Lightspeed “Five Dispatches from Conflict Zone W-924/B Regarding Post-Battle Deployment of A. Thanatensis” by David Anaxagoras
“It Might Be He Returns” by Fatima Taqvi
“Feast of Famine” by Adam-Troy Castro
“Dad Went Out to Get the Milk” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu
“The Dream Tourists” by Sarah Langan
“Savannah and the Apprentice” by Christopher Rowe
“To Access Seven Obelisks, Press Enter” by V.M. Ayala
“Anti-Capitalism vs. the Man of Flowers” by Naomi Kanakia
Reviewed by Francine Taylor
In “Five Dispatches from Conflict Zone W-924/B Regarding Post-Battle Deployment of A. Thanatensis” by David Anaxagoras, Dr. Nathaniel Letheford, Director for Military Neutralization and Eradication of Sensitive Incidents and Atrocities, has landed in a combat zone to investigate the first deployment of a living organism that was developed to eliminate the horrifying effects of people killed in visually disturbing ways. The organism is designed to consume dead bodies so that no one has to look at them.
However, his equipment is damaged and his transport lost, so he is recording his findings and returning them via drone. His five dispatches detail what he sees. Initially, he reports that the test is a success—but, as might be expected, subsequent dispatches tell a different story.
When read as horror, the story delivers vivid and memorable imagery, escalating from battlefield carnage to the grotesque spectacle of living eyes, accusing and hopeless. But as science fiction, it is riddled with implausibilities. The very premise—that an organism designed to consume corpses would somehow spare grief—ignores the need for closure and forensics. Scientifically, a field test that instantly mutates into a living-flesh predator without prior safeguards strains credibility, and the sudden appearance of a dead girl’s eyes feels less like mutation than hallucination, leaving the reader unsure what is real. The atmosphere is haunting, but the weak scientific grounding and lack of clear resolution make it less satisfying as a story.
In “It Might Be He Returns” by Fatima Taqvi, Fawad is a hungry boy who has lost his parents and what used to be a comfortable future, and now has nothing but the wish to be able to help those in need. He is drawn into a tailor’s shop by a magic mirror and steps through it. There he meets the Other Tailor, who hires him to scavenge objects from the real world. Once brought through the mirror, the items are transformed into something else, something better, and are used to craft the gharara the Other Tailor is sewing.
Eventually, the customer arrives; a woman named Karachi who shares her name with the city itself. She appears to be the personification of fate. Fawad challenges her, accusing her of mistreating her people, of failing them. She replies that what she does is fair—families and fortunes rise and fall, and the wealthy of today will be picking up rubbish collecting bags tomorrow.
Fawad argues that ‘fair’ is not good enough. “I will grant you all that,” she concedes, and tells him that if he wants change, he must make it himself.
The story is told in present tense and occasionally breaks the fourth wall, which creates distance between the reader and the main character. But even with that, it delivers a powerful message about empathy—how it is affected by one’s circumstances, and how easy it is to lose the memory of need in the face of plenty.
In “Feast of Famine” by Adam-Troy Castro, the main character is Garster. Garster is a pig. Not a literal pig, but a pig in every other sense of the word. Spoiled from birth, rich on a galactic scale, and casually cruel in the way only a supreme narcissist can be, Garster consumes his way through life.
From the very first paragraph, you know you’re in for a treat. The author’s sly, clever prose makes even mundane observations hold your attention. The story would be worth reading for the writing alone, even if it rambled on for all 6,976 words without saying a thing—which it doesn’t. Instead, it builds a delicious sense of dread as Garster eats his vile way into the plot, while, somewhere in the background, you can almost hear the ominous drums of approaching doom.
The resolution left me slightly underwhelmed—perhaps because the story had set my expectations on a different ending—but it was still a marvelously fun read, and I would recommend it wholeheartedly.
In “Dad Went Out to Get the Milk” by Osahon Ize-Iyamu, Dad goes out for a milk run every day, but what he’s going to bring home is anyone’s guess. Sometimes it’s actually milk. Other days it’s a giant scroll from the elf kingdom. Or six fang bites from the werewolf princess and a deed for a luxury condo in the werewolf kingdom. Nobody seems to appreciate the fantastical gifts he brings them. The kids barely notice, and Mom is decidedly unimpressed. Eventually, it all comes to a head in a tense showdown between Mom and Dad.
I had no idea where the story was headed—but the writing was so succinct and entertaining that I didn’t mind being in the dark. Halfway through, I started to see the shape of it, and by the climax, I had figured it out. I won’t spoil the ending, but I found the story extremely relatable, and the resolution was satisfying in a very positive way.
In “The Dream Tourists” by Sarah Langan, Michaela Xiao, a self-named “mass murderer,” recounts her story to a reduced and closed courtroom after being convicted on questionable evidence. Through her testimony, she exposes how a new technology—designed to harvest dreams—was twisted by corporate greed into a system that exploited society’s most vulnerable.
The prose itself is strong, and the technological premise is intriguing. The ethical questions it raises about exploitation, addiction, and corporate responsibility are worth considering, and the story clearly aims to leave readers unsettled.
That said, the execution disappointed. The narrative unfolds entirely as a retrospective, one long flashback, which undercuts the tension. Because Michaela’s fate is never in doubt, the story lacks suspense and unfolds more like a lecture than a drama. We never get to meet most of the players, so the story is forced to rely on stereotypes; the tech innovator with guilty regrets, the business executives ignoring ethics, and society falling victim to corporate greed. The ending reaches for impact, but feels more inevitable than surprising.
Overall, this is a piece with an intriguing premise, but its retrospective format keeps it from being as compelling as it could have been. Readers interested in stories that give preference to social critique over plot may still find it worthwhile.
In “Savannah and the Apprentice” by Christopher Rowe, Savannah the Librarian (and bounty hunter) sets off from Tuliax-by-the-Sea on her sly white mule, a loudly homicidal demon perched on her shoulder. She’s chasing an apprentice who murdered his master. Along the way, she encounters a fellow bounty hunter—riding an ox and carrying his own demon—who offers to join forces and split the reward. Her demon warns her of treachery, but too late: she wakes bound and discovers the hunt is far less straightforward than she assumed.
The characters are colorful, and the sly humor of the writing adds charm. However, I struggled to follow the main character’s reasoning; the climax hinges on a leap of logic that left me bewildered. Still, it was an entertaining read with a just—if not wholly satisfying—ending.
“To Access Seven Obelisks, Press Enter” by V.M. Ayala takes place in a world ruled by seven mega-corporations that exploit their workers while stealing from one another. Zan’s job is to infiltrate rival systems, though they despise the corporation they serve. Having spent much of their life mastering ways to infect the interfaces through which everyone accesses information, Zan now intends to use that skill to bring the corporations down. With the help of the mysterious “L,” an upper-management worker who also hates the system, Zan plans to infect the executives at a party with a “bleed” that will trap them in hallucination-induced catatonia.
Unfortunately, this plays out as a mystery in all the wrong ways—the central question being simply “what’s going on?” It took me two read-throughs to piece together the basics. For much of the first half, I couldn’t tell what Zan had or hadn’t done, what they feared, or why the ghost of Zan’s father mattered beyond serving as a vague motivation for revenge. Zan’s negativity and seemingly purposeless life, combined with their willingness to commit mass murder against people they didn’t even know personally, made them an unlikable character despite the backstory of their father’s betrayal and death at corporate hands. The world itself felt chaotic, its people uniformly unpleasant, and the resolution struck me as both unsatisfying and implausible. Killing the executives at the top accomplishes little—their places would quickly be filled, the system would grind on unchanged, and retaliation against workers like Zan would be inevitable. The climax is framed as a victory over the corporations, yet the supposed triumph rings hollow: the system itself remains intact, the executives are easily replaced, and the likely outcome is harsher retaliation rather than change. The story presents this as a victory, but in reality nothing has changed.
“Anti-Capitalism vs. the Man of Flowers” by Naomi Kanakia takes place at a superhero convention. Protesters surround the building, waving signs advocating everything from trans rights to the Palestinian nation to world peace. Inside, the superheroes sit on their floating platforms discussing intergalactic threats and whining about how misunderstood and unappreciated they are.
The indestructible Man of Flowers, who lives in his car and hardly ever fights crime any more, has a unique and practical perspective on the situation, which he imparts to the narrator over a cup of coffee. And then they all go home.
It’s a pleasant enough slice-of-life story that left me wondering what message I should have come away with. Maybe someday I’ll be motivated to sit down with a cup of coffee and ponder the question.