Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 208

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_208/

Rating: 4/5

An interesting issue with good stories by Cécile Cristofari, Alexandra Munck, Chi Hui and E.N. Auslender.

• “Nothing of Value” by Aimee Ogden: in a future when people travel to worlds by beaming information about themselves to be recreated at the destination, one person goes to Mars to meet her former lover during student times. But times have changed, and the meeting does not go well. But forgetting the meeting may just be one transport away.
• “Down the Waterfall” by Cécile Cristofari: a woman discovers the secret of time travel and uses it to try to get back to a certain day, when she missed the poetry recital of a beloved friend, for a special reason.
• “Binomial Nomenclature and the Mother of Happiness” by Alexandra Munck: in an alternate Earth, two moons made of virtually invisible ‘sonder matter’ are discovered. One researcher designs virtual glasses that can see the matter, and discovers it all around people and emanating from them. Further investigations reveal different shapes being emitted by people with different emotional moods. This may turn out to be a way to discover the reason a talking elephant attempts a shocking act that, unusually, may be related to a particular Shakespeare play.
• “Stars Don’t Dream” by Chi Hui, translated by John Chu: an interesting story about individuals coming together to collectively launch an interesting mission in space, at a time when humanity have retreated into virtual environments. The individuals won’t live to see the end of the mission, but the story shows what happens far, far in the future.
• “Just Another Cat in a Box” by E.N. Auslender: a morbid story of a man who wakes up, knowing he has been created out of matter, into an unexpected world that has changed beyond recognition. What he discovers will be the reason for the world to be in that state, and what he must eventually do if a future version of him is to have a chance to, maybe, save the world.
• “Rail Meat” by Marie Vibbert: a thief gatecrashes a party for the wealthy, hoping to steal some treasures. Instead, she meets a fellow thief. They start a relationship while planning a heist of a wealthy yacht racer; but only if they can work to get the racer to win, in a yacht race at the edge of space, where one of them may have to make a leap of faith to achieve victory.
• “You Dream of the Hive” by C. M. Fields: a woman is ‘pulled’ out of a Hive Mine and sent for rehabilitation. But she only yearns to rejoin the Hive, and may have the means to do so via an implant which is yet to be removed.
• “You Cannot Grow in Salted Earth” by Priya Chand: a person makes a journey to a distant world, only to return home, for there are no more worlds that could be claimed.

Magazine read from 2024/01/06 to 2024/01/20