Fantasy and Science Fiction, March/April 2023

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Rating: 3/5

An average issue with interesting stories by Tade Thompson, Jonathan Louis Duckworth, Nuzo Onoh, Eleanor Arnason, Mathew Lebowitz, Kathleen Jennings and an unusual urban fantasy piece by Peter S. Beagle.

• “The Sweet In The Empty” by Tade Thompson: a fantasy story involving a quest by a father and his son for a fabled oasis. But what they do there would involve freedom, sacrifice and, later, vengeance.
• “The Station Master” by Lavie Tidhar: a short episode in the life of a station master in charge of a small train station on Mars.
• “Spookman” by Jonathan Louis Duckworth: an interesting tale of a man who can see and talk to ghosts, who is given the job of finding the son of a local bullying leader in an unusual forest. In there, he finds plenty of horror, but also a boy who does not want to return home. Resolving the dilemma would take some violence.
• “The Weremouse Of Millicent Bradley Middle School” by Peter S. Beagle: a fascinating tale of a teacher whom the narrator believes is a witch. As it turns out, she is one and casts a curse on the narrator’s sister after a confrontation. And now, they have to figure out a way to remove the curse and, possible, get rid of the teacher.
• “Piggyback Girl” by M. H. Ayinde: a story of a future where people will pay to get inside the head of social media influencers and other people, leading to consequences when the access is done illegally.
• “Mnemonic Longings” by Marlon Ortiz: set far in the future, a spaceship wakes up its passenger, a soldier, and together they try to find out what happened to the enemy they were fighting and what should they do if there is no more enemy to fight.
• “Moonlight, Wing-Wake In Fog” by Rick Hollon: a short tale telling an episode of a violent encounter between men and various shapeshifting inhabitants on an island who choose to fight back, rather than hide.
• “The Madding” by Nuzo Onoh: the story starts with a cursed area in a town before going back to tell the story of how it came about from the point of view of a child with unusual hair. As the story progresses, we learn of the tragedy that would come that would be the result of witchcraft of a dark kind.
• “Mr. Catt” by Eleanor Arnason: a light fantasy piece about a wealthy cat named Mr. Catt who decides one day to get a dragon. The search who lead to finding a dragon in a dangerous part of town and make Mr. Catt relook his desire for a dragon as a pet.
• “Escape Velocity” by Amanda Dier: a degenerative disease robs a pilot of a role in a spaceship. A radical solution resolves the problem, but only time will tell if it also robs the pilot of her ability to still make friends with her crew.
• “Pantoum On A Generation Ship” by Lauren Bajek: on a ship travelling through space, a worker prepares for the arrival of another generation.
• “The Subway Algorithm Is Half-Constructed” by Marie Vibbert: a socially awkward graduate student working on an AI for train routing meets another student working on another AI. A misunderstanding leads to a falling out. It would require an explanation by a professor involving another AI to let to a better understanding.
• “Solar Boy” by K. C. Ahia: a deckhand on a solar sailing spaceship comes up with a solution to save the launch of a ship and, perhaps, some people’s dreams.
• “Ouroboros” by Mathew Lebowitz: a virtual reality headset, possibly coupled with hallucinogenics, sends a user into an alternate possible virtual reality. Or perhaps it is the real reality and his real life was just a dream.
• “The Five Lazy Sisters” by Kathleen Jennings: a fairy tale about five sisters who don’t wish to continue doing what their grandmother does. So they go into the woods to entice a giant to do their work for them.
• “Remembered Salt” by E. Catherine Tobler: a house with chicken legs for in search of her witch, based on her longing for a place with salt.

Magazine read from 2023/03/17 to 2023/04/06