Hiding Place

Novella by Adam-Troy Castro

A sequel to a story I haven't read that doesn't read like it. I only found out this was a sequel at the end. References to past events clued in other readers, I'm sure, but they could have been background, and everything we need to know about the character is presented in-story, a nice change for series stories! And the narrator is a complex, interesting person. But that's about all the nice things I have to say about "Hiding Place", unfortunately.

Castro presents us with a very intriguing ethical/legal question, which, combined with the character of Andrea, made me think this might be an installment of Law & Order: IN SPACE! that I could finally get behind. It wasn't.

Castro asks what should be done if a man commits murder, admits it, and then ceases to exist by having his personality merged with with two innocent people into a hive-like consciousness. 2/3 of the people are innocent, but a murderer is getting away with murder! Sadly, Castro doesn't bother to answer this question, or leave us wrestling with an ambiguously unjust solution. He ties everything up with a neat little bow to avoid having to actually deal with the question at all. Were set up for deep thoughts, ethics, and legal arguments, and then denied an honest or thoughtful solution so we can have a non-ambiguous Hollywood-happy ending. It feels fake, over-convenient, and dumbed-down.

On top of that, parts of the story play out like a murder mystery to be solved after the fact, but this whole mystery ends up hanging on pronouns and linguistic technicalities related to pronoun-confusion when talking about multiple personalities. It feels cheap, again, and there is no reason for the witnesses to have to adopt the AbsoluteLiteralTruth to deceive the police instead of just, I don't know, lying. Oh, but it makes for a good mystery to solve on a linguistic technicality, so I guess that's a good reason.

Also, you'd think A SPACE STATION FULL OF LAWYERS would be better at picking up on subtle linguistic loopholes. It's pretty much what they do.

2 mind-linked lawyers out of 5.

Two Look at Two

Short Story by Paula S. Jordan

Sentimental, quiet story of an elderly couple who go walking in the woods with their dog and make contact with intelligent aliens. The ending feels a little drawn out, and the prose itself leaves something to be desired, stylistically, but a sweet little story if you can get past it.

2.5 first contacts out of 5 should involved border collies.

Quack

Short Story by Jerry Oltion

A weirdly science-accepting homeopathic doctor debates a CDC doctor, and they decide to do a double-blind trial to prove or disprove homeopathy once and for all. This is suspending a lot of disbelief already. Anyway, the trials show that homeopathy works, although perhaps not for the reasons traditional practitioners claim, and other real doctors label our real doctor a sell-out and a quack. His actual study is ignored and no one will publish the results even though they could be important to medicine.

I was amused by the faith healing bit at the end, but for the most part, this story didn't amuse much, and often felt like pseudoscience apologetics. I realize it is trying to be a humor piece and still make a point, but the answer makes so little sense it is hard to get past. It's worth noting that science still works, and quite well, in the world of the story, but it seems to harp too much on the idea of close-minded scientists not accepting evidence. I realize peer review can sometimes be a burden, but it is a good system, and the vast majority of "fringe science" really is quackery. It doesn't need to be lent false legitimacy by attacking the character of scientists who debunk it.

If you can't tell, the story was almost as much of a political rant as the review I wrote, and I don't agree with it at all, although Oltion is being original, and treats the main scientist fairly. To some extent, he's trying to make a point about accepting medical doctrine on faith and ignoring results, and that is a point that needs to be made, I just don't think you should do it by legitimizing actual quackery.

2 dilutions out of 5.