Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 232

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Issue can be read on-line: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/issue_232/

Rating: 3/5.

A better than average issue, with interesting stories by Samantha Murray, James Patrick Kelly, Ju Chu and A. W. Prihandita.

• “The Stars You Can’t See by Looking Directly” by Samantha Murray: an alien invasion apparently takes place. But for one mother, the solution is not to fight the aliens, but to love them.
• “Down We Go Gently” by M. L. Clark: a visit by a space merchant and his son to a colony world shows the commerce that arises out of moving objects from world to world.
• “Donor Unknown” by Nika Murphy: an android is tasked with retrieving a painting from a reluctant seller. But what the story reveals is the still deep-seated resentment between Nazis and Jews that now extends to this particular android, even when mankind has moved into space.
• “Je Ne Regrette Rien” by James Patrick Kelly: a story of a researcher who is invited to inspect and interact with ‘ni ren’, intelligent robots with human-like bodies. As the story progresses and the research learns more about how the ni ren interact with other humans, he finds himself having conflicting reactions with them: attracted by their likeness to human and their human-like interactions, yet repelled by their desire to be more than robots in human-like skin.
• “Tomorrow’s Beautiful Dream” by Ju Chu, translated by Carmen Yiling Yan: in a future where people’s bodies can be rented out to perform repetitive tasks for hours at a time, one worker discovers work that would pay him much more usual, but at a risk of being worked for much longer than he wants. Curiosity makes him covertly find out more about what he is being made to do, and discovers a plot involving workers like him. But will he have the time to reveal it before it is too late?
• “The Desolate Order of the Head in the Water” by A. W. Prihandita: in a future where most people are connected to a computer, a disaster happens, and one unconnected family is left to try to survive. Then only the child is left, and he must choose between trying to survive on his own, or to be connected and lose his individuality.
• “Space is Deep” - by Seth Chambers: a man in space with multiple partners is preparing to return to Earth, before it is too late to leave because he won’t survive Earth’s gravity. But then an unexpected bodily event occurs, and it will change his relationship with his partners and their decision on whether to return to Earth or not.

Magazine read from 2026/01/10 to 2026/01/13.