Susan Rose Sees Mars as the First Frontier by Charles Velasquez-Witosky

Stories about artists in a science fiction setting is a topic I find interesting, but it is somewhat rare, as many science fiction writers are engineering or science focused. “Zima Blue” by Alastair Reynolds and “The Hydrogen Sonata” by Iain M. Banks are worthy mentions. This short story about the first painter on Mars is a good read too.

The story follows Susan Rose, an established painter that gets the chance to be the first painter on Mars. She struggles and experiment with painting in free fall and lower gravity, with her style adapting along the way. She paints hundreds or thousands of pictures of various landscapes on Mars, while pondering the philosophical ramifications of being the first to interpret another world compared to thousands of years of humans doing the same on Earth.

There isn’t much of a story here, but it makes up for it with well written poetic musings of artistic work that makes for pleasant reflective reading.

Read in Analog May/June 2024
Rating: 4

Last Thursday by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Would time travelers go back to the year 2020 in the middle of the pandemic? It doesn’t seem like the ideal time to travel to if one had the choice, but that is the premise of this little poignant story.

Rupert is a time travel agent of some sort and goes back to 2020 Las Vegas on a research mission. He walks around and observe the people behind their masks while being bored that nothing really happens. He comes across a sign on a bar that says there is a time travelers meeting last Thursday in the bar. So he starts jumping backwards a week at a time hoping to find the meeting.

This story doesn’t involve the usual time travel side effects or paradoxes. It is a pretty mellow and casually philosophical piece on the nature of fate and obviously a reflection of the Covid lockdown. It is a good story, but I think it would have had a bigger impact if it was published when the pandemic was at its highest.

Read in Asimov’s May/June 2024
Rating: 3

Une Time Machine, S’il Vous Plait by Peter Wood

I guess most people who have any interest in time travel have thought about what they would do if they were thrown back in time with the knowledge they had. In this quirky and fun time travel story, four people are by accident transported back to 1970s and they deal with that opportunity in different ways.

The focus is mostly on Ruth who with some knowledge of a prominent Hockey game is able to gamble herself to a lot of money and she uses the capital to gain influence over the Star Trek like tv series she was involved in at the time. Roles and themes gets a major change, which doesn’t please the star of the show - Wallace, who also has been transported to the past.

The story is a mix of fun clichés and satire on gender roles and science fiction tv shows. Great entertainment with well rounded characters.

Read in Asimov’s March/April 2024
Rating: 3+

Undertow by Gregor Hartmann

The concept of removing the need for sleep in humans is likely most well known from the novella “Beggars in Spain” by Nancy Kress. Here we follow someone who volunteers for a military testing program that is trying to achieve that with some experimental drug.

The story is told from the point of view of a young American who volunteered mostly to get out of being drafted to fight forest fires. The others are mostly Mexicans who basically need the money. They all sign a contract prohibiting them from quitting the experiment and they live locked up in a facility as they get the experimental treatment. Our protagonist gets increasingly worried as others start to get life-threateningly ill from the drugs.

The narrative is straight forward and doesn’t have a big dramatic payoff, but the quality lies with its well written characters and the background world building.

Read in Analog March/April 2024
Rating: 3

Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim

This response to the classic story by Ursula LeGuin has gotten a bit of a buzz around the internet with discussions on Metafilter and Hacker News, as well as the Clarkesworld Discord server.

Like the original story the philosophical nature of this sparks discussion and thoughts with plenty of ways to interpret it. This story even outright state the different metaphors for the kid in the hole. I follow probably the most obvious take on it, as seeing it as a reflection on the rich western countries being dependent on exploiting third world countries.

This story is a bit more blunt in what it wants the reader to think about, and it becomes rather self referential and meta with characters in the story having the same sort of reflections on what is going on and what the kid in the hole means. The story reads as it was a historic article on the events, which works well enough, but lacks a bit of a personal anchor for the read to engage with.

Read in Clarkesworld February 2024
Rating: 3+

Death and the Gorgon by Greg Egan

While Greg Egan excels in his hard science fiction with very mathy stories, with this well paced murder mystery thriller, he shows he is more than capable of writing good entertaining stories.

In the near future companies are selling the promise of life after death by putting peoples brains in a freezer in the hope that they can be brought back to life in some utopian future. This has led to a cult following on this idea with desperately wanting a chance for a life in that dream future. When a structural collapse in a facility storing these brains destroys - and really kills - more than a hundred of these frozen brains, investigator Beth is tasked with figuring out whether it was just an accident or if it was sabotage.

While the core of the story is an exciting and perfectly well structured investigative mystery, what I found to be the standout here is the depiction of the culture that surrounds this idea of freezing your brain with the hope of waking up in an utopian future. It is clear that Egan is silently mocking the Sillicon Valley futurists type people that are boasting ideas in this sort of direction today. With how we can just reach utopia through technology and enough time. Highly recommended.

Read in Asimov’s January/February 2024
Rating: 4+

A Flaw in the Works Julie Nováková

I always enjoy a good first contact story and this one by Julie Nováková, a relatively new name in the short fiction field I need to keep an eye on, adds something new and refreshing to something familiar in that genre.

In the outer edges of our solar system, Lena and Tomas are observing a planet and they have made contact with an alien race. They are working on establishing a line of communication and figuring out how much information on Earth they want to give these aliens, even though they seem friendly. It is not a story with much action, but instead we get plenty of thoughts and interesting dialogue from Lena and Tomas about their mission, themselves and Earth’s history. During which we slowly as a reader learn more about this future the story is set it. It leads up to something that I wouldn’t quite call a big twist, merely an interesting reveal on the nature of things.

Everything is just masterly well written and a joy to read a story that doesn’t rely on action or conflict to provide a thoughtful and inspiring story.

Read in Forever Magazine, December 2023 Originally published in The Best of World SF: Volume 2
Rating: 4+

Kill That Groundhog by Fu Qiang

This story is translated from Chinese by Andy Dudak and as the title indicates, it is a clever reiteration on the concept of being stuck in a daily time loop like the movie Groundhog Day.

The story follows three people who have been stuck in the same day for years, just like Phil in Groundhog Day. The rest of the world doesn’t seem to be aware of this, but they are trying to figure out what is going on and how to escape their eternal time loop. It reminded me a bit of Greg Egan’s “Solidity” with how the they apply deductive reasoning to this very strange situation they find themselves in. Their theories mostly revolve around God-like aliens playing tricks on them or Matrix-like computer-simulation. They have tried various deeds such and killing themselves to no avail.

I am sure the ending will be divisive whether it is great or unfair among readers, but I liked it. In general, it seems like Chinese stories like this that we see translated into English, are not afraid of reiterating older concepts from the genre and putting them into a new re-imagined setting. Which is just great to see that combination of respecting the inspiration while making something new and original.

Read in Clarkesworld December 2023
Rating: 4

Hull Run by David Goodman

Flying ships in the upper clouds of Venus is a classic setting and this intense story we follow a couple of young thrill seeking teenagers doing a hull run on the outside of a ship.

Even living on Venus a flying airship, teenagers will likely always seek out to do dangerous things to feel alive. The story follows Chioma and her friends who sometimes practice the dangerous sport of running on the outside of the hull of the airship they are living in, flying in the Venusian atmosphere. There do take safety seriously and are tethered to the hull, however on a specific part of their route they have to unhinge their safety line and do a dangerous jump and re-attach again. But this time there is a hefty storm, so their running competition is a tad more dangerous than usual. Unsurprisingly something goes wrong and Chioma will have to be brave and conquer her fears to save her friend Laura.

It is a fairly straight forward story in a style well known to Analog readers, but it is very intense - I read it in one sitting, which is a bit unusual for me - and well written by David Goodman, fleshing out an interesting detailed background for Chioma as we follow her battle with the dangerous situation in addition to an inner battle with a traumatic past.

Read in Analog January/February 2024
Rating: 3+

Embot's Lament by James Patrick Kelly

This story from a veteran writer of the magazine combines an interesting concept of time travel with a very contemporary story about a womans escape from an abusive relationship.

The story is told by some loosely defined entity from the far future residing passively in the mind of a young woman named Jame living somewhere in the US. The entity is not allowed to influence Jane or make its presence known, but it has a mission to observe and record her life. The reasons for this is unclear, even to the entity, who is silently complaining about not getting a more interesting subject to monitor.

Jane is living a rather poor life with an abusive husband, but after yet another violent outburst from him, she decides to try and flee with little plan or preparation. The entity gets excited and feel sympathy for her situation, so unsurprisingly it makes its presence known to her.

It is a rather simple story with a main character that is easy to feel sympathy for and we really want her to succeed within this little drama that takes place in the span of half a day. While the science fiction element never becomes much more than literally voices in Jane’s head, I find the general concept intriguing and actually wanted the story to go on for longer, but it is also just fine the way as it is.

Read in Asimov’s November/December 2023
Rating: 4