Mama, we are Zhenya, Your Son by Tom Crosshill (a Latvian-American man who is also an immigrant)

from the April 2011 issue of Lightspeed

Definitely one of the more memorable stories from this year’s Lightspeed. I’m also very happy to see fellow Eastern Europeans gain more exposure

At first I thought this would be a story set inside a computer running Linux: “The gnomes live in the cellar. They’re short and green and wear big fluffy hats with their names on them, like GUI 1, GUI 2, GUI 3″. Which isn’t really a novel idea, save for maybe the Linux part. But the story is about something completely different and ends up being much more ingenuous than just another virtual-reality tale, so keep on reading! Without giving away much, neuroplasticity is a keyword.

Be sure to read the author interview as well once you’re finished. All magazines should have similar extra features!

To be honest I disagree with him (spoiler cut):

“What if you took a very young human brain and placed it in a complex simulated quantum-like environment? Might it learn to adapt to this environment and predict its behavior in real time as accurately as we predict the behavior of the real world (for a quantum-mechanical, probabilistic meaning of “predict”)? If it did, that would be a very strong indication that the human brain does indeed rely on quantum phenomena to make sense of the world”

I think the human mind can model environments whose behavior has no real-world analog; there are some really far-out ideas in experimental gameplay etc. that IMO seem to show this… but I don’t know if this issue has ever been rigorously investigated. Anyway, the story is great

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (a Chinese-American man)

from the Mar/Apr 2011 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (available as a free story from Del Rey’s website and as an audiobook from Podcastle)

This is a realy, really sad and beautiful story. Definitely one of the best in 2011 – if this keeps up, the hard problem will be deciding which Ken Liu story to nominate for the Hugos!

Also, finally a story that deals with immigration. Even people who belong to a non-WASP ethnic group tend to write about “the sourceland” as Deepa D put it, and not the immigrant or the ethnic-minority experience… at least in spec fic. (The trend is probably reversed when it comes to contemporary non-genre literature!)

Some of it reminded me of the scene in Michael Ende’s Momo where the kids play with the new toys. Also very melancholy.

You can say The Paper Menagerie is fantasy, or you can say it’s magical realism, it’s going to find its home anywhere. Go read it now.

_________

Note: a big thank you to España Sheriff who linked the audiobook version on hugo_recommend – I would’ve missed the podcast release altogether if not for this notice.

All That Touches the Air by An Owomoyela (an American asexual neutrois person of color)

from the April 2011 issue of Lightspeed

A lengthy alien-contact story with great characterization. Very few stories try to tackle the fundamental claustrophobia inherent in living in an alien environment (Bios by Robert Charles Wilson comes to mind, and… not much else) and this one does a great job. It’s great to see that not everyone reacts the same way, and some people might take precautions a bit too far, just like in real life.

There is also an annoying little know-it-all in there, a character type seldom seen in SF probably because it uncomfortably reminds most authors of their childhood selves.

It’s hard to say whether this story is better than Frozen Voice, the author’s previous work I reviewed… I enjoyed this one more on an intellectual level, but Frozen Voice had more striking imagery that stayed with me over time. (I am a very visual sort of person, you can bribe me with spiffy pictures ) Anyway, both stories are well worth the read!

As before, read the author interview – it gives a really new perspective on the story. (And yes, there’s a bit about childhood selves in there…)

The Rotten Beast by Mary E. Pearson (an American woman)

from Tor.com Originals (Nov 30 2011)

What a simplistic tale. I kept on waiting for a faint glimmer of originality – or perhaps a masterful twist that will subvert all the bad tropes in the story at the same time – but no, nothing.

Of course maybe we’re all just dealing with an unreliable narrator – after all, she is an emotional teenager who comes across as the straw-man who people like to attack when talking about religious fundamentalists. (No, actual religious fundamentalists are not necessarily like that, but this is an unrelated tangent best saved for some other time.) There is no mention of religion in the story though, there are only lengthy anti-technology and anti-science rants that are about as profound as those conspiracy theories about Satan’s barcode printed on your forehead.

The technology is laughable: “I press my hand to my chest and try to feel the biochips clicking away inside”, “Being controlled by all the computer chips stuffed into his Biogel?”. I understand this is a YA story, but young adults are not stupid for the most part; they should not be treated as such.

Unfortunately there is not a shred of evidence in the story itself that the narrator is unreliable. Moreover, the story is a straight-up retelling of Eve and the apple, except… with a peach. I’m serious. A peach.

I’d say this one is a lemon.

(:O Couldn’t resist…)

I’ve hammered my website into shape. New features:

* Facebook Like button – be sure to use it liberally

* Battle of the Stories! – my way of deciding who to nominate for the Hugos

* Short story reviews sorted by topic – similar to the popular stories by topic page at Expanded Horizons

* Small fixes

The only thing you’ll need to do is:

You mean he’s singing about a different kind of button? Pshah! Details…

I’m no longer doing these reviews magazine by magazine and in chronological order. I read a lot of stuff which I haven’t reviewed yet that I’ve found really meh, and I want to spice up the mehness a bit. Some magazines are quite consistently boring. (At least Clarkesworld tends to be interesting even when I dislike the stories in question.) Maybe I’ll post about that later on…

Spoiler cuts are the same as usual.

Postings from an Amorous Tomorrow by Corey Mariani (an American man)

from the Jan 2011 issue of Lightspeed

This is the author’s first publication (congrats!) and despite that he writes with a firm, self-assured voice. Alas, I’ve found the worldbuilding sorely lacking: if it is possible to change people’s sexual orientation in this hypothetical future, why is it not possible to change their social predilections? Why do the adults turn several children into killers instead of simply making the opposite change to their victim? Even the protagonist asks “It seems to me that they could have lit that house on fire just as easily as we did. They didn’t have to show us all of those awful things.” So why did they do that? Are the adults just evil for no particular reason, or am I missing something? I expected more after the fascinating start.

Transcript of Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor by Grady Hendrix (an American man)

from the June 2011 issue of Lightspeed

A short, humorous story about a crash landing and… wait, there’s no sense in summarizing when all that is included in the story title anyway.

I suppose I would’ve found it funnier if I had hands-on experience with real-life OnStar systems; it’s not very amusing to read about an unfamiliar thing being parodied. Unfortunately this limits the story readership to regions where OnStar is available…

Further still, the story is eerily similar to Mars: A Traveler’s Guide by Ruth Nestvold (also available as an audiobook in podcast form). The Nestvold story has a different angle, though; much more melancholy. Also, AI chatlogs in general have been done to death in SF – I’ve even seen the topic on magazine “do not submit” lists.

The “sensual lovemaking” parts were amusing, but that’s about the only positive thing I can say about this story.

Endnote: Grady Hendrix often writes about Asian topics, but he is not actually Asian, hence this post is not tagged with Asian writers.

I’m back! Trying to add a few things to the layout, things might look borked for a while. You’ll get surprise presents when it’s all sorted out (IY”H)!