The Signal and the Idler

[Dan]

For November 2025, the ambitious read this month is Ted Kosmatka's "The Signal and the Idler", a novella just published in the September/October 2025 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. His photo is the author photo gracing our group home page this month. If you are considering joining in with this read or one of the others, I found a good, spoiler-free review of all this issue's stories: https://tangentonline.com/print-bi-mo...

If you care to join in with this month's reading, but lack a subscription to the magazine, you can purchase the September-October 2025 Asimov's Science Fiction ebook from various digital platforms, including a single-issue purchase on Barnes & Noble and through their own website, which offers the digital edition on stores like Amazon Kindle and Magzter. For a subscription, you can also buy directly from the official Asimov's Science Fiction website, which offers digital subscriptions for purchase.

[Dan]

Looking more closely at Ted Kosmatka's work, it appears he has published three novels:
The Games (2012)
Prophet of Bones (2013)
The Flicker Men (2015)
The GR ratings on these are 3.50, 3.32, and 3.62 respectively. Is this cause for concern? Why no novels in ten years?

Anyway, time to dive into this novella. Is anyone with me?

[Dan]

"The Signal and the Idler" novella 4.5 stars

I skipped ahead to read this, the last story in the magazine, because it's the third story originally scheduled for November's group reads. If it's editorial policy at Asimov's to save the best story for last, I think I will probably agree with the editor's choice. This was an amazing story.

It's about a guy down on his luck looking for ways to make money. He got part way through college before his funds ran out, was studying IT and physics, or something like that. But all he could find was a job as a dishwasher. And he was about to become homeless due to being unable to pay the rent when he got selected for this weird other job in which all he had to do was follow some very basic instructions, sign NDAs, and make increasingly large sums of money for little effort.

The story behind this job was absolutely engrossing and incredible as it slowly revealed itself. The author gets his wonky on showing off his knowledge of theoretical quantum physics. No reader can possibly follow it. But it's okay. The physics of entanglement works in the service of the story somehow. Understanding the details of exactly how is not necessary.

I was worried this was going to be a hard science story, long on science explication, short on characterization. But it's not. This is a really good, human story with lots of suspense that any SF fan will appreciate. It really makes me want to give another of Ted Kosmatka's works a try.