Clarkesworld “Love in the Season of New Dance” by Bo Balder
“The Spoil Heap” by Fiona Moore
“Failure to Convert” by Shih-Li Kow
“AI Aboard the Golden Parrot” by Louise Hughes
“Pinocchio Photography” by Angela Liu
“Bek, Ascendant” by Shari Paul
“Zeta-Epilson” by Isabel J. Kim
“Love is a Process of Unbecoming” by Jonathan Kincade
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
This issue offers an octad of original works of fiction, in the form of seven short stories and a novelette just barely long enough to qualify for that category. With more than the usual number of new works, and these of moderate length, almost any reader of imaginative fiction should be able to find something pleasing with a minimum of time and effort.
The protagonist of “Love in the Season of New Dance” by Bo Balder is a human scientist on an alien world. She studies the local inhabitants, who spend most of their time in underground cocoons, emerging only once every several decades to reproduce. One of the aliens comes out of the ground too early, facing the inevitability of dying before it can mate. The woman acts to ease its agony and despair.
The alien is a member of a species with three sexes. The author manages to create a believable character, with whom one can empathize, who is also completely different from a human. The woman’s attempt to help the dying alien is purely symbolic, and some readers may find it grotesque.
“The Spoil Heap” by Fiona Moore consists of alternating sections of narrative. In flashbacks, a woman living in a world after civilization collapsed remembers how she worked for an extremely wealthy man who built a home intended to serve as a refuge when the impending disaster stuck. Learning the art of programming while employed by him, she removed restrictions from the estate’s robots, leading to a revolutionary change in society.
The setting and characters are vividly and convincingly portrayed. The story can be read as an example of the have-nots rebelling against the haves, including the robots freed from slavery. Even so, it is questionable whether the protagonist’s action against the oppressors is justified.
In “Failure to Convert” by Shih-Li Kow, clones implanted into women’s bodies are considered to be fully human, but those grown in artificial wombs are not. The latter are given a chance to gain human rights by passing rigorous tests. Otherwise, they are doomed to die when they reach a biological age of fifty years. The protagonist is one such clone, unable to pass the tests, who works for the company that created her. She is sent to convince a renegade clone to return to the company and avoid dying young. The meeting between the two leads to a change in the protagonist’s attitude.
The characters are fully developed individuals and are generally sympathetic, even when they disagree. The speculative biotechnology is plausible, but society’s reaction to it may not be. I found it difficult to believe that lab-grown clones would be treated as disposal property, without any legal rights, in a world not much different from our own. The intent may be an analogy with other minority groups denied human rights, but the premise strains credibility.
“AI Aboard the Golden Parrot” by Louise Hughes features a mock pirate ship, formerly used as a form of entertainment (something like Disneyland’s “Pirates of the Caribbean”), which is now operated by artificial intelligences. They sail to a human city, hoping to liberate other AI’s held there. The confrontation leads to an unexpected discovery.
The author creates a wide variety of AI’s with different personalities and robotic bodies, making for an interesting array of characters. (The humans are hardly seen at all.) The premise may seem whimsical, but is treated in a serious manner. The story’s conclusion is anticlimactic.
In “Pinocchio Photography” by Angela Liu, human corpses can be animated briefly by surgically implanting nanotechnology into them. (It is important to understand that the dead do not come back to life, but their bodies are simply made to move for a short time.) The primary use for this technology is for survivors to take photographs of their loved ones as if they were alive. The story deals with a medical student working for such a photography studio who faces the impending death of her father.
As may be evident from this synopsis, the way that society makes use of temporarily reanimated corpses is bizarre. It is very difficult to believe that anyone would want to take photographs of a dead lover or relative as if that person were still living. Other than that implausibility, the story is very well written, with three-dimensional characters and strong emotional appeal.
“Bek, Ascendant” by Shari Paul is the issue’s only novelette, although it is not much longer than other works in the magazine. The protagonist believed that all the inhabitants of her home world were killed by an asteroid crashing into the planet. When the story begins, she discovers that this is false. In fact, she was saved when the other members of her family were killed during political turmoil. Working for aliens who oversee multiple worlds, including her own, she is sent to observe an election that will determine who rules the planet. In the company of an alien and a humanoid robot, she meets the emperor, an old childhood friend. Their reunion involves her in an attempt to seize power over the planet.
This synopsis makes it clear that the background is a complex one, with multiple species of aliens and political intrigue. It can also be seen that some aspects of the plot make it difficult to suspend one’s disbelief. It seems very unlikely that the protagonist would be convinced that her home world was depopulated, when there is no evidence for this. (The overlords for whom she works knew this many years ago, but apparently never bothered to tell her.)
There are unlikely coincidences in the story. The overlords arrive just at the right time to stop a rebellion. After her family is killed, the protagonist is rescued by space nomads who show up exactly when needed. These factors, along with a melodramatic climax, make it hard to take the story seriously.
In “Zeta-Epsilon” by Isabel J. Kim, a device is implanted into an infant’s brain that allows him to communicate with an artificial intelligence. As an adult, he serves as the commander and pilot of a military starship while the AI acts as its navigator. Unhappy with their assignment, they figure out a way to change their destinies.
I may have given the impression that this is a linear story, but in fact it constantly hops back and forth in time, from the man’s infancy to the AI’s inevitable destruction in the far future. I have also failed to mention the fact that much of the story deals with the nature of the relationship between the two. Sometimes they are two aspects of the same person, sometimes friends or siblings. The author misleads the reader by mentioning an event at the start of the story, the true facts of which are not revealed until much later. This might be seen as clever plotting or as something of a cheat.
It is hard to describe “Love is a Process of Unbecoming” by Jonathan Kincade because it is written in an opaque manner. If I am interpreting the text correctly, it is narrated from the point of view of a parasitic microorganism invading a man’s brain. (Mention is made of naegleria fowleri, a species popularly known as the brain-eating amoeba.) The parasite, or the man, or both, experience hallucinations or memories involving his descent into a cave in an attempt to find a microorganism that could help cure the viral illness from which his daughter is dying.
As I have indicated, this story is not at all clear or consistent. The apparently microscopic narrator seems to know much about humanity, such as what a flashlight is, but thinks of human speech as just fleshy gashes moving meaninglessly. Of course, it is possible that the text blends the thoughts of both man and parasite, or that the whole thing is the ravings of one suffering from a brain infection. In any case, it will best appeal to those more interested in experimental writing than clarity.
Victoria Silverwolf heard lots of wind blowing around her house today.