Fantasy and Science Fiction, January/February 2022

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Rating: 3/5 Stars

An average issue with some interesting stories by Eugie Foster, Nick Dichario, Auston Habershaw, Maiga Doocy and J. A. Pak.

• “The Art of Victory When the Game Is All the World” by Eugie Foster: in a future where sentient beings are created as mixtures of desires and handicaps to be played in an arena, two creators duel via their creations. But through their creations, they world learn desires, pain and love in unexpected ways.
• “Ennead in Retrospect” by Christopher Mark Rose: on a station in the far future, furniture and utensils may familiar, but are now capable of doing much more in the hands of their users.
• “Animale dei Morti” by Nick Dichario: an interesting take set in Italy about a family tradition that threatens to be broken. To prevent it, a man must visit a witch to raise his brother from the dead, which causes all kinds of other problems. But like other fairy tales, it eventually solves s problem the village has with the witch.
• “Bone Broth” by Karen Henler: a mildly disturbing story of a waitress who discovers her boss has been digging up exceptionally large or unusual bones. But it’s what is being done with the bones that would make the story a disturbing look at a future that may not be entirely human.
• “Prison Colony Optimization Protocols” by Auston Habershaw: a story about an AI sent to operate a prison on a world for an unspeakable crime. It (later, she) tries to make it more efficient, but ends up making things worse. When she is told to solve the problem in a drastic manner, she comes up with her own solution that would solve the problem of making the prison more efficient and reveal the crime she committed.
• “Full Worm Moon” by Paul Lorello: a story about a strange family and one son who goes for his first ceremony on a Full Worm Moon, devours worms from a grave and learns things that leads him on a journey to the outside world.
• “Proximity Games” by M. L. Clark: a girl learns a lesson in patience that may help her later in life on another planet, when making possible contact with an alien life form.
• “Salt Calls to Salt” by Maiga Doocy: a girl finds a scale growing on her body, and the only way to remove it is to get rid of what has changed in her daily routine: meeting another person she likes. The years past with little change in her routine until one day she gets involved in a major routine change and has to decide whether to live with the consequences.
• “doe_haven.vr” by Cara Mast: in a quiet corner of a VR world, a girl who wants to be left alone finds an intruder. She first attempts to get rid of him, but later discovers why he too has come to her quiet corner of the world.
• “The City and the Thing Beneath It” by Innocent Chizaram Ilo: something falls from the sky over Lagos, Nigeria. The Supreme Leader says nothing happened; life goes on, but the city of no longer theirs.
• “There Won’t Be Questions” by Joe Baumann: a boy reveals his ‘gift’ for calling back lost animals at the price of body pain. But then he declines to call back a lost girl, and realizes what he has lost and wants to call back. But he would have to deal with the consequences of his action.
• “The Gentle Dragon Tells His Tale of Love” by J. A. Pak: the story of a legendary dragon, who finds a girl one day, takes care of her, until they fall in love, and are together to the end of their days.

Magazine read from 2022/01/17 to 2022/01/27