[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]

Strange Horizons, March 20, 2023

“Always and Forever, Only You” by Iona Datt Sharma

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

The protagonist of “Always and Forever, Only You” by Iona Datt Sharma is a woman living in a home for the elderly. She develops a schoolgirl crush on a pop singer, and purchases a holographic replica of him. When a crisis occurs, two people offer her a gesture of kindness.

This is a sweet, gentle story, one of the few offered by Strange Horizons that does not require any content warnings. It walks a very thin line between honest emotion and sentimentality. At five thousand words, some readers may find it a bit long for such a simple plot. At the risk of sounding pedantic, I found it odd that the human replicas in this story are described as holographic, but are able to perform actions like picking up real objects.

Victoria Silverwolf saw three turkeys on her driveway today.