Asteroid Monte

Short Story by Craig DeLancey

Humans are one of the newer species in Galactic Civilization, and newer species make better policemen, since they have more experience with crime than more advanced, more civilized species. Our protagonist is one such human, sent with his herbivore-hating alien partner, to a system where a rogue species is stealing seeds from a bio-mechanical non-sentient fungus-like species. These seeds could be used as a weapon, and so are a danger to Galactic civilization.

The protagonist predictably uses his knowledge of three-card monte to solve the crime, thus proving that humans are qualified to be part of the police force, and are really omnivores, despite our flat teeth. Amusing, but nothing too deep here.

3 vicious herbivores out of 5.

Amabit Sapiens

Novelette by Craig DeLancey

The story is how Lyta Sumaran is abducted and tortured in South America, interspersed with her memories of growing up being groomed for a mysterious something by her father. The science is oil-eating bacteria. Bacteria are underrepresented in SF stories, are very well done here, and are slightly ahead of brown paper packages in any list of my favorite things. The ethical conundrum is about short-term versus long-term risks and exactly how far one should go in compromising the short-term for the possibility of greater long-term good. Best of all, none of these aspects of the story are delivered via lecturing. An exciting, thoughtful, valuable piece of fiction, I'll remember this one for some time. 4.5 out of 5.

The Cold Star Sky

Short Story by Craig DeLancey

A human engineer has to help an extremely obnoxious alien rescue some other aliens on a gas giant. It turns out there is a sea of buckyballs or something and the alien ship has been covered by a layer of them that seem to be self-agglutinating. The reasoning that leads to the solution is good, in the Heinlein "surprising yet obvious" sense. I particularly like the ending with the alien trying to take credit. At some points the writing dragged the story down like the alien ship, but overall it was pretty good, and the aliens were so obnoxious I wanted to punch them in the face, so caricature-ization achieved! The solution and the ending definitely made it worthwhile, although a lot could have been improved on: 3 out of 5.