Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 225

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_225/

Rating: 3/5.

A good issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by Ng Yi-Sheng, Claire Jia-Wen, A. T. Greenblatt, Matthew Marcus and Rita Chang-Eppig.

• “Emily of Emerald Starship” by Ng Yi-Sheng: an entertaining story based on characters and story from a local popular Singapore play, this one has a high-flying son of a matriarchal star ship giving it all up to be with his lover, who runs a horse stable. He solution to getting out from the system is rather long term.
• “If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow” by Claire Jia-Wen: a digital double of the dead son of a mother is delivered to her. What she learns from the double, made up of all the public information on his son, some of which she was not aware of, would make her re-look the reasons for her son’s death.
• “In the Shells of Broken Things” by A. T. Greenblatt: a writer travels to a former environmental colony to learn more about the person who used to run it. Along the way, his opinions about her change the more he learns about her.
• “The Eighth Pyramid” by Louis Inglis Hall: on a world with seven pyramids, repurposed by its current inhabitants, one person works to prepare the way for its next inhabitants and another pyramid.
• “Faces of the Antipode” by Matthew Marcus: an ecologist travels to a place where a special kind of tree grows that can help with their environmental problems. He sets out to try to convince the local people there not to cut down the trees; but what he discovers instead is a way of living that may be more helpful to the world in the end.
• “The Last Lunar New Year” by Derek Künsken: far, far, in the future, when humanity has evolved into many different species and the sun is becoming a red giant, one species of humanity makes a special request to the people watching over what is left of the earth. They have an audacious plan to save themselves, but it would require a balancing of the needs of the many.
• “The Last to Survive” by Rita Chang-Eppig: a downloaded person inhabiting a body returns to an island. This causes a sensation as she was the first person to be downloaded and her fans wonder what she want to do there. After much speculation, the answer has to do with memories and what happens when we start to lose them.
• “Outlier” by R.L. Meza: in a strange lab, where people have been ‘transformed’ into arachnids, one person is more aware of what is happening to her. Now she wants to escape but to do that, she may have to take advantage of one lab person whom she might consider a friend.

Magazine read from 2025/06/03 to 2025/06/06.