And Then There were (N-One), by Sarah Pinsker

And Then There Were by Sarah Pinsker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This story is the most clever take I've seen yet using the encountering-yourself-on-multiple-timelines/universes trope. It is an incredible piece of autobiography--she explores multiple versions of herself meeting herself--at a SarahCon! Too good.

The story itself is personal and gets appropriately meta, but never really weird--it's pretty apparent Sarah Pinsker imagines herself as an acutely normal person. But maybe not, the boundaries of differentiation of Sarah Pinskers is actually explained in the story. It's fascinatingly self-complete. I don't give out five stars very often, this is only the third time, but if this story isn't on multiple award ballots then the awards are messed up.



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Probably Still the Chosen One, by Kelly Barnhill

Probably Still the Chosen One by Kelly Barnhill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was really quite a lot of fun to read. Barnhill manages to swing back and forth between this being a true alternate reality and something just in the protagonist Corinna's imagination. There's something very mature about the way the story unfolds. At first, as an eleven year old, she's thrilled at the attention and being special. As the story proceeds she becomes wiser and examines events critically. The image at the end of her with her four children, scuttling through the tunnel under the sink, is just precious. Am absolutely glad I read it.



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The Massacre of Mankind, by Stephen F. Baxter

The Massacre of Mankind by Stephen Baxter

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read the original a long time ago, but it wasn't one of my first SF reads. I was at a point where I could take into account the time and style in which it was written. Baxter replicates that style pretty effectively, from a different point of view, so in that sense the book is successful.

It's also a reasonably interesting read. I was encouraged to persevere to the end. But I have to say it didn't really grab me. I could put it down at any point. Others have mentioned the basically unlikable nature of the protagonist--she was drawn as a good and honorable person with a pretty strong sense of judgment. She is very hard on the original narrator, Walter Jenkins, mostly for the crime of being a limited human, though he did make use of his fame to influence events and opened himself to it. All very subtle stuff.

The book is very thoroughly researched and seems to be internally consistent. Baxter really does capture Wells' style very effectively, so perhaps the best I can say is that it doesn't age so well. I'm glad I read it but the rating is the best I can do.



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