Interzone #277

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Rating: 3/5

An average issue with interesting stories by Gregor Hartmann, Joanna Berry and Samantha Murray.

• “Inscribed on Dark Water” by Gregor Hartmann: a story set on a world where life is hard, and the colonists are struggling with making the world properly habitable. On an oil refinery, an intern is hard at work with mundane tasks, when an observer group arrives to check on the refinery. She has an opportunity to ingrate herself with the group at the cost of alienating her fellow workers, especially one with a hidden past. But she has to decide where her loyalties lies when she figures out a refinery process that would change the way things are done.
• “The Sea Maker of Darmid Bay” by Shauna O’Meara: a fantasy tale set in a future where much of the natural world is apparently in ecological ruins. A group of fishermen suddenly hook an unusual sea creature whom one believes is able to renew the world. But the needs of the fishermen’s families may override his desire to save the creature, unless they are willing to throw themselves into the task to renew the world too.
• “The Analogue of Empathy” by Joanna Berry: an interesting tale of an AI gaining awareness in a time when much of the world is in conflict and the AI project is fighting to stay alive against another project that may well end the world. But the world might be saved if the scientist working on the AI can provide the AI with a form of empathy towards others and pass on its abilities.
• “Territory: Blank” by Aliya Whiteley: disjointed journal entries going back and forth in time about a person who encounters ‘creatures’ that may have eaten her comrades, but is not believed.
• “Singles’ Day” by Samantha Murray: set in a future where China’s Singles’ Day is the most important shopping day in the world, the story looks at the lives of a few people around the world on that day who have won a lottery to journey to a new world. None were expecting to win, of course, and now they have to prepare, in their own ways, for the journey: like learning to overcome a fear of the outside world, meeting your twin for the last time and really deciding who should go, or how to break the news that you have an unexpected unborn child to bring along for the journey.

Magazine read from 2018/09/25 to 2018/10/02