Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 212

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_212/

Rating: 3/5

A better than average issue, with interesting stories by Alice Towey, Fiona Moore, Carolyn Zhao, Carlie St. George.

• “Fishy” by Alice Towey: a fun story of an AI-based robotic fish to lived out its days on the shelf of a researcher. Until one day when the researcher dies, and his daughter comes looking for his last piece of work that could change the world, and the fish may provide the answer.
• “The Portmeirion Road” by Fiona Moore: in a future after the collapse of civilization, a woman goes to a town containing an archive in the hopes of finding a way to help a child at asthma live for longer. But the price the archive asks for the information may be too much for her.
• “In Which Caruth is Correct” by Carolyn Zhao: a woman has to learn to deal with her past traumas in a world where such traumas can create singularities that get people caught in the past.
• “The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video” by Thomas Ha: in a future where works are digital, one person discovers an old book whose contents would not change. That would lead him into a conflict with another person who only wants to get rid of such content, for it cannot be changed to suit what the person wants.
• “The Texture of Memory, of Light” by Samara Auman: an out of work artist is mourning the death of her mother. She then discovers her mother’s artificial arm, which brings back a flood of memories, tainted by her implant. Now she has to decide whether to continue with her artistic career at the company that may have killed her mother, or join striking workers, just like her mother did when she was alive.
• “The Blinding Light of Resurrection” by Rajeev Prasad: a surgeon is smuggling printed body parts out of a hospital to save his wife from cancer. But his activities are suspected by his friend, who also used to love his wife. The surgeon’s love for his wife drives him to take risks: perhaps too many, when love turns to jealousy.
• “The Weight of Your Own Ashes” by Carlie St. George: an alien on earth has an accident and dies. But the alien’s consciousness inhabits several bodies, and another body arrives to take the previous one’s place on earth. But this leads to tensions in a relationship the alien is having with a human, who cannot deal with the death of the previous body or accept the replacement.
• “Our Father” by K. J. Khan: on the life of a man who has to wake up while on a colony ship on its way to another planet and accept his fate that he may not have descendents.

Magazine read from 2024/05/04 to 2024/05/05