Reactor, February 2024

“Instar” by Karen Heuler

“Nine Billion Turing Tests” by Chris Willrich

“You Don’t Belong Where You Don’t Belong” by Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Reviewed by Mike Bickerdike

This month Reactor (formally Tor.com) delivers three pieces of novel SF.

“Instar” by Karen Heuler is an alien-invasion story, with a novel idea behind it. The tale starts somewhat confusingly, but as the reader progresses through the tale, the reason for the confusion becomes clear, and it picks up in both pace and enjoyment. To say too much about the nature of the invasion would probably spoil the reveal in the story, but this is worth a read. Ultimately the tale looks at the nature of parenting and how the instinct to parent can be exploited.

“Nine Billion Turing Tests” by Chris Willrich is a very readable dystopian SF novelette. In a post-climate crisis world, a recent widower is further saddened by the illness of his cat. The world is populated not only by humans, but by artificial intelligences in the form of androids (which are clearly much less than human) and AI ‘instance’, such as the one housed in the man’s cane (which manage to seem more human). The man discusses the value and nature of humanity with the AI in his walking cane, and the philosophical debates they hold are thoughtful and well-made. The story therefore combines an exploration of what it is to be human with an engaging snapshot into the man’s life following the loss of his wife. The Turing Test of the title refers to the psychological test for sapience, wherein something has intelligence if we cannot tell it is a machine or not simply from its conversation. The ‘nine billion’ in the title perhaps suggests that we could all benefit from questioning our humanity. This is a superior novelette and is recommended.

“You Don’t Belong Where You Don’t Belong” by Kemi Ashing-Giwa is an SF short story with some interesting features and ideas. The protagonist, Mitayre, resides on a space station above her occupied world, planning the rescue of her friends from the occupying force. The most interesting idea here is the author’s invention of the ‘favorweb’: a method of barter between people. The favorweb logs and records direct brain-to-brain commercial ‘favors’ between individuals—exchanges known as Tradethreads—that they use to barter goods and services. It’s an inventive notion. The protagonist saves up considerable wealth on the favorweb, enabling their descent to the occupied planet below. The plot outside of this idea is less successful however and a little hard to follow.

More of Mike Bickerdike’s reviews and thoughts on science-fiction can be found at https://starfarersf.nicepage.io/