Wheat Rust

Novelette by Benjamin Crowell

Rui is a ladies' man on a long-term space habitat out near Neptune. The people have been there so long they have formed low-tech nations who fight each other over food and farmland. The petty local government doesn't really understand how the habitat works (although everyone knows they live on a big metal tube in space at least).

One day, while romancing Anu on the beach, Rui sees two men in spacesuits fall from the sky. They are a survey team sent by a higher-tech outside civilization to check on the maintenance of the habitat. It turns out that a very efficient wheat rust has infected one of the neighboring nations and is spreading through the habitat. The food shortage is part of what makes them so warlike, but in the long run, everyone will starve if it isn't dealt with. The survey team was sent with a yeast that infects and kills the fungus, but they can't spread it without help, and the local government doesn't want to help their enemies by fixing their food shortage. Shortsighted bureaucracy at its finest.

Anyway, this is a story about the rogue who finally falls in love for real, and realizes all his heroic actions have been out of a desire to please a girl he thought was just a fling, but finds himself risking his life for. A classic tale if there ever was one. A happy little love story with some thrilling heroics, the main plot wraps up a bit too quickly and easily, but I like that the very last paragraph throws in a new complication, and a new daring solution. We can see that Rui is well down the road to romantic action hero from his start of uncaring womanizer. And the habitat is explored a bit, which is nice scenery at least.

I seldom say this, but this could have stood to be a longer story. Would have allowed for some more depth, this was fun but very light. And we could have seen more of the world, and of Rui's development. Plus a more detailed and dangerous resolution of the main plot. Exciting enough, and not too long. Certainly not boring, but nothing much here.
3 talking robo-flies out of 5.

A Large Bucket, and Accidental Godlike Mastery of Spacetime

Novelette by Benjamin Crowell

Sidibé Traoré ended up as Earth's diplomatic representative because she was an astronaut who loved to pop the blisters on a sheet of bubble wrap.

That is the first line, and between it and the title, you can extrapolate all you need to know. Sidi is unambitiously along for the ride when she is sent off to a near-light speed bus/cultural exchange/diplomatic meeting/uplift program. She unsuccessfully fumbles her way through relations with other species while referencing Dr. Seuss, Lewis Carroll, and L. Frank Baum. She chaotically moves from failure to success when she starts working on negotiations with a sentient puddle who is 837th of 837 in theoretical compatibility with humans.

Obviously this is humor, but it remains plausible to the end. Sidi is exceedingly competent, although this is applied only through a series of accidents. The writing had me grinning the whole time, although the comedy is all in description and circumstance rather than "jokes". The ending is a bit out there, and seems a little too simplistic, but room is left for all of that to be resolved somewhere after the final sentence. Overall this was much more plausible and less silly than typical for this sort of lighthearted alien diplomacy story, and I really enjoyed Sidi's rise to power, almost as much as the title. 4.5 out of 5 godlike masteries of spacetime are achieved by accident.