The Day the Wires Came Down

Novelette by Alexander Jablokov

Arabella and Andrew are two bickering teenage twins, trying to find a gift for their father on the day before Arabella goes off to school, and the last day before the fun aerial-trolley system around the city closes down. While going about their errand, they witness several scenes in the personal life of their driver, and uncover a story from the glorious past of this rooftop trolley system.

The setting, and particularly the mode of transit around this early-twentieth-century world provide a very colorful backdrop, and are worked out in excellent detail. The imagery of various stops is well described. But I wasn't all that interested in any of the three stories, besides that they are well written. The whole thing seemed a bit long and boring. I did really enjoy getting to explore the world, but I'm not sure the kids' errand was the best way to tell the story Jablokov seemed to most want to tell.

I do agree with the author that this is not a steampunk story, despite the level of technology. And this makes me happy, because I'm getting a bit sick of steampunk, and a lot of the sillier tropes are the ones that always seem to show up. This story has no such predilection towards silly pseudo-Victorianism. Huzzah!

That said, the story was not interesting to me, forcing the piece to rely on awesome setting and quality of writing alone. Fortunately, these are both quite good, unfortunately, that only goes so far. I am looking forward to more stories in this setting, though. But for now...

3 cable cars out of 5.

P.S. I love the cover art, though it isn't entirely accurate; the full version can be found here. Check it out.

Little Monster (Flash on the Borderlands VI)

Flash Fiction by LynnCee Faulk
Narrated for Pseudopod by Dani Cutler (Starts at about 11 minutes)

Text available on the Pseudopod Forums

The old Creepy Doll tale with an interesting, scarier, twist. The little girl is a fun character in this very short, very bleak horror story. It's my favorite of the three flash fictions in this Pseudopod episode.

3.5 pins out of 5.

Mother's Milk (Flash on the Borderlands VI)

Flash Fiction by Strahinja Acimovic
Narrated for Pseudopod by Jacquie Duckworth (Starts at about 6 minutes)

Text available on the Pseudopod forums

The second piece of flash fiction this month, and tied of second place in the Pseudopod Flash Contest.

A premature baby dies after an emergency C-section and his mother goes interestingly crazy. She comes up with a novel, rather horrible solution to the problem of her dead child.

I enjoyed this one more than Escape. It is still a gorey, gross form of madness, but for some reason this one worked better for me. Maybe it is that this woman has a better motivation for being crazy, or just that she is coming up with a more needlessly horrible solution, which still makes more sense, in an insane sort of way.

3.5 stitches out of 5.

Escape (Flash on the Borderlands VI)

Flash Fiction by M.E. Smith
Narrated for Pseudopod by Leann Mabry

Text available on the Pseudopod Forums

Pseudopod is back after their long hiatus! The first of these three flash pieces is the winner of their Flash Fiction contest.

A woman in a concrete cell is slowly escaping. It's a gross, neat form of madness. A gruesome plan, perhaps needlessly so. This is torture-horror of an unusual type, but still essentially torture horror. Gross, not amazingly interesting story, besides the idea at its heart.

3 bits out of 5.

At Cross Purposes

Novelette by Juliette Wade

A corporate-controlled human terraforming expedition makes first contact with some very unique, otter-like aliens. Things go rather poorly, but Lynn, an engineer, has a chance to smooth things over, and maybe prevent the warrior-caste of the giant dancing otters from deciding to wipe humans out of space. If she can overcome the stupidity and overreactive secrecy of her corporate superior.

And in another, equally interesting viewpoint, one of the scientist otters wants to prevent the military from taking control, arguing the humans are sentient and need to be studied. The way language is used implies the thinking of the otter aliens, as we see more clearly for getting their point of view. It's a unique society, and I love the idea of their Pattern Purpose.

As I'm coming to expect from Wade, she gives us an original way of looking at language, backing up an original alien culture, and exciting politics within the foreign culture. This story is much higher stakes for humanity, and I love how much we are almost all screwed by obstructive bureaucracy.

It's an exciting novelette, and I really really really enjoyed reading about the alien culture here. But it's tough to accept exactly how stupid and petty Doris was. Wade establishes this on page one, so it isn't really a surprise. But it is constantly a surprise how far she takes it. Doris isn't just obnoxious, she's vindictive to the point of inter-species incident, needlessly cruel, petty, and quite literally too stupid to live. I wish she'd been written just a tad more reasonable. Or I wish Wade had killed her off, somehow. But that is part of the point I suppose. Really really stupid, obnoxious bureaucrats who almost get everyone killed don't go away.

Ranting aside, it was a delightful ending, I loved the aliens, and I loved the story.

4 otter-alien dance parties out of 5.

God in the Sky

Short Story by An Owomoyela

Katri is a rational, agnostic or atheistic scientist in a world going crazy. A huge light has appeared in the night sky, almost as big as the moon. And it seems to be growing. People are worried it will fill the night sky in two years or so if it keeps growing at the current rate. So of course people immediately rush out to swarm stores for canned goods, bottled water, and generators. The world starts tearing itself apart for really no good reason. A mayor in Texas declares the light to be God, and suddenly newspapers pile on and the whole world heads that much further toward preparing for the rapture and other illogical assumptions.

This drives Katri nuts, and what makes the story great is that rather than focussing on the world's craziness, Owomoyela focusses on how Katri's life is affected. Her frustration and exasperation as her grandfather seems to be converting to Islam and he father runs off to Africa to find his ex-wife before the world ends. Her feelings of abandonment and isolation, both emotionally and as the Only Sane Man, are made worse when her girlfriend interrupts her complaining to announce that she's leaving to go home to family in Tennessee. Little things like the tone-deaf and poorly timed way the girlfriend announces her plans, and halfheartedly offers to stay ring particularly true and make Owomoyela's story seem like something that could happen tomorrow, and could happen to me. Her writing is excellent throughout.

The isolation is downright tragic, but the story ends on a rational, reasonably happy note, better than either of the two endings I'd have guessed from the first few pages. I love that the nature and origin of the object isn't explained, it's left with the assumption that science will continue to work, as it always has worked, and the world will use whatever excuse it can to act crazy. Katri comes to accept that certain people will always use anything to make a God that can fill in the gaps, no matter how many things science illuminates. The wisest character of all is the old Egyptian grandfather.

A very good story, philosophically, and artistically.

4 Space Gods out of 5.

Lost in the Memory Palace, I Found You

Short Story by Nick Wolven

Ray has strange little episodes that wipe his memory almost completely. Unable to remember his name, job, or where he lives, he figures these things out anew every week or two. In the fast-paced commodity-futures-as-only-currency world, similar to Paul Di Filippo's iCity, everyone seems to accommodate the rapid changes by not bothering to remember how things used to be. I suspect something has been done to Ray's brain, but this is never spelled out.

Anyway, Ray seems to have taken it further than other people, and further than is reasonable. His lack of memory is affecting his life, but he has a hazy memory of a girl who once gave him hope, so he tries to find her.

A story about the transience of memory, how things aren't always how we remember them, and maybe it's better if we don't. Also a strong impression of that frustration you feel when you can't remember things but they stay just on the edge of your conscious thoughts. The voice and storytelling are innovative and interesting, but a tad annoying at times. I like the point that is being made, and the increasing feeling that Ray is going crazy. The odd jumps in memory and narration make a frightening, exciting impression, and convey Ray's distress very well.

I like what the author was trying to do with the ending, but I honestly thought it was a bit poorly executed. Things just change and it's shocking, and I like that it was unexplained, but I wish it wasn't quite so vague. I understand the impulse to keep things from being too well defined here, but I think the author took it too far, not knowing anything robs us of some of the emotional impact of the final lines.

3 lost memories out of 5.

Movement

Short Story by Nancy Fulda

Text and Audio now available free at Escape Pod

Originally Published in Asimov's March 2011

Hannah has a new mental condition called "temporal autism". The story is told from her unique point of view, about her parents trying to decide whether they should get her "cured" and doomed to a life of mediocrity, or leave her alone, with a chance of greatness, and a greater chance of never fitting in. The frustrating thing is that she can't communicate with her parents. They don't understand her, even worse than adults usually misunderstand the next generation.

Hannah thinks in terms of evolution, geologic time scales, chaos and fractals. Evolution, of humans, beautiful venus flytraps that survive by getting people to toss them food, and mosquitos all are used as interesting metaphors here. So is Hannah's ballet talent, slow movement of glass over centuries, and the elderly looking down on kids for being different. Hannah worries that she may be an evolutionary dead end, but maybe the first people to develop speech felt the same way, they communicated differently, so were thought of as not fitting in.

Lots of brilliant metaphor, and several distinct lines of thought worth considering, regarding change and what society will accept. Why should we expect future generations to be the same as past ones? Hannah and the author both come to the conclusion I would, regarding her treatment, but it is very well written, well described, and well thought out and the beautiful/sad thing is that I'm not sure Hannah's parents will even be able to understand her as she tries to express her wishes. This quote sums things up rather well:

I want the flytrap to survive, but I can tell from the sickly color of its leaves that this is unlikely. I wonder, if the plant had been offered the certainty of mediocrity rather than the chance of greatness, would it have accepted?

4.5 mutant flytraps out of 5 do not want new shoes.

Purple

Novelette by Robert Reed

Humans and other aliens are rescued and kept in an alien animal rescue clinic/zoo. Lots of background musing on the limitations of god-like aliens, and the moral choices of which wounded animals to save, but this is mostly the story of Tito, a blind cripple.

Most of the novelette is flashbacks from his current lonely, dissatisfied life as a caged animal. The two flashback time periods allow Reed to tell three stories from Tito's life in detail: his unhappy present existence, his lost love and how she was lost, and how he was blinded as a child.

It's remarkable how much I care for Tito by the end, and the sudden change in the last pages of the story really works for me, adding an emotional denouement to the sad/rebellious/scary triple climax. I think it's happy at the end, but it might not be as happy as we'd hope, and it certainly isn't a deus ex machina, which is a nice surprise in a story essentially about a man's interactions with deus ex machina. Tito attains a surprising amount of agency in his life, and that's what really makes this novelette worthwhile.

4.5 purple busses out of 5 are actually yellow.

The Most Important Thing in the World

Novelette by Steve Bein

Ernie finds a strange suitcase in the back of his car one day, left there by a physicist. This suitcase provides the science fictional conceit of the story, and provides Ernie with a lesson about laziness and taking the easy way out.

I'd have liked to see more characterization of the wife and the physicist, given the length of this novelette. Ernie learns his lesson, and it seems to be helping him solve his own problems, but I'd have liked to see more resolution of the physicist's problem, it's brought up, made to seem very significant, and then completely dropped, never to be mentioned again.

It was engaging writing, and an interesting invention in the suitcase, although the story itself feels pretty slight, especially for a novelette. And if you're going to namedrop Hemmingway three times, it should actually be relevant somehow. It wasn't.

3 cab fares out of 5.

I Was Nearly Your Mother

Novelette by Ian Creasey

Marian's mother died when she was a little girl. She always wanted her to come back, and one day, with the help of alternate-universe-jumping technology, she has. But this is a mom who goes by "Della" and whose timeline diverged at the point where she decided to have an abortion.

At this point I was a bit worried the story was going to turn into some sort of weird anti-abortion screed, but that isn't where it goes at all. In fact, four separate times I thought I knew where this story was going, and Creasey never took the easy, obvious answer. Much like Marian, Ian Creasey likes to look deeper and find the less obvious truth, the harder answer.

The story consists of Marian's alternate universe not-mother trying to get her forgiveness that isn't really Marian's to give, trying to develop a too-quick relationship with her, and trying to generally use Marian to help herself feel better about a life where she made all the bad decisions. It turns out she wouldn't have even cared about the abortion, specifically, except that she ended up infertile due to other bad choices down the line and never having kids is just one of a life filled with regrets.

What I like most is that Marian is infinitely more mature than her fake mother, exactly in the way of friends of mine whose parents died when they were young. And yet, she is also very clearly a somewhat-shallow teenage girl. She just oozes 'teenager', but with that edge of harsh reality that comes from experiencing real loss. And Della doesn't have that.

Just as I expected a sappy ending, Creasey takes it in an entirely unexpected, and harsher direction. And just as I think I know where that new direction is going, he gives us the unexpected, quieter finale.

I really like Creasey's writing, and I like his willingness to go for the harsher reality rather than feel-good fluffiness. But for a story almost entirely about the dialogue between two characters, the dialogue felt a little stilted at times, beyond the awkwardness you'd expect from the situation. Other than that I have no real criticism. The ending seems a little bit unlikely, and a little bit too harsh, but that is essentially the theme of the story, and it's a good meditation on grief and learning to move on with life instead of becoming obsessive and crazy. I enjoyed it.

4 bad mothers out of 5.

Perfect Lies

Short Story by Gwendolyn Clare

Text and Audio free from Clarkesworld

Nora was born with the inability for facial expressions. She doesn't show emotion or even microexpressions, but has learned to created expressions artificially, only when she wants to. This makes her a perfect liar. On top of that, she's naturally adept at reading faces, and so the U.N. recruited her as a diplomat.

She's the only one able to negotiate with the Mask People, an alien species with technology far beyond humans, who want to trade tech for mining rights in the asteroid belt. But her superiors are planning to betray the Mask People, who come with honest intentions, and are sort of doing us a favor. As the only one who can lie to them, Nora has to decide if she really should.

On top of this, there are terrorist threats against the trade agreement, drama with bodyguards, and Nora's unique perspective of being treated by humans as having no emotions just because she doesn't express them. Her parents thought she was going to be a serial killer, and her colleagues call her a robot, and so she can't do much besides hold the world at a distance and try not to let them hurt her.

I love the narrative voice, the aliens are interesting, it's a good, thoughtful-yet-exciting story. But aside from the specifics, the plot seems overly familiar. I'd certainly be interested in seeing more of this character, though.

3.5 bold-faced lies out of 5.

Woman Leaves Room

Short Story by Robert Reed

Published free in text and audio, Lightspeed March 2011

An AI represents itself as a man standing in a room. It sees people interacting with it as standing in the hallway, or coming in to talk. It was created, with love, by a woman who had lost her husband and wanted to use his memories to bring back something like him. But one day the beautiful woman walks out on the AI that loves her, and he waits for her to come back.

Also good for some deep thoughts on time and waiting forever. I really like this Reed story, the strange way the AI thinks makes it interesting, and it really explores what it means to be an AI, and not even realize it until well into your lifespan. So one of the more fun protagonists, and plenty of thoughts to chew on, with a gooey emotional core.

A heartbreaking story of an AI in love, and the future history of the universe.

4 corrupted haystack files out of 5.

Saying the Names

Short Story by Maggie Clark

Published free, text & audio, at Lightspeed

A woman is called to an alien planet to act as a character witness in her father's murder trial. These aliens have the same philosophy of speaking as the Ents from Lord of the Rings, and so everything takes a long time. But they're more easily offended than the Ents, and you can't abbreviate anything. Clark describes the alien society, the trial happens, and there is some philosophizing about her father's not being there for her. Quite well written, but not terribly interesting. I feel like I've read this story before, but with a weaker style.

3 legal aliens out of 5.

Simulacrum

Short Story by Ken Liu

Published free in Audio and Text

Absolutely brilliant audio recording performed by Gabrielle de Cuir and Stefan Rudnicki

Read/listened to this one three times, cried every time. I can find no faults with this story. It's the tale of the man who invented a device for capturing 'Simulacra' of people. A recording which retains some of their personality and is able to interact and behave differently each time it is played back.

The story is a series of interviews with Paul Larimore and his daughter Anna. She refuses to speak to him, even as he grows older, because of an incident when she was a teenager. Both characters have very real, very consistent emotional flaws, they're extremely believable, which makes the story all the more effective. I feel bad for Paul, but I can see where Anna was coming from too.

The worst/best part is the final line, the only thing the father's simulacrum says in the story. It's sweet and heartbreaking and brilliant.

5 estranged daughters out of 5.

P.S. I encourage everyone to read this story, but if it makes no difference to you, I'd recommend the Audio, they really bring the story to life, and Rudnicki in particular absolutely kills with the final sentence.