Thoughts and Prayers, by Ken Liu

This story was commissioned for Slate Magazine's Future Tense project.  It's a pretty straight-line projection of how intense trolling is going to get in the future, focusing on a mass shooting victim's family where the mother decides to go public and try to change things.  Seems like a much more intense version of what we do today, and much more intensely ignored.  

I don't think we're going to go in a straight line.  We are going to adjust to how social media works and put it in its place--I think ordinary people are already moving in this direction.  The terminally outraged will become more so, though and that is going to lead to more trouble and pain.  

The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear, by Kelly Link

The Girl Who Did Not Know Fear is very much a literary story, only speculative in a bit of an out-of-body sequence.  The premise is a kind of Groundhog Day In An Airport thing, where a professor coming back from a conference is stranded in Detroit for 5 days waiting for a flight.  She's not much of a traveler so it's that much worse, though she seems mentally prepared.  It feels weirdly off center, since the title character is actually kind of a side story in a tale of intensely difficult and deeply felt coincidence.  The flight in the story is as horrible as one I took on my one and only overseas trip, to London, which was in the end quite worthwhile even though both ends of the trip competed with each other for worst flight ever.  The story will find a lot of sympathetic ears.

I (28M) created a deepfake girlfriend and now my parents think we’re getting married, by Fonda Lee

I am not sure what the (28m) parenthetic piece is in the title of this story, but it seems to have become kind of a meme.  Lots of riffs on the title out there.  The story itself is pretty darned good--seems to be from tomorrow's newspaper, so to speak.  A social media company lets you create a virtual significant other.  It kind of works like a Tamagotchi, you interact with it and it gets happier and better at being your partner.  In this case, the girlfriend of a guy who is not trying to hook up that much but his parents are after him.  It all sounds so very real that I think in 6 months it will be.  Very well executed by Fonda Lee as well.  Definitely go read it.

Lest We Forget, by Elizabeth Bear

This one is on the disturbing side of SF, though not severely so.  A veteran is dying of the war they fought, in an unusual way.  Not in combat.  Much of the story is description leading up to the moment of the reveal.  A doctor has found a way to infect people with memories via a virus, but it requires some sacrifice to get the memories into that form.  Our veteran is making it.  Lots of possibilities here, this could go wrong in so many ways, and they know it too.  I think that would be the end of our species as thinking beings--we'd never know again when a thought was ours.  The leadup is pretty believable too.  Good stuff!

Erase, Erase, Erase, by Elizabeth Bear

This is a story that F&SF says it has held for a long time, waiting for the right time to publish.  And it is a fine literary piece.  Our protagonist is slowly disappearing--parts fall off, become transparent to ordinary objects.  Not consistently, but inconveniently.  And she is losing her memory, and losing track of things.

Sounds like an Alzheimer's story, but the cause seems to be guilt--the protagonist does a lot of writing, and is trying to remember the name of the leader of the terrorist cult she joined in college.  Before he does terrible damage.

The story is well written and good to read.  Made me think about the Unabomber a lot.  How do people in this position find their way back to reality?

It's 2059, and the Rich Kids are Still Winning, by Ted Chiang

This story was commissioned by the New York Times as part of a series of "future editorials"--opinion pieces speculating on how some event or social trend is going to develop in the form of a newspaper opinion piece.  Ted Chiang's version, like pretty much everything else he does, is fully brilliant.  His piece speculates on a social intervention where some disadvantaged children are given a genetic enhancement that is popular with wealthy parents--one that boosts the IQ.  The kids generally finished a college education, but are still not any better off.  He gives various reasons for this that are drawn from today's knowledge, and draws reasonable conclusions.  He could do this for a living, except that being a sysadmin has to be more fun.

A Country Called Winter, by Theodora Goss

This story belongs in that small but significant set of stories featuring small, obscure countries that are semi-magical but exist in our world.  Veriska (approximately) is from a country called Winter (approximately).  She came with her mother when they left for America.  A lot of the story is centered around her relationship with the son of the Danish ambassador, and how his foreignness contrasts with hers.

Her ambition is to get a doctorate in English literature and go into teaching.  She is pretty buried in that space.  But (spoiler alert) it turns out that she is royalty in Winter, and will be instrumental in getting Summer to come.

It's nice, not a lot of powerfully original stuff here but well written.

Permafrost, by Alastair Reynolds

This is a pretty standard time-travel story, but adds to that literature in a good way. Time is a crystal with flaws--people who know about time travel can add to those flaws, but can't break it. The protagonist and colleagues are trying to save what's left of the future by stealing some seeds that can grow in mostly sterile soil, because pretty much all small-scale life has died during the Scouring. There's nothing left to grow and stored food is running out.

The story is set in Russia, which gives it an exotic twist and explains the laconic feel of the story. The protagonist is an interesting person--she is a 71-year old teacher, and in the book she is an action hero. Good on you Al!

There are some loose ends--the teacher is recruited because her mother invented the mathematics that permitted time travel, and worked out some of the theories with her daughter. They think she can help, but it's not clear that her math knowledge really helps at all. But overall it is good stuff--the desperation is conveyed through circumstance, and the strain on the characters, rather than any over the top explication.

My Goodreads Review

A Time to Reap, by Elizabeth Bear

I'll say right off the top that I loved this story.  Time travel stories are all about the motivation, and in this case it's a gorgeously told tale.  Kat is a child actor, performing in a play based on a videogame, that is in turn based on a murder mystery set in 1978.  She goes to the scene of the murder to gather background for the character she is performing.  Some characters live, and some die--her character is one of the victims.

Kat is a sixteen year old playing a twelve year old, and that makes a lot of difference in the story.  Because she gets sucked up in a time machine one of the characters built (by accident, it was supposed to be a space bender) and is deposited back in 1978.

There's a lot of interesting nostalgia about that time--being kind of old I am personally familiar with it.  Lots of junk food (that has not changed, though the character stays away from it to maintain low weight), unaccompanied children, no cell phones--it's an odd world for her.  Interesting to see the surprise at how that time was, reflecting on the difference between what I remember and how things are now.

The story centers on the relationship between Kat and the IRL version of the character she is playing, Sissy.  It is beautiful and complex, and weaves well into the mystery story as Kat tries to solve and prevent the murders, even as she risks changing the future in unknowable ways.  We get some time travel paradox and it is central to the resolution but not the story.

This should have gotten more respect.  It didn't get on the major (Hugo, Nebula) ballots and finished somewhat low on Locus.

The Bookstore At The End of America, by Charlie Jane Anders

This is a very modern-day allegory in which California has split from the rest of the United States, now known as America.  The split must be somewhat amicable, because America does not thoroughly invoke the current right wing border fetish--the protagonist's bookstore sits on the border, with one side in each place, and with some navigation one can cross over.  The proprietor finds things to like and dislike about both sides, and they seem economically tied.  But a water war breaks out, and all the propaganda leading up to it is making the respective citizens hate those caricatures of each other.  But they must shelter together.

Not really a new idea, but in the end I think a very necessary one in these times, and Anders handles it very gracefully.

A Brief Lesson in Native American Astronomy, by Rebecca Roanhorse

The references in the title are all oblique--no actual astronomy, but the story concerns Native American celebrity actors and even involves some space travel.  The protagonist has lost his lover, who tragically died young.  There is a way to experience her again--essences of people's memories can be extracted, and consumed by way of a VR Experience (see Welcome to Your Authentic Native American Experience).  They can also be experienced by injection where they go straight to your brain, but that's not recommended.  Our protagonist does it anyway, and gets his lover back--but she is not so well preserved.  Certainly a fun story.

Fisher-Bird, by T. Kingfisher

 This story is a retelling of the Seven Labors of Hercules, as a dialog between a fisher-bird and a simple, but very strong and somewhat reluctant hero.  Most of what's interesting here is the dialog between the bird and the man--he is a poor, put-upon soul, and the bird is quite spicy.  They take a risk together to complete one of the labors.  It's fun.

The Justified, by Ann Leckie

 Our protagonist is Het, one of the Eyes of Mehar, and she has been away for a long time.  She is called back to deal with her ruler's paranoia about opposition.  Dissent keeps arising in the underclass known as the Single-Lived.  The Justified and above come back, by way of their Animas.  Het is one bloodthirsty goddess, enjoying solving issues through mass slaughter.  She observes that the single-lived come and go, but the Justified are constant.  Her lieutenants recommend a purge of the single-lived--she goes the other way.  This one is also in The Mythic Dream and comes by way of Egypt.

Phantoms of the Midway, by Seanan McGuire

 This story is a retelling of Hades and Persephone for The Mythic Dream collection.  Our protagonist lives in a carnival, and never gets to leave--her mother does it to protect her.  Turns out she is being protected from the knowledge that she is dead--hit by a truck as a little girl.  Her mother has trapped her ghost, which has grown up as a normal and substantial girl to everyone in the carnival--they can't even tell she is dead.  But as all young people do, she has to leave.  And find kindred spirits.

It's a good story, enjoyable and sad, but nothing deeper than that for me.

The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, by Saad Z. Hossein

This book was just incredibly fun to read. Didn't get near enough respect this year. Our protagonist is a powerful djinn imprisoned in rock for 3000 years, coming back to life in a postapocalyptic future where humans survive with a lot of careful management and help from AIs. The AI that manages Kathmandu is called Karma, and it's intelligent but does not have agency--it's just an algorithm. Other reviewers have commented that this is how they understand karma IRL--it's just rules. With the djinn we have a Gurkha who has renounced technology, and a "sheriff" who serves as backup to Karma.

It's hard to convey all the fun you have reading this without just quoting large blocks of it. The djinn who would be King likes to party, and finds the best partying among the "zeros", people with no Karma points at all. Some folks have hacked the system and seem to have all the Karma. Drama ensues.

Descriptions do very little for this lively novella. You just really need to read it.

My Goodreads Review

The Ascent to Godhood, by Neon Yang

I don't know. I read the first three books. Everyone seems to love this one, but I just didn't really get it. Having this relationship told as a drunken monologue just seems to sell it really short. To me it came out sounding like an ordinary authoritarian monarch story, and the first three entries had a lot more going on. There's not really any drama, since it is all recollection. So the loose ends are now tied. I just hoped for more. My Goodreads Review

 

Away With the Wolves, by Sarah Gailey

 Away With the Wolves was nominated for a Hugo in 2020.  This story is well written but I have to say it confused me a bit. The protagonist's struggles with chronic pain and the choice between a lonely wolf life and a pain-filled but social human life are a real strength, as is the strained support she gets from her community. So there's a compromise of some kind where she gets to spend most of her time as a wolf (acting kind of like a dog?)--I'm looking for the tradeoff but it's not clear. It was OK.

My Goodreads Review