Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 213

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_213/

Rating: 3/5

An average issue, with interesting stories by H.H. Pak, Caroline M. Yoachim, S.B. Divya and Luc Diamant.

• “Twenty-Four Hours” by H.H. Pak: a mother spends one day with her daughter, who is part of a war effort. As the story progresses, things don’t start to add up, but it is only at the end is the true nature of the mother and daughter’s connection revealed as the mother bids farewell.
• “Our Chatbots Said “I Love You,” Shall We Meet?” by Caroline M. Yoachim: a girl is dreading her first meeting with a potential partner: but their AI chatbots have been having conversations with each other for ages and think they make a good match. It would require her to overcome her ‘first date’ nerves to learn if what the chatbots say is true.
• “Artistic Encounters of a Monumental Nature” by S.B. Divya: a graffiti artist and her team plan to get a viral hit by painting a mural (with environmentally neutral paint) in a nature reserve. But their plan gets aborted when an unusual monument springs up in the area. Their decision to go ahead with the mural, but doing on the monument instead, gets the attention of the government, and other artistic beings, when more monuments spring up around the world.
• “The Reflection of Sand” by Tan Gang, translated by Emily Jin: a story about venerated Buddhist caves that have been detached from its geographic location to physically walk the Silk Road and places further. Tied up in the story are discussions on whether the geography, artefacts, etc. in a cultural monument are really what define such places.
• “Himalia” by Carrie Vaughn: on a moon of Jupiter soon to be abandoned by its inhabitants, a returning colonist discovers her best friend is missing. She goes in search of her, hoping to find her before the last ships leave. But by the end, she realizes that her friend may be too attached to the moon to want to abandon it.
• “Bodies” by Cat McMahan: a worker at a factory growing cloned chickens that have been genetically modified for food discovers that some of her co-workers are going missing. As the story progresses, the nature of the people working of the factory is revealed, in this world where only some kind of people can do work.
• “Off Track” by Luc Diamant: a humorous story, told in a series of letters between the school and the parent of an activist student who goes on strike using personal microclimate gear, to help her friend compete in a sports competition.

Magazine read from 2024/06/03 to 2024/06/10