Clarkesworld #188, May 2022
“Wants Pawn Term” by Rich Larson
“Hatching” by Bo Balder
“The Possibly Brief Life of Guang Hansheng” by Liang Qingsan
“Gamma” by Oskar Källner
“Tea Parties around Nebula-55” by Adriana C. Grigore
“Kora is Life” by David D. Levine
“A Manual on Different Options of How to Bring a Loved One to Life” by Oyedotun Damilola Muees
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
This issue has a strong international flavor, with two newly translated stories as well as original works by authors from Europe and Africa.
The protagonist of “Wants Pawn Term” by Rich Larson is an artificial intelligence, created by a larger AI after a crash landing on a colony world. When one of the pods containing humans in suspended animation lands on the planet, its creator sends it out on an errand to revive the inhabitants. Along the way, it encounters another AI created by the original, that has its own motives.
It soon becomes clear that the story is very loosely based on the familiar tale of Little Red Riding Hood, which may help readers interpret the enigmatic title. This allusion is not necessary to the plot, and somewhat detracts from an otherwise interesting work of science fiction. The author shows great skill at writing from the point of view of a sentient machine.
In “Hatching” by Dutch author Bo Balder, a woman loses her position as part of a three-person team working on a starship equipped with an artificial intelligence, because she was too accommodating to others to be an effective officer. To her surprise, she is assigned to a new ship, along with a former lover. Instead of another human being, the third member of the crew is the AI itself, which has its own reasons for making a voyage into the depths of space.
The author offers thoughtful speculation on the nature of AIs, and what their desires might be. The fact that the protagonist has to undergo therapy for being too empathetic may be more difficult to accept than the story’s futuristic content. This does, however, allow for an emotionally satisfying conclusion.
The narrator of “The Possibly Brief Life of Guang Hansheng” by Liang Qingsan, translated from Chinese by Andy Dudak, discovers part of a serialized science fiction story written by an otherwise unknown author of the early Twentieth Century. The excerpt includes a description of the Moon that is surprisingly accurate for the time. Further research reveals more about the writer’s personality and scientific work, but much remains unknown.
It could be argued that this story is not speculative fiction at all, although it can be interpreted as subtle alternate history. Readers expecting to find out that the imaginary author actually went to the Moon, or some other dramatic revelation, will be disappointed. I, on the other hand, found it quite engaging as a work of recursive science fiction (i.e. SF about SF.)
“Gamma” by Oskar Källner, translated from Swedish by Gordon James Jones, takes place in the extreme far future, when the universe has grown cold. The only surviving entities are artificially created beings, brought into existence by civilizations long vanished. They obtain energy by orbiting a black hole. When one group of these beings starts a war with the others, two such entities flee the destruction, seeking another way to exist.
The author’s sweeping vision of the immensity of time and space is awe-inspiring. Although the exact nature of the beings is very hard to picture, they become characters with whom one can empathize.
“Tea Parties around Nebula-55” by Romanian author Adriana C. Grigore involves a robot taking care of children aboard a spaceship whose components are slowly breaking down, one by one. It tries to keep the youngsters happy and occupied, despite the inevitable fate that awaits them.
I was surprised to discover hints that the children are not entirely organic, but appear to be partly artificial. Where they came from, and why they are still aboard a dying spaceship, remains unclear. Although the characters are appealing, this relatively brief story leaves many things unexplained.
The narrator of “Kora is Life” by David D. Levine is the first human being allowed to compete in a flying contest that humanoid aliens have held for millennia. The sport involves both soaring with artificial wings and the use of jet engines. Competition is fierce, with groups of aliens using bribery and even assassination to make sure their team wins.
A particular clan accepts the narrator as their representative, because they have not won for a century and the use of an advanced engine made by a human company promises to bring victory. The narrator has to face resentment from other aliens, the threat of a highly skilled rival, and the inherent danger of a competition that sometimes claims the lives of its participants.
This novella holds the reader’s attention from start to finish. The flying scenes are exciting, but the narrator’s struggles with alien culture and the company promoting the engine are equally compelling. The narrative style is clear and vivid, reminding me a bit of Roger Zelazny.
“A Manual on Different Options of How to Bring a Loved One to Life” by Nigerian author Oyedotun Damilola Muees is a cyberpunk story about a woman attempting to obtain an artificial body for her sister, whose consciousness is in computer storage. Her quest leads her to illegal merchants of such devices, who ask her to infiltrate a secure area of the company for whom she works in exchange for their help. The result is industrial sabotage and an unexpected new identity for the sister.
This story has the expected grittiness and high-tech concepts of cyberpunk, and is likely to satisfy fans of that genre, although there is little that is new here. Sections of the narrative are introduced with randomly numbered bits of advice, apparently from the manual mentioned in the title. This technique, similar to the popular use of lists as narrative structures in recent works of fantasy and science fiction, adds nothing to the story, and seems somewhat affected.
Victoria Silverwolf had to think about the first story’s title a long time before understanding it.