Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 196

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_196/

Rating: 3/5

An average issue with interesting stories by Gregory Feeley, Cao Baiyu and Natasha King.

• “Symbiosis” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires: in the future, only selected individuals can become pregnant. This particular mother is initially aghast at being selected. But as the pregnancy progresses, she becomes attached to the foetus; perhaps too attached.
• “The Fortunate Isles” by Gregory Feeley: in the far future, an unknown narrator tells the story of a time when humanity has ventured to Neptune and is now preparing to enter its depths in search of places to live.
• “Anais Gets a Turn” by R.T. Ester: a story of a woman who, due to apparent bad luck, loses a contract as a graphics designer and later her job. It then turns out that it may not be bad luck, but the workings of a latent ‘world intelligence’ that had involved her in a game of Tic-Tac-Toe, as explained to her by a worker for a corporation she meets. And now she has a chance to affect what the intelligence may do by being involved in the next interation of that game.
• “Zhuangzi’s Dream” by Cao Baiyu, translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu: a man, who would be a famous philosopher in the future, goes to sleep, and we see the fantastic dreams he has. But the last part is the most fantastic, as a butterfly from the future visits and possibly changes the past; or does it?
• “Sharp Undoing” by Natasha King: in a future where information and memories can be transferred by ‘slots’, killing the slotted person, one such person is pursued and captured by a local gang leader eager for the information being held. Little does the gang leader know that this particular person has a different kind of slot personality that would change who is in charge of the outcome of the slotting procedure.
• “Pearl” by Felix Rose Kawitzky: in an observatory looking for dark matter, one lower class person in charge of maintenance lets loose slugs that appear to be able to concentrate dark matter, leading to consequences that would blur and sharpen what can be seen of dark matter.

Magazine read from 2023/01/10 to 2023/01/17