Reactor, November 2025
“Barnacle” by Kate Elliott (posted 11/5)
“The Belle of the Ball” by Stephen Graham Jones (posted 11/12)
“Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan, Who Was Chosen to Open the Way” by Benjamin Rosenbaum (posted 11/19)
Reviewed by Eric Kimminau
This is my first ever review of Reactor (formerly Tor.com), an online magazine and community site that publishes original science fiction and fantasy literature, daily commentary, and related content to encourage conversation among readers.
In “Barnacle” by Kate Elliott we follow Rose in a “pay-as-you-go” society. As a former war medic, she is working as a town nurse in a company-ruled settlement on the coast of a drowned city. Daily life is heavily controlled by the corporation through various LLCs that regulate utilities, waste, and even fee-based walkways. Rose’s grandsons, Tai and Leon, must navigate this environment, facing high school fees and a company AI curriculum that fails. This failure, possibly due to deliberate resistance or sabotage suggested by Tai and Uncle Cristiano, is complicated by the aggressive presence of sentinels (“crows”) at the school. Rose’s workday is spent at her clinic, juggling the company’s restrictive, life-threatening policies with the needs of her numerous patients. It culminates in her secretly treating Gloria, a young debt laborer injured from a self-induced abortion. Rose stabilizes Gloria and moves her to a safe quarantine location with the help of an ally, Sawyer, to protect her from the authorities. “Be patient. Be a barnacle” Rose tells Gloria. “What’s a barnacle?” she asks. ““A creature that holds on over the years, even in erosive settings.” It took some wonderful time for this story to build to its crescendo and I truly enjoyed the journey. A tapestry painted that built to a clear vision in my minds eye. I truly enjoyed this!
The story “The Belle of the Ball” by Stephen Graham Jones follows the protagonist Gray, who uses a black market time-travel service to visit a parallel “Fakeland” created two years in his own past. He justifies potential violent acts by believing that anything done in this branched timeline (which the universe generates to prevent paradoxes) carries no actual consequence. When Gray finally sneaks into his childhood home, intending to confront his father, he instead discovers his parents are engaged in a heartbreaking nightly ritual: his mother dressing up to attend an imaginary dance. This discovery alters Gray’s perspective and leads him to reconcile with his father before returning to his real timeline, only to realize that the distinction between “real” and “Fakeland” remains disturbingly blurred. While the self-reflection was standard fare, the unexpected consequence raises questions about how secrets revealed in a parallel timeline might impact one’s original reality, making it an entertaining read.
As for “Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan, Who Was Chosen to Open the Way” by Benjamin Rosenbaum, this is a satirical and dystopian narrative depicting a society wracked by the mandatory National Baby Swap, focusing on the consequences for the family of a tiny child named Morrigan, who is misplaced and subsequently rendered imperceptible to her guilt-ridden, Productivity Vitamin-addicted adoptive parents. Through escalating cognitive dissonance, the parents mistake Morrigan for an engineered hallucination perceived only by her fiercely loyal older sister, Luanda. Morrigan’s survival and educational success are secretly managed by an adaptive cleaning robot that utilizes illicit schemes to fund her needs, all while the nation descends into informational chaos and war before announcing a traumatic Reverse Swap. I had about 7 more paragraphs written to try to explain this obviously drug induced psycho-drama from my third attempt to re-read this blithering babbling pile of steaming dung. I know that’s quite harsh but every time this story started to get on a roll the author obviously took another hit to see how much weirder, strager and chaotic he could possibly make it. Reading it was beyond a struggle.
Reactor brought three very different stories. “Barnacle” was thoroughly enjoyed for its world-building, “The Belle of the Ball” was entertaining despite standard self-reflection, and “Regarding the Childhood of Morrigan…” was found to be an incomprehensible struggle. Richly detailed world-building science fiction and a clear negative reaction to the chaotic, hard-to-follow satire. I’ve enjoyed the ride.
Eric Kimminau is a BBS geek turned IT professional seeking the next Great Adventure. Let’s Go!