Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 218, November 2024 by Neil Clarke


Resa Nelson "LuvHome™" -- (3*) It's a feel-good story about a condo forcing its owner to perform some basic self-care. I suppose I appreciate the message, but it's pretty generic self-recrimination stuff.


Claire Jia-Wen "Mirror Stages" -- (5*) This one gave me all the feels of The Substance, with some nice Blade Runner 2049 imagery, but with the hard-hitting self-awareness of selling yourself hard. Honestly, I'm leaning to call this a gut-punch story for those willing to look hard at themselves.


D.A. Xiaolin Spires "Luminous Glass, Vibrant Seeds" -- (5*) I'm giving this 5 stars because of how it made me feel, giving me just the right kind of technological hopefulness, solar-punk, artistic awareness (glassblowing) and horticulture in a society that didn't destroy itself. So, thank you for this.


A. W. Prihandita "Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being" -- (5*) This one is likely going to be my choice for "best" anything. It's about understanding, or rather, about holding, caring for whatever you can never understand. It's a very beautiful story.


E.N. Auslender "Duty of Care" -- (3*) For the most of the read, I was struck by how much this was just about Simon and Garfunkel while doing monotonous maintenance in space. However, the end redeemed it.


Oliver Stifel "The Slide" -- (3*) This one was a bit weird for me. There was hardly anything SF or F about it. It WAS, however, a fine story about race car driving. Others will get more mileage out of this than me.

Raahem Alvi "Technicolor Bath" -- (4*) A rather creepy SF about post-life coping.

Michael Swanwick "Unquiet Graves" -- (5*) Easily my favorite of the month, and not just because it's by Swanwick, someone I've always enjoyed. The story, about post-death conversations and relationships, was a bright, vibrant story in a graveyard.




Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to DM requests. I think it's about time I get some eyes on them.

Arctunn.com

View all my reviews