Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 215, August 2024 by Neil Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Alice Towey ("The Time Capsule") - (4*) A nice bit of future nostalgia while looking back. Resource dystopia, a little hope, and a wistful look at our future past.

Thomas Ha ("The Sort") - (4*)Creepy near-future small-community almost SK horror. Gotta love how people mutate and grow just like a Monsanto scourge -- and we don't know whether it is getting really bad, or whether it's just a new normal. Perfect for us, no?

Rich Larson ("Molum, Molum, Molum the Scourge") - (3*) Fights, implants, and tech-treatments just like drug fixes. Not bad, just feels rather cyberpunk.

Timothy Mudie ("Something Crossing Over, Something Coming Back") - (4*) A literal putting yourself in someone else's shoes story. I enjoyed the subtle give and take, the sliding away from actual espionage into true understanding. There's a lot to be said about acceptance, especially today.

Rajeev Prasad ("Canyon Dance") - (3*) Addiction + asteroid mining. I get what it's all about, but I just didn't really get invested. I mean, I've survived the Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch -- this is admittedly more down to earth, but just okay in the end.

David McGillveray ("The Deformed Saint and the Poison Wind") - (3*) A maybe-heartfelt tribute to doing the very minimum you can for indigenous people suffering from greater wars, SF style.

Emily Taylor ("Where My Love Still Lives") - (3*) Barely SF, more of a coming-home story than anything else.

Marisca Pichette ("Three Circuits of the Monoceros Ring") - (5*) Epistolary romance story spanning the whole galaxy. Rather sweet. :)


We also get a pretty great non-fiction on African SFF identity and examples.

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