Grimdark #39, July 2024“Dead Reckoning Part II” by Christian Cameron
“Waiting for Witnesses” by Gautam Bhatia
“The Skin of Aquila Caden” by Chris Panatier
“Observer” by Eric Malikyte
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Four science fiction stories appear in this issue.
As its title makes clear, “Dead Reckoning Part II” by Christian Cameron is a direct sequel to “Dead Reckoning” in the magazine’s April 2023 issue.
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That story was credited to Miles Cameron, but an afterword makes it clear that the sequel is by the same author under a variant name.
An unarmed starship is on the run after escaping human enemies, only to discover aliens after the vessel also. A long, desperate chase follows, through multiple star systems.
As with the previous story, this one involves a great deal of maneuvering. Some readers are likely to find this tedious. The first story ended with the appearance of the aliens from nowhere. In similar fashion, the sequel ends with a development that comes out of the blue, much like the cavalry suddenly arriving at the climax of a Western movie.
In “Waiting for Witnesses” by Gautam Bhatia, five people gather at a place where a spaceship is expected to return after thousands of years. (The fact that the vessel travels at nearly the speed of light makes time move much more slowly aboard the ship.) They expect the people aboard to judge how they have rebuilt their society after a disaster, and to report this situation to their remote descendants after another trip lasting millennia. It turns out that the situation is not what it seems to be.
The story is written in an unusual style, with the characters identified only by titles, such as the Mathematician or the Poet, and speaking in long monologues that do not resemble ordinary conversation. This gives the work the feeling of a legend, or possibly a stage play. Some readers may appreciate this unique narrative technique, while others may find it affected or pretentious.
The protagonist of “The Skin of Aquila Cadens” by Chris Panatier is alone on a distant planet which has been seeded with microorganisms from Earth. These genetically engineered microbes are designed to alter any native life in a way that will make the world habitable by humans. However, the planet has no life at all, rendering them useless. The protagonist figures out a way to save the project.
The premise is an intriguing one, although it seems like a very unlikely way to terraform a planet. The process only works if a world has life, and it seems likely that the vast majority would not. Readers may be able to predict the actions of the protagonist, given her desire to save the project at any cost.
In “Observer” by Eric Malikyte, a man aboard an automated war machine witnesses a young child left alone when its parents are killed as terrorists by soldiers. With the help of a drone containing an artificial intelligence copied from the mind of someone who experienced a similar situation, the man saves the child in an act of rebellion.
This synopsis may not be entirely accurate, as the story is complex, very fast-moving, full of technological concepts in the tradition of cyberpunk, and containing multiple flashbacks of memories. It also features a level of violence that makes it appropriate for a magazine devoted to grimdark fiction, much more so than the other stories in the issue. Readers are likely to be carried away by its rapid pace, but may be confused along the way.
Victoria Silverwolf bought a new printer today.