Asimov’s“How Sere Kept Herself Together” by Alexander Jablokov
“Une Time Machine, S’il Vous Plait” by Peter Wood
“Turtles to the Sea” by Sandra McDonald
“The Man in the Moon Is a Lady” by Ian Baaske
“The Last Cloud Painter” by Rajan Khanna
“Charon’s Final Passenger” by Ray Nayler
“The Inefficiency of Pangenetic Self-Replication as a Theory of Anthrobotic Evolution by Yantra Arora” by Ashok K. Banker
“Sunsets” by Lavie Tidhar
“Peck” by Dr. Bunny McFadden
“There’s Nothing in the Attic” by Faith Merino
Reviewed by Mina
A top-quality issue bursting with strong female characters.
In “How Sere Kept Herself Together” by Alexander Jablokov, Wes Craven meets SF. The author has a wry sense of humour and the world-weary detective would be worthy of Raymond Chandler. Sere is hired to find something lost and must risk life and limb to earn her fee. There is a fine line between prey and predator and there is much a creature would do to earn its freedom. The story gives a whole new meaning to building a client base. Not my cup of tea but I can appreciate how skillfully done it is. Here are a couple of my favourite quotes: “People are afraid of grief. It’s the perfect defense… I realized that forgetting my grief was even worse than feeling it… Grief at least contains remembered happiness. Forgetfulness contains nothing.” “Money is measured and numbered freedom, and I didn’t have enough in my bank account to make me free enough to turn my back on this job.“
“Une Time Machine, S’il Vous Plait” by Peter Wood is a light and delightful tale. Four people set off on a rocket to the moon when the tachyon engine begins to fluctuate. One by one, it sends the passengers back in time to the 1970s. It’s refreshing to see the two women slowly getting the upper hand in the past. Both male characters are repugnant: one redeems himself eventually; the other does not. Mixed into the tale are a wink to both Star Trek and Canadian food. Mostly fun, it does however make the point that some people know how to seize a second chance to do things differently; some can do it with help and some simply cannot change. And strength of character is innate, regardless of circumstances.
“Turtles to the Sea” by Sandra McDonald begins with a time-wrecked (I love that word!) time traveller, Johnny Winstead, descended from a former slave, Sarah. This is followed by an amazing disappearing and reappearing terrapin egg. We follow the time traveller and his family, their lives entwined with Little Missoe island and turtles. The egg continues to disappear and reappear, as the earthquakes begin. Marnie, the time-traveller’s daughter, remembers Johnny telling her of his mission to save the dying oceans, a mission given to mankind by ancient sea gods. Later, he compares changing the past to diverging train tracks, where those in the past keep following the original track; only those on the new track go towards a different future. All the threads of the story come together as ten time-travelling eggs call forth the ancient turtle gods from the sea. In the end, it is Johnny and his wife and daughter called to witness the mission given to mankind by the wrathful gods. Many slaves drowned in the ocean so it is only fitting that the descendants of the lost souls be the ones to meet the gods. Beautifully written, human and humdrum, with the ocean as an ever-present backdrop, this story is worth rereading and savouring.
“The Man in the Moon Is a Lady” by Ian Baaske has fun mixing genres: operettas with Jules Verne, diaries and military history. It’s light and delights in the ridiculous as it recounts the trials and tribulations of a female astronomer, Vera. The funniest bit for me was when Vera misses the Stock Market crash in 1930 because she is so absorbed in her work. The patently wrong imagining of life in the moon by a 1929 operetta is a well-done pastiche. The only problem is perhaps the choice of the main genre: operettas are easily forgotten and Vera’s diary entries don’t quite add enough weight to the tale.
“The Last Cloud Painter” by Rajan Khanna is a charming tale. I loved the idea of a man in a hot-air balloon creating cloud art. The cloud painter, Oliver, rebels at the thought of settling down and giving up his craft. He sets off on a last adventure, only to end up stranded on a volcanic island. His final masterpiece is a daring dance with the clouds coughed out by the volcano. In his remembered conversations with his Aunt Rosalie, he muses over the life of an artist: lonely, driven to the point of obsession, but with moments of joy. Elegiac.
“Charon’s Final Passenger” by Ray Nayler is set in a grim alternate universe, where alien technology changed the course of WWII and the world that followed it. Sylvia is hooked up to a machine where she must sift through the memories of Sorok. Her mission is to find out what happened to documents he was carrying. She expects the mind of a cold killer and finds a man weary of war, full of shame and regret. She wonders if she will ever be free of his memories for they make her question everything she thought she knew. A story that asks what freedom is and whether it is ever more than an illusion.
“The Inefficiency of Pangenetic Self-Replication as a Theory of Anthrobotic Evolution by Yantra Arora” by Ashok K. Banker is quite a mouthful for a title. I started the story with trepidation but was pleasantly surprised. I found myself getting fond of the robot Yantra as he finds himself charged with sedition for daring to suggest that the original programming for all botdom came from a member of an organic species, Sandy. It’s a delightful look at authoritarianism and religion. Read and find out whether Yantra manages to escape execution.
“Sunsets” by Lavie Tidhar follows Valentina who, mourning her dead partner, leaves Mars to search for the perfect sunset on Earth. She also has a virus that makes her grow extra organs. The casual way she regularly has them harvested colours the story almost as much as her sadness. Each time she sheds an organ, she lets go of some grief. She realises that no sunset is the same and that Earth, for all its wonders, is not home. But she will return feeling lighter. A gentle tale about acceptance.
“Peck” by Dr. Bunny McFadden is a sweet and quirky story. Joey is at her wits end. For years, she has been maintaining the Pocket Model cyborg pigeons designed by her father and given away for free to avoid control and censorship. But Joey is being forced by the Neuro Committee to retire them and give up the secret of their creation. A Committee auditor slowly becomes her friend and the cyborg pigeons prove that they think for themselves. There’s a great twist at the end but you’ll have to read it for yourself.
In “There’s Nothing in the Attic” by Faith Merino, particle physics meets horror. The father pretends not to hear that the house is haunted, even though all the women in the house hear and see it. He challenges the women to prove ghosts are real, so they dive into particle physics. The story is also a comment on gender roles and, as the story progresses, we realise that the father is a nasty piece of work. It’s not quite as grim as it could be because of the science but, still, a tale with a large barb in its tail.