Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 210

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_210/

Rating: 3/5

An average issue with interesting stories by Fiona Jones, Ben Berman Ghan, Malena Salazar Maciá and F.E. Choe.

• “Hello! Hello! Hello!” by Fiona Jones: an insubstantial alien being who can live in space discovers a solid object with a substantial living being inside. Its initial attempts to communicate don’t go well, but over time, they begin to communicate. But a crisis develops when the substantial being stops moving, and the insubstantial alien has to find help in its own way.
• “Phosphorescence” by Ben Berman Ghan: two people, a Machinist and a Botanist, work together to shape the future of a world deep in a climate crisis. While others dream of uploading themselves or migrating to another planet until the crisis is over, they have other plans.
• “Nine Beauties and the Entangled Threads” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires: a researcher taking care of a forest gets a feeling that there is something happening to it, as the weather changes.
• “A Brief Oral History of the El Zopilote Dock” by Alaya Dawn Johnson: a chronicle of two coloured women in a future where Texas and other states have become independent and reintroduced slavery. Caught and sent to prison, the two women plan an escape via their version of the underground railroad.
• “One Flew Over the Songhua River” by Qi Ran, translated by Andy Dudak: the narrator tells the story of a paternal aunt and how she fell in love, and later divorced a man who would go on to lead a mission to outer space, but who then makes a sacrifice when the mission attracts some strange unwanted attraction.
• “Her Body, The Ship” by Z. K. Abraham: the engine of a colony spaceship travelling through space is lovingly taken care of by an engineer. But then rumours start to spread, which she tries to ignore until they are finally confirmed: their destination planet is in sight. She is devastated by the news, unless she can do something about it.
• “Geminoid” -by Malena Salazar Maciá: in a future where androids hold body parts until they are ready for transplant, one android is being housed with the owner of the heart it keeps. Then the owner discovers he can use deception to make the android take over his work. But it may lead to an unexpected development when the deception gets taken too far after an event.
• “Swarm X1048 - Ethological Field Report: Canis Lupus Familiaris, “6”” by F.E. Choe: a swarm of alien intelligence is fascinated and attracted to a puppy at birth. Tasked with trying to document life on an Earth that is dying, the alien chooses to document the life of the dog as it grows up until the end.

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