Interzone #302

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Rating: 3/5.

A better than average issue of Interzone, with interesting stories by Kate Orman, Alexandra Grunberg and Yukimi Ogawa.

• “I Object” by Kate Orman: an android ‘play-thing’ of a princess wonders what would happen to it when the princess dies. By tradition, males of the household are buried with the princess. Only, it isn’t a he, and may have other ideas about what to do at the end when the princess comes for it.
• “How Heroes are Made” by Alexandra Grunberg: heroes walk out of the gates of a city, hoping to make it pass the horrors that surround it. One especially well trained hero makes the journey, but what happens to her would start the making of a true hero.
• “Nyobo” by Yukimi Ogawa: a ‘monster’ is created to be a companion of a boy who would grow up to be a magician, able to trap curses which is ‘fed’ to the monster for disposal. But the magician’s latest job is his biggest and he is not sure what to do with it, for a war comes with the curse.
• “Cordiális Through the Eyes of My Mind” by Carlos Norcia: a rather contemporary story about a reporter with embedded recording devices gathering reports and interviews from people tortured by a dictatorial government in a South American country. Then she gets the chance to listen to the history of one sexually abused person who rose up and is leading a revolution.
• “Breach” by E F McAdam: a sentient AI system infiltrates a security system. Its task is to erase the security program and take over the system, but the AI finds itself ‘liking’ the security program instead.
• “What I Owe” by Rachael Cupp: a story about what a person owns after a future apocalypse has happened.
• “No Shelter Beneath the Searchlights” by Steve Toase: a girl and her mother live next to a mined security barrier, aware that they are under constant scrutiny. Then a security breach gives the girl a chance for freedom, but what she will find is freedom of another kind.
• “Interlopers” by Tamsin Showbrook: a short short story of an attempt to build a house that is being interrupted by the former pottery site that use to be on the land.
• “Vanitas” by R.L. Summerling: a woman unable to leave the house watches in vain as her garden roses are cut by a man. Both may not be who they seem to be.
• “The Toy” by Seán Padraic Birnie: a girl finds herself on an unknown train station, and while wandering around in a town, realises she may not really exist.
• “Out of Orders” by Bogdan Domakha: humanity is dying, and a robot needs to know what to do.

Magazine read from 2025/06/06 to 2025/07/02.