As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang

November 12, 2019 By Leave a Comment


As the Last I May Know by S.L. Huang
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (32 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

An alternate history short story looking at decisions and consequences, and what it takes to pull the trigger.

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Nyma, the main character, was an ordinary young girl in almost every way imaginable. Meeting her was the last thing I expected when I started reading this tale, so I was curious to see how such a happy and beautifully average child would fit into the science fiction and horror genres. This is something best left to each reader to discover for themselves, but I was pleased with the transition between introducing this character and explaining how she fit into a future version of what Earth could be like.

There was a plot hole involving something that happened to Nyma when she was a small child and could have serious repercussions for her in the future. The characters acted as if it was something that only had two possible solutions, one of which would end very poorly for her and the other of which seemed less likely to happen with every passing day. Despite this, I could think of at least one other solution that would keep her safe while also giving everyone what they wanted. While I can’t go into detail about what this conflict was without sharing away major spoilers, I do wish the characters would have at least acknowledged the third solution to the problem and discussed why it wasn’t a good idea before moving on to other options.

The world building was well done. There were plenty of interesting hints about which historical event had turned out so differently for humanity in this universe. Given how different their world was from anything we have on Earth today, I appreciated having so many details about where our histories diverged and how their society came to such a different conclusion about how people should live. It really made this world come alive in my imagination.

As the Last I May Know was one of the most subtly frightening things I’ve read recently. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys history and asking “what if?” questions.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , ,

Water: A History by KJ Kabza

November 1, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Water: A History by KJ Kabza
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (18 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

The planet of Quányuán is arid to the point of being uninhabitable. Wetness is a concept left back on Earth. That doesn’t stop one elderly woman from stepping outside the safety of the colony whenever she can for the brief opportunity to fully experience the outside world.

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It was really cool to read about an LGBT+ character whose sexual orientation was not a source of conflict for the storyline in any way. Marie’s identity was acknowledged and honored, but there were so many other fascinating things that had happened and were still happening in her life that this was just one of many things that shaped her into who she was as a human being. Honestly, she’d probably be a little confused about why I spent so much time discussing this part of her identity in my review if she were a real person. It was part of her that simply existed and needed no further explanation. I adored that.

I would have liked to see slightly more time spent describing the political and social structure of Isla. It appeared to be an independent human colony that may not have been able to rely on any new supplies or settlers from Earth to help keep them going. This was an educated guess on my part, though, and I sure would have liked to know for sure if it was correct. Marie broke so many of the rules of her community that I was never quite sure how she got away with it all. Knowing more about the structure of this society would have helped me to understand the special place she held in the hearts of the younger generations no matter what she did was no one was looking.

As much as I would have liked to see more world building, I truly enjoyed experiencing Isla from the perspective of someone who had been there from its beginning. Marie had grown so used to the strict rules that governed her life that she only paid notice to them when deciding how they should be bent or broken next. Reading between the lines to see just how careful this society had to be about waste and the proper use of their resources made me empathize with how tired this character must have been after following those rules for so many years.

Water: A History should be read by anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to live on another planet.

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Zeitgeber by Greg Egan

October 31, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Zeitgeber by Greg Egan
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (39 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

For millions of years, life on Earth has taken its cues from the rising and setting of the sun, and for most of human history we’ve followed the same rhythm. But if that shared connection was broken, and we each fell under the sway of our own private clock, could we still hold our lives together? One family is about to find out.

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The premise of this tale grabbed my attention immediately. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to suddenly have one’s circadian rhythm change without warning and with no explanation of why it was happening. It was a problem that was ordinary enough for me to imagine myself in these character’s shoes while also mysterious enough to create some memorable plot twists. This is one of my favorite types of science fiction, and I couldn’t wait to find out what was causing these issues.

There were a few plot holes that I wish had been better explained. They had to do with how humanity reacted to the sleep cycles of some people changing so rapidly and permanently. Since this story unfolded over multiple years, I would have expected people to adjust to these changes better than they appeared to. It would have been helpful to have some more clues about why this didn’t happen for them.

With that being said, the ending was well done. It was subtly hinted at earlier on in the storyline, so seeing it play out the way I thought it might made me smile. I also appreciated the fact that the author gave his audience so much freedom in coming up with our own theories about what caused this illness and what might happen to the characters in the future. There was room for a sequel, but I was also pretty satisfied with what had already been shared with the readers.

If you’ve ever had trouble with your sleep cycle, Zeitgeber might be right up your alley.

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The Hundredth House Had No Walls by Laurie Penny

October 29, 2019 By Leave a Comment


The Hundredth House Had No Walls by Laurie Penny
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (22 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

The King was bored.

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Living happily ever after doesn’t look the same for everyone.

The storyline was creative and thought provoking. It played around with so many different tropes that I’d be hard pressed to pigeonhole it into any one particular type of plot. There were elements of fairy tales, high fantasy, urban fantasy, magical realism, and a few other sub-genres all dancing around together simultaneously. I was mesmerized by how Ms. Penny was able to mix everything together so effortlessly. While I’ve read countless fantasy novels, I was surprised time and again by how she combined familiar and not-so-familiar themes from so many different corners of the fantasy genre.

There were a couple of things about the ending that I wish had been developed more thoroughly. The king was written in a very specific way in the beginning and middle. He was intelligent and hard working, but he was also stubborn and had a tendency to assume that everyone saw the world the same way he did. It came as a bit of a surprise to me to see how these traits of his influenced the final scene. While I definitely saw where the author was going with that twist, I also thought it would have been helpful to have a stronger explanation of how and why he was evolving.

Yes, the names of the king and the various people he met on his adventures were eventually shared. I’ve decided to leave them out of this review because of how long it took me to learn them and how important those details were for their character development. Honestly, figuring out their identities was an important step in getting to know these characters better and understanding why they weren’t behaving the way one would expect people to act in this sort of setting. Getting to know them all was a great deal of fun, and I’d like it if other readers had the same opportunity to figure out these characters with as little information about their identities or personalities beforehand as possible.

I’d strongly recommend The Hundredth House Has No Walls to anyone who has ever wished fairy tales came true in real life.

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A Cup of Salt Tears by Isabel Yap

October 29, 2019 By Leave a Comment


A Cup of Salt Tears by Isabel Yap
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (32 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Makino’s mother taught her caution, showed her how to carve her name into cucumbers, and insisted that she never let a kappa touch her. But when she grows up and her husband Tetsuya falls deathly ill, a kappa that claims to know her comes calling with a barbed promise. “A Cup of Salt Tears” is a dark fantasy leaning towards horror that asks how much someone should sacrifice for the one she loves.

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Makino had been through some hard times in her life, but the worst seemed like it was just around the corner when I first met her. Her reaction to the news that her husband was dying only endeared me to her even more. She loved him very much, and her heart was breaking as his health deteriorated. This was such a difficult experience for her that I kept hoping they’d somehow get a happy ending.

The ending was confusing to me. There were at least two different ways it could have been interpreted, but neither of them quite seemed to fit the tone of the beginning and middle. One of them was very bleak and felt totally out of character for what I’d learned about Makino’s personality. The other one seemed to have ignored important plot twists from earlier scenes. It would have been helpful to know what the author was actually trying to say and if the interpretations I came up with were close to how she imagined the final scene.

Kappas aren’t a monster I’d ever read about before, so I was curious to see what this one was like. His quiet intelligence surprised me at first. It also made me more curious to figure out his connection to Makino was and why he showed up just after her husband had been told there was nothing more the doctors could do for him. This was definitely a horror story, but it was like nothing I’d ever read before in this genre. I was impressed by how much thought the author put into developing the villain and his reasons for behaving the way that he did.

I’d recommend A Cup of Salt Tears to anyone who likes modern twists on old legends.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Please Undo This Hurt by Seth Dickinson

October 25, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Please Undo This Hurt by Seth Dickinson
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (30 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Ever feel like you care too much? After a breakup, after the funeral…it feels like the way to win at life is to care the least.

That’s not an option for Dominga, an EMT who cares too much, or her drinking buddy Nico, who just lost his poor cat. Life hurts. They drink. They talk:

Nico’s tired of hurting people. He wants out. Not suicide, not that – he’d just hurt everyone who loves him. But what if he could erase his whole life? Undo the fact of his birth? Wouldn’t Dominga be having a better night, right now, if she didn’t have to take care of him?
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And when Dominga finds a way to do just that, when she is gifted or armed with a terrible cosmic mercy, she still cares enough to say:

I am not letting him have this. I am not letting Nico go without a fight.

Some problems loom so large they feel unfixable. Are they, though?

The character development in this story was well done. Both Dominga and her good friend, Nico, were dealing with painful life experiences when the audience first met them. They were muddling through the stages of grief as best as they could, but they were clearly struggling with their losses. Sometimes flashes of their previous selves poked through their sadness, and I smiled at the joy they’d both known. They were still the same clever and thoughtful people they’d been in the past, but it was interesting to see how they’d changed since their lives became more difficult. There were so many layers to these characters that I can’t explore all of them in one review, but I was quite pleased with how much effort Mr. Dickinson put into describing them and their journeys to us. He did an amazing job.

I would have liked to see a little more time spent developing the solution Dominga found for the angst she and Nico felt. It was such a unique idea, so I was a bit surprised by how quickly the characters brushed over exactly how it would work and where it came from. If more care had been taken in this part of the storyline, I would have easily gone for a five star rating. Everything else about it was perfect.

This was one of the best descriptions of what depression feels like that I’ve ever read, and I’m saying that as someone who has personal experience with the topic. One of the hardest things about this mental illness is how emotionally exhausting it is. Things that made someone happy before they became ill can now feel impossible. Dominga and Nico knew this feeling all too well. Her descriptions of trying to drag her and her friend through ordinary life experiences made me nod in empathy. They were dealing with a sickness that seems like it will last forever. More than anything, I wanted them to find relief from it. The deeper they fell into depression, the stronger my desire became to see what their fates would be.

I’d especially recommend Please Undo This Hurt to anyone who is feeling burned out or mentally exhausted.

Filed Under: Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , ,

More Real Than Him by Silvia Park

September 13, 2019 By Leave a Comment


More Real Than Him by Silvia Park
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (24 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

The beginnings of a tentative friendship between two roboticists complicate over career envy, female beauty, and a stolen robot designed to resemble a famous Korean actor.

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Artificial intelligence is something that has fascinated me for a long time. This story included a robot who was incredibly lifelike and two roboticists who had spent years learning how to iron out the differences between how humans behave and how machines are generally expected to behave. The descriptions of what the robot was capable of was enthralling. He could do things I never would have imagined would be possible, and yet the humans around him still hoped to nudge him even closer to looking and acting just like a person does. Getting to know him and the person who created him so well was a treat.

I had trouble keeping track of all of the characters in this tale. Part of the issue was that one character’s name was changed partway through the storyline. There were also multiple characters introduced at the same time and the narrator wasn’t always consistent about whether they were referred to by their first or last names from one moment to the next. All of this made keeping track of everyone tricky, and it did impact my enjoyment of the plot as well.

There were some creative plot twists. While I did wonder if some of them were in the works ahead of time, it was still a great deal of fun to see my guesses turn out to be the correct ones. Ms. Park did a very good job of hinting at these moments without giving away too many clues that they were actually in the cards for the characters.

More Real Than Him should be read by anyone who enjoys robots.

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Seonag and the Seawolves by M. Evan MacGriogair

September 11, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Seonag and the Seawolves by M. Evan MacGriogair
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal
Length: Short Story (33 pages)
Rating: 5 Stars
Review by: Astilbe

A clan storyteller unfolds the tale of Seonag and the wolves, and the wolves and the waves.

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One of the things I appreciated the most about this tale was how old it felt. The narrator grew up at a time when her culture was rapidly changing, and she is seems to be the only person alive who still remembers how her people lived before their traditional way of life began to disappear. Every word she spoke was soaked in bittersweet memories. Once or twice I actually had to pause to make sure that this wasn’t based on a real Gaelic myth. It was simply that detailed and believable.

This was an excellent example of how to include a message in a book without turning it into a lecture. There was an important reason why Seonag’s fate was remembered by those who knew her, and the lesson this community learned was something that everyone should keep in mind. I deeply enjoyed seeing how this was included in the plot so effortlessly. Each part of it felt like a natural extension of the storyline, and yet it also all came together in the end to drive home the lesson the narrator and her people had learned so many years ago.

Seonag was such an admirable character. She lived in a time and place when a single woman was considered to be a burden, especially when they were as quirky, headstrong, and sometimes socially awkward as she was. There were so many reasons why she logically wouldn’t be able to finish the task she set out to do, and yet I couldn’t help but to believe she’d somehow figure out a way to beat the odds. The more I got to know her, the more I respected her perseverance and enjoyed seeing how confident she was about her abilities despite what everyone around her was saying.

Seonag and the Seawolves was a beautiful story that I’d heartily recommend to anyone who enjoys legends or folklore.

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For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll

August 30, 2019 By 4 Comments


For He Can Creep by Siobhan Carroll
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Paranormal, Historical
Length: Short Story (30 pages)
Rating: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

A dark fantasy about Jeoffry, a cat who fights demons, a poet, who is Jeoffry’s human confined to an insane asylum, and Satan, who schemes to end the world.

No one is better equipped to fight demons than a cat.
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It’s not every day that I see poetry referenced in this genre, so I knew I needed to read this piece as soon as I read that part of the blurb. The poetry Jeoffry’s human wrote was far more important than most of the characters realized. I’ll leave it up to other readers to discover why this is so, but I was impressed with how much effort Jeoffry put into describing his person’s passion in life since cats in this universe aren’t particularly interested in poems in general.

There’s something special about the relationship between humans and the animals they live with. My favorite scenes were the ones that explored this relationship from the perspective of a cat. As the main character, it was his job to explain and understand humanity even when the choices we make are nonsensical to other species. More than once I was impressed with how much thought the author put into how even the most ordinary human behavior could look incredibly strange to a cat.

The world building was perfect. Like every cat that has existed in any universe, Jeoffry had a high opinion of both himself and what he was capable of. One of the most interesting things about reading his tale was learning why these animals behave this way. It’s not a coincidence, and the explanation for it was as satisfying as it was fascinating. If the author ever writes a sequel, I’d sure like to learn more about Jeoffry and the rest of feline society.

As if all of these reasons weren’t enough, I also adored the humor in this piece. Mental illness and asylums are not amusing topics by any stretch of the imagination, so I was surprised and delighted by how effortlessly the main character was able to find the joyful side of such a serious setting.

For He Can Creep was the funniest and most thought-provoking piece of fantasy fiction I’ve read in ages. I can’t recommend it highly enough!

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Any Way the Wind Blows by Seanan McGuire

August 28, 2019 By Leave a Comment


Any Way the Wind Blows by Seanan McGuire
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (20 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

As Tor.com departs from its longtime home, the iconic Flatiron building, we present this sweet farewell from Seanan McGuire, Any Way the Wind Blows.

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I wish the blurb of this short story had mentioned the fact that it’s about people who visit many different versions of Earth! While I can’t say much about the specifics of this without giving away spoilers due to how short the plot was, I was impressed with how creative Mr. McGuire was when he imagined all of the ways the same patch of land could be different depending on which version of Earth it was part of.

It would have been helpful to have some sort of description of the main character. Not only was their name never given, the other characters also didn’t make any references to this person’s gender, age, race, personality, quirks, habits, flaws, strengths, or general appearance. Literally all I knew about them was that they were the captain. I definitely don’t need to know all or even most of these things in order to bond with a protagonist, but it sure is helpful to have a basic idea of who they are as an individual at some point during the plot. Having no clue what they looked like or how to describe them to someone else made it tricky for me to rate this tale as highly as I would have otherwise rated it.

The world building was surprisingly well done. Of course I wanted to know more about the characters’ mission given how serious the stakes were for it if they were to fail, but I was satisfied with the quick explanation of what they were doing that was shared with the audience. It made sense to me, especially once the narrator dug a little deeper into why they were so insistent on visiting every parallel version of Earth they could possibly find.

I’d recommend Any Way the Wind Blows to anyone who enjoys a little humor and horror in their science fiction.

Filed Under: Horror, Reviews, Science Fiction/Fantasy Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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