Reactor, July 2025

“Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells

“Redemption Song” by Quan Barry

“Shorted” by Alex Irvine

Reviewed by Mina

“Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy” by Martha Wells is well-written but doesn’t truly stand alone. Peri, the Machine Intelligence, and its continuing development is the real focus of the tale. There’s some nice dialogue between the crew and Peri, but the story doesn’t satisfy. I think this is because we’re parachuted into the middle of a mission, with no real beginning or end. The mission may have been irrelevant for the author’s purposes, but it isn’t for the reader.

I felt a bit frustrated at the end, despite the fact that there were some great elements to this story. It felt like a “filler” aimed at fans already familiar with this universe. Perhaps an author can get too comfortable with their own creation?

“Redemption Song” by Quan Barry follows Dio, an intergalactic navigator, who is captured by a group of indentured workers to fly them to an unknown destination. They stop first at the planet Pandora, which looks like a giant computer. Its avatar asks them for a “one-word story”: Dio remembers a green world dying and he whispers a word to it. In return, Pandora gives him the coordinates to a very old planet. As he flies the ship to their new destination, Dio spends time researching slavery under the Old Order. He learns about a song once sung by Bob Marley; a song about finding freedom that his own father once sang to him for he is the colour of iron. Dio sings this song to one of his kidnappers, Sola. She asks him how he could know the secret song of the indentured. The ship arrives at the planet and Dio and Sola go down to its ruined surface together, where they discover a terrible truth.

This tale is about ancestral memory, reclaiming a history rewritten by the “Company” to suit their own ends, while building a new system of slavery, and about the start of a revolution. Although the twist at the end is not truly original, the journey there is well done. Worth the read.

“Shorted” by Alex Irvine is a clever play on no-such-thing-as private data, social media and the world of influencers. Damon’s life is all about his Universal Basic Income Quotient: he makes a living by selling his data as an influencer. His comfortable life is suddenly capsized when he discovers he has been shorted, with others betting on his sudden loss in value. He narrowly avoids being murdered and sets out to discover why someone is trying to terminate him. But even your own murder can be turned into an opportunity if you play your cards right.

I don’t think this tale takes itself too seriously and Damon acknowledges his superficiality and lack of morals. Not my cup of tea but it might be yours.