Sleepless in the House of Ye

Short Story by Ian McHugh

Poe Ye is some sort of amphibious alien creature, whose family needs her to stay awake (which is essentially biological suicide) for the winter to protect their spawn from predatory worms. Things go to hell rapidly and keep getting worse, the ending is thoughtful and bittersweet.

I really enjoyed this one. The aliens are very alien and an intriguing world is developed well without any obtrusive infodumps. You can really empathize with these things that aren't even close to being human. And it is an exciting survival/self-sacrifice story as well. 4 out of 5.

SinBad the Sand Sailor

Novelette by R. Garcia y Robertson

SinBad smuggles antibiotics on the planet Barsoom, which has very little law enforcement besides a strict prohibition on advanced weaponry; swords and crossbows must suffice, despite GPS, solar powered wings, and a space elevator. He finds a prostitute on a dune, apparently fallen from an airship, and pulpy adventures ensue.

Fun, exciting adventure story, with a little implied comedy (SinBad is guilty of such horrendous crimes as "cohabiting with known lesbians"), but not much to it beyond that. There are some good twists, and the whole thing moves along remarkably fast. The main appeal to the story is nostalgia for older readers, and the concept itself of updating pulp adventure for plausibility in a modern SF frame, rather than the surreal crap paying homage. It succeeds at this, but I'd have liked to see a bit more... depth. 3.5 out of 5.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's July 2009

For Sale: One Moonbase, Never Used by Esther M. Friesner

Would be interesting to see in the Classifieds, in Asimov's not so much. Generic.

Exobiology II by F.J. Bergmann

Just a bunch of sentences with

semi-random line breaks.

Seriously I'm not getting any sense of rhythm

here. And the title is just as irrelevant as

the very similar one on story immediately following.

Makes you think, because it doesn't tell a story

that makes a whole lot of sense.

Earth II

Novella by Stephen Baxter

Nothing to do with the tv show, for better or for worse; nothing to do with comic books, for the better.

I am not a fan of names so very generic, especially when it seems only there for lack of a better title. But the generic title doesn't ruin the rather good story.

Xaia Windru is a warrior queen sailing around Earth II and exploring things, her husband is a stay-at-home-king involved with the politics of building a super-library. The exploration of Earth II is exciting, and there are some good ideas here, but the top library lobbyist strikes me as a Hari Seldon wannabe. The discoveries Xaia makes on her expedition are surprisingly relevant, but are always revealed back home by one scholar or another at the same time. This gets a bit annoying.

Regardless, this is a strong adventure story with some really interesting concepts, particularly the organism known as The Purple. And, following up the return of our heroic/dangerously impulsive warrior queen is a conclusion that really surprises. I don't agree with the end at all, and if I lived in Zeeland I'd probably commit some sort of treason, but it is perfectly in character and makes logical sense, I just hate it. And that is what makes it, I can't stand the ending, but I have no problem believing it, and get angry enough that I might as well be there. So well done Stephen Baxter, 4 out of 5.