Breaking Water by Indrapramit Das
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (35 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Krishna is quite unsettled when he bumps into a woman’s corpse during his morning bath in Kolkata’s Hooghly River, yet declines to do anything about it–after all, why should he take responsibility for a stranger? But when the dead start coming back to life en masse, he rethinks his position and the debate around how to treat these newly risen corpses gets a lot more complicated. In this story from Indrapramit Das, a journalist strives to understand Krishna’s actions and what they say about the rest of society and how we treat our dead.

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This was one of the most unique zombie stories I’ve ever read. Rather than reacting to the undead with horror or fear, the main character in this tale quickly found compassion for them. The thought of behaving that way around such violent creatures made me quite curious to see what Krishna would do once the outside world realized he was protecting them. He had every reason to walk away from the animated corpses he found, so his decision to look after them was a very interesting thing to base a plot for a short story on.

I found it confusing to jump between so many different narrators. Sometimes Krishna explained what was going on, but in other scenes brand new characters stepped in to share things that he couldn’t have possibly known about. As interesting as it was to have those bits of information, I would have had an easier time following along if the same narrator was explaining everything.

The world building was well done. Obviously, discovering that people come from back from the dead was a game changer. No society could adjust to such a topic without making major changes in the ways they handled everything from life-threatening illnesses to death itself. While I can’t go into details without giving away spoilers, I was pleased with how much thought the author put into how both governments and individuals would adapt to this sort of thing.

Breaking Water is something I’d recommend to anyone who loves the zombie genre.

Finnegan’s Field by Angela Slatter
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (41 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Finnegan’s Field by Angela Slatter is a dark fantasy novelette about a six year old child who mysteriously disappears for three years, only to return home just as mysteriously–but not quite the same. At least, not to her mother.

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Anne was such an interesting character. Her personality was well developed and three dimensional. I felt every ounce of her grief in the beginning and her anger later on once she got to know her daughter better and began to form theories about what might have happened while the girl was away from home. Seeing her personal development over time was fascinating, and it makes me want to read more from Ms. Slatter in the future.

There was one part of the storyline that didn’t quite make sense. It had to do with how the police responded after Madrigal disappeared. Officers interviewed multiple possible suspects, of course. What I didn’t quite understand was how they responded to certain members of the community who had shaky reputations for various reasons. While those people weren’t known to be kidnappers, I would have liked to see a more thorough explanation of how the police handled these folks. They didn’t seem to dig quite as deeply into those people’s lives as I would have expected to see, and that was distracting even though I enjoyed this tale quite a bit in general.

The plot twists in this story were quite well done. I didn’t see one of the major ones coming, and it chilled me to the bones in a good way. It was interesting to look back and think about the gentle clues I’d missed in earlier scenes, especially once Anne began to gather more and more evidence that her daughter wasn’t the same little girl she’d known before Madrigal disappeared.

Finnegan’s Field made me shudder. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys the dark side of science fiction.