Tor.com, July 2020
“The Ones Who Look” by Katherine Duckett
“The Necessary Arthur” by Garth Nix
“Juice Like Wounds” by Seanan McGuire
“Everything’s Fine” by Matthew Pridham
“Yellow and the Perception of Reality” by Maureen McHugh
“The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex” by Tamsyn Muir
Reviewed by Kevin P Hallett
There are six first publication stories at Tor.com for July, three of which are novelettes. Once again, Tor.com has put together a strong package of stories for their readers.
“The Ones Who Look” by Katherine Duckett
Duckett’s SF novelette is set in Paris, where Zoe is an arbiter for the extraordinarily successful Ethical Empire company. For those who sign up, EE offers an implant that tracks how good that person is and for those who measure up, their mental imprint is saved and the person wakes up in their own version of heaven when they die.
Not quick to find relationships, Zoe finds herself dating a company engineer, Henri, from the Paris office who’s helping to develop the programs to manage each person’s view of heaven. Henri is fascinated about Zoe’s role as an arbiter and asks her many questions as their relationship grows.
But Henri has a mysterious side to him. He has a sister he loved but who died young. Zoe wonders if he can visit his sister in EE’s heaven programs. They both need something from the other, as Henri grapples with his own morality and Zoe must decide if her heaven should include her deceased father, who her mother now hates.
The story had an alluring pace and mystery to it, keeping the reader engaged until the end.
“The Necessary Arthur” by Garth Nix
Tamara is starting her post-doctoral life, in this fantasy novelette, when she’s visited by a strange human-like being, Blaise. Blaise tells Tamara that she’s to be Merlin in a new universal game that holds Earth’s fate in its outcome.
Tamara now has a magical wand, which she must learn to use, and basic instructions to locate the right baby to become King Arthur. If not for Blaise’s obvious magical powers, Tamara would have scoffed at the lunacy of it all. Instead, after a faltering start to the game’s first move, she takes on the role. But the opposition is powerful too, and her wand needs a recharge.
The author’s prose was fast, quickly sweeping the reader up into the plot’s frenetic pace. An enjoyable read that passed far too quickly.
“Juice Like Wounds” by Seanan McGuire
This short fantasy is set in a place called the Market, where three young girls, Moon, Lundy, and Mockery, have become fast friends. The Market deals in fair trades, and for the girls to earn shelter for the winter they decide that killing a monster is the best plan.
Lundy reads about a monster in the forest to the west, and all three set off. Each child has their own skills plus an unending belief in their own invincibility. But none of them are monsters, and monsters are much stronger than children.
Initially, this story was slow as the author set the stage, and then the quest itself was over in a blink of the eye.
“Everything’s Fine” by Matthew Pridham
When three children meld into a ball of flesh, Eric ignores the repulsive sight in this short SF tale. He and two coworkers were risking everything to walk to work while chaos ripples around them. But pretending everything’s fine is the only way to avoid becoming a victim of the madness.
Today, Eric hopes to get a promotion that will allow him to be safe for a few days. He even wears a tie to impress his bosses. But unbeknownst to Eric, getting to his office will just be the start of his challenges.
This was an unusual story, and all the more intriguing for being so. The author avoided the easy trap of trying to explain the mayhem. The reader will have far more fun working it out for themselves.
“Yellow and the Perception of Reality” by Maureen McHugh
June helps her fraternal twin sister, Wanda, recover in this SF novelette. A series of failed experiments have messed up Wanda’s perception of reality.
June doesn’t have her sister’s scientific acumen and can only defend her sister against those who want to exploit the situation. Meanwhile, she visits her sister in the special care center and just spends her time being there and loving Wanda.
But with all the prying from so-called well-wishers, June finds herself trying to determine what happened, and what role trying to enhance the perceptions of an octopus may have played.
The story had a good pace to it, but it didn’t really need the SF elements to tell the story. As such it doesn’t have a strong speculative element.
“The Mysterious Study of Doctor Sex” by Tamsyn Muir
The Library assigns Camilla and Palamedes to investigate anomalies in this fantasy novelette. She is just thirteen, though her partner is a few months younger. Despite their age they have risen within the Library to a position of respect for their analytical abilities in a strange world of necromancers, and animated skeletons.
When Zeta, a senior archivist, receives permission to open a necromancer’s study after four hundred years, she pulls them both into the first exploration of the dusty location deep in the bowels of the Library. Zeta unlocks the door, and inside, lying palm up on the table, they find the skeletons of two hands. As unusual as this is, a quick analysis reveals the bones are just two hundred years old, despite the office being sealed for twice that long.
Camilla and Palamedes begin their investigation as the Archivist sends for the appropriate forms to report the unusual finding.
The story was hard to follow at first as the author does nothing to explain the situation. But perseverance rewarded the reader as a macabre world slowly materialized with an interesting mystery to solve.