*"The Last to Matter" by Adam-Troy Castro
--a spectacularly imaginative and expansive story about what one would seek when all things are beyond their natural end.
"How to Become a Robot in 12 Easy Steps" by A. Merc Rustad
--list-based emotional bob-and-weave with humor, sadness, and insecurity that feels like a surrogate for gender, sexuality, and identity fluctuations (with some suicidal ideation but ultimately ending on at least a relatively happy plateau).
"The Explainer" by Ken Liu
--a swift kick twist on sentient AI packaged into a consumerist nannybot visited by a repair technician.
"Hard Mary" by Sofia Samatar
--a long and ambitious story that imagines a world of religious peasants whose young lives are interrupted by their embrace of a piece of old tech in the form of a discarded sort-of-android whom they nurse back to operation.
*"NPC" by Charles Yu
--a cute, thrilling, playful venture where you strive for love and freedom despite being subjected to the cyclical mundanity of life's missions and the spaces between.
"Stone Wall Truth" by Caroline M. Yoachim
--a dark and challenging story of pain, torture, dominance, and failed redemption with colonialism overtones where the border between body, soul, identity, and politics is blurred and interrogated.
"Traveling Into Nothing" by An Owomoyela
--an identity-blender piece where a character connects to a ship and becomes more and less than what she is or was.
"Frontier ABCs: The Life and Times of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher" by Seanan McGuire
--a refreshing space Western with an Asimovian bent featuring a guardian of peace who knows how to fight and how to teach.
*"They Go Bump" by David Barr Kirtley
--Twilight Zone quality creeping sci-fi horror told involving invisible soldiers and something else.
"Abandonware" by Genevieve Valentine
--a heavy rabbit hole of a story tinged with loss and longing that unpeels as we bounce between the narrator's life and her attention to a sad anomaly at the edges of the rich world of a video game.
*"Jump" by Cadwell Turnbull
--a marvelous tidy little relationship story about expectation and teleportation tinged with the unwritten sense of couple debating having a child or trying to recapture something precious and fleeting.
"The Coin of Heart's Desire" by Yoon Ha Lee
--a tightly wound origin story fable concerning an empire, empress, and a dragon.
*"You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You" by Maria Dahvana Headley
--a wild pseduo-noir pseudo-romance that roller-coasters through the story of a magician of questionable repute and a rough backstory related to a mysterious woman and a child.
"Conspicuous Plumage" by Sam J. Miller
--a slow-burning story of children maturing through adolescence, being misfits, being bullied, having unique magic gifts that mark them for better or worse.
"A Brief Guide to the Seeking of Ghosts" by Kat Howard
--a meditative flash piece driven by language and repetition to rotate facets of ghosts in our landscape before the reader's view.
"Elena's Egg" by Theodora Goss
--a strange somewhat unstable tale with magical touches to an account of infidelity within a totalitarian nation.
"The Super Ultra Duchess of Fedora Forest" by Charlie Jane Anders
--a darkly humorously fairy tale that spoofs and exposes the cruelty imposed by national borders and the cascading horrors of war, inequality, and inequity.
*"The Girl With the Sun in Her Head" by Jeremiah Tolbert
--a touching vignette that whirls and whorls like a poem with a delicacy like that of color on the eyelids when one's eyes are pressed shut and the sun illuminates them nonetheless.
Read
January 28, 2020Her Monster, Whom She Loved - Vylar Kaftan ***
Harry And Marlowe And The Secret Of Ahomana - Carrie Vaughn ***
The Last To Matter - Adam-Troy Castro **
How To Become A Robot In 12 Easy Steps - Merc Fenn Wolfmoor ****
The Explainer - Ken Liu ***
Hard Mary - Sofia Samatar ****
NPC - Charles Yu ***
Stone Wall Truth - Caroline M Yoachim ****
Travelling Into Nothing - An Owomoyela ***
Frontier ABCs: The Life And Times Of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher - Seanan MacGuire ***
They Go Bump - David Barr Kirtley ***
Abandonware - Genevieve Valentine ****
Jump - Cadwell Turnbull ****
The Coin Of Heart's Desire - Yoon Ha Lee ***
You Pretend Like You Never Met Me And I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You - Maria Dahvana Headley ****
Conspicuous Plumage - Sam J Miller *****
A Brief Guide To The Seeking Of Ghosts - Kat Howard ***
Elena's Egg - Theodora Goss ***
The Super Ultra Duchess Of Fedora Forest - Charlie Jane Anders *
The Girl With The Sun In Her Head - Jeremiah Tolbert ***
Harry And Marlowe And The Secret Of Ahomana - Carrie Vaughn ***
The Last To Matter - Adam-Troy Castro **
How To Become A Robot In 12 Easy Steps - Merc Fenn Wolfmoor ****
The Explainer - Ken Liu ***
Hard Mary - Sofia Samatar ****
NPC - Charles Yu ***
Stone Wall Truth - Caroline M Yoachim ****
Travelling Into Nothing - An Owomoyela ***
Frontier ABCs: The Life And Times Of Charity Smith, Schoolteacher - Seanan MacGuire ***
They Go Bump - David Barr Kirtley ***
Abandonware - Genevieve Valentine ****
Jump - Cadwell Turnbull ****
The Coin Of Heart's Desire - Yoon Ha Lee ***
You Pretend Like You Never Met Me And I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You - Maria Dahvana Headley ****
Conspicuous Plumage - Sam J Miller *****
A Brief Guide To The Seeking Of Ghosts - Kat Howard ***
Elena's Egg - Theodora Goss ***
The Super Ultra Duchess Of Fedora Forest - Charlie Jane Anders *
The Girl With The Sun In Her Head - Jeremiah Tolbert ***
February 18, 2020
I listened to the short story Jump by Cadwell Turnbull on the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. I really engaged with this tale, as I connected with the couple Mike and Jesse who inexplicably experience something so fantastic that it can not be explained or recreated again. Mike is desperate for it to happen again, but this miracle or glitch in the universe's design can't be replicated, although he and Jesse try for years to do so. Eventually, Mike's obsession begins to rend their relationship apart and the couple divorce. As they say their final goodbyes, Mike asks Jesse to try one last time, and... we don't know what happens next! Although the conclusion was very predictable that it would end that way, I actually found it perfect.
December 16, 2018
I really liked this issue. I think that out of the 20 stories, I liked 14 of them. I definitely liked the reprints more than the originals in this issue, but my favorite story was an original, Maria Dahvana Headley's "You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I'll Pretend Like I Never Met You."
Check out my write up of this issue on my website:
http://www.commontouchoffantasy.com/l...
Check out my write up of this issue on my website:
http://www.commontouchoffantasy.com/l...
October 26, 2019
Not fond of sad stories.
January 7, 2020
I kept waiting for the story to somehow deepen or become more complex, but it sort of stayed around the central conflict for the entirety of the action. I think that, in the end, that served this story well, but it couldn't have gone on too much longer.
August 30, 2025
I slightly enjoyed a few of these stories; the rest were a complete waste of my time. The one that stuck with me most was "How to Become a Robot" by A. Merc Rustad.
November 26, 2019
Listened to this as part of the LeVar Burton reads podcast series.
A rather strained idea with a main character who just didn't click with me at all.
A rather strained idea with a main character who just didn't click with me at all.
January 21, 2019
This was a very interesting concept, extremely well executed. This author has definitely earned my interest.
Want to read
September 29, 2020Levar Burton Reads (Episode 58), Jump by Caldwell Turnbull
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