The Ink Readers of Doi Saket

I rather enjoyed the first story of Heuvelt's that I read, The Boy Who Cast No Shadow.  This one, The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, not quite so much.  It's written as a very light and fun tale, set in Thailand in order to allow a sort of quaint rendering where everyone has a nickname and a descriptive adjective that follows them everywhere.  But that's not the point of the story.  The people of Doi Saket grant wishes as part of an annual festival.  But Tangmoo does not wish for anything--apparently having achieved enlightenment.  The story rolls along in a droll sort of way, with various coincidences described in that quaint dialect.  I was perhaps too tired when I read it, but just couldn't get into it.  Two stars, but you might like it.

The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere, by John Chu

Gay and lesbian romance is now finally getting its day, so pretty much all the romance in SF is actually bromance or girlmance (I made that last one up.  Slightly lame).  But SF has never been great at romance, so the GLBT versions give it a chance to go back and get that more right.  Would that it didn't feel so fashionable.  The Water... is a story of coming out to an unsupportive family, with the SF twist that no one can get away with lying anymore.  Why?  Instead of noses growing like Pinocchio, people get drenched with water. 

So there's a lot you could do with this premise as social experimentation.  What really counts as a lie?  And that's explored here, but pretty much purely through relationships.  It's the trickiest case for the omniscient water-dousers to handle, but handle it they do.  Or it does.  The source of this new permanent polygraph is not clear.

The story is much more serious than the review.  The SF is really window dressing for the fraught family situation, but given the power of the speculation that's kind of a waste.  On the other hand, it's a well written story, so 3 stars from me.

The Lady Astronaut of Mars, by Mary Robinette Kowal

Mary Robinette Kowal has nice range as an author.  She can do an effective hard SF story, and also does well in fantasy.  The Lady Astronaut of Mars falls on the hard SF side, but it is really more of a human relations story.

We have an alternate history element--in this history Washington, D.C. was obliterated by a meteorite strike early in the space age (insert politician doom joke here).  Earth was thus energized to pursue space travel in self defense, trying to start colonies elsewhere in order to ensure continuity of the race.  We thus went to Mars with technology similar to that which took us to the Moon.

Our protagonist is one of the first (and very few) female astronauts.  She has both taken advantage of this, and been held back by it.  But she was one of the most popular figures in the space program.  She is now 63, and her husband, who did (and sometimes still does) programming for the space program is in very poor health.  They live on Mars.

She is offered the opportunity to travel to a nearby star with an inhabitable planet.  Near light speed, but she will still be gone three years.  Her husband will die soon.  Should she go, or not?  That's the frame in which the emotions play out.

It's a good story, and worth the time to read.  3 stars from me.

Equoid, by Charles Stross

Equoid is the second story I've read in Stross's extensive Laundry series.  The Laundry is part of British civil service, the part that deals with occult threats.  And the threat in this one is a doozy.  We get a lot of fun action as Bob Howard (not really), computer nerd and office drone, takes on unicorns.  I know I've read some similar stories but can't bring them to mind right now, so you'll just have to go read it for yourself.  Very good stuff.  Reminds me very much of George Saunders' CommComm, so if you liked that one you'll like this one.

Seventy-Two Letters,by Ted Chiang

I took a time out from reading award nominated stories to read one I found somewhat by accident, linked off Ted Chiang's Wikipedia page.  Seventy-two letters is a more "normal" SF story than the others I've read by Chiang, which figures because it's from 2001. But really no less inventive.

In this story Chiang invents a place where golems are real, and the science of "nomenclature" is a prominent one--the study of how to create True Names for things, which then can animate them.  He describes a discipline emerging from craft and magic into an empirical, engineering type of application.  Wrapped in with it is a completely different principle on how reproduction occurs--animal species contain all their future generations in the male line, and each generation is the amplification of some chosen set from the infinitesimal.  At the time of the story, we are discovered to have only five generations left.

The action plays out well, but the best SF is about the ideas, and this is a classically written one.  Definitely can recommend it.  3 stars.

The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling, by Ted Chiang

It is almost a crime that Ted Chiang doesn't write more.  He addresses deep philosophical questions in every topic he addresses, from religion, to the nature of intelligence, to our relationship to new technology.  He visits this last topic again in The Truth of Fact...and it's another home run.

He also hits my favorite scary topic, which is to speculate just a very little bit about where technology might go.  Imagine wearing Google Glass, and having it record constantly.  That's a "lifelog", which Chiang speculates many of us will be keeping in the near future.  In the story, people are keeping lifelogs but they are cumbersome to search--only worth it if you REALLY want the answer (like forensics).  But an app company comes along and offers easy, fast searchability.  All past events that are in any way recordable can be brought back within seconds.

Our protagonist is to do a story on the app company and the software.  He's pretty nervous about trying it out.  His ensuing journey through his past, as remembered and as actually happened, is realistically tangled.  And his conclusion on where this could go is rich and deeply satisfying.  I would tell you, but I really want you to go read it for yourself.  You think he's going one way and then he doubles back so artfully it's completely convincing.

We are within a few years of this, so it isn't a story for the ages.  It's a story for right now, and everyone should read it as it is a much better exposition of the situation than any factual article or editorial. 

It's just a crime that Ted Chiang does not write full time (he is a sysadmin). In a just world he would have a MacArthur grant or some such to just talk to people and write, even if it's only a few articles a year.  We very much need this kind of thinking about the world.  Come on, Ted, what do you say?  Be a pro! 
Four stars from me.

Alive, Alive Oh, by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley

There is a purity to this story that probably struck those doing the nominating for the Nebula.  It's a story of colonizing an exoplanet, none too hospitable.  And it is purely about homesickness.  No respite, no making the best of the current situation, none of that.  Our protagonist is homesick through and through, and passes it on to her daughter.  Much sadness.  Read to feel sad, and maybe get a glimpse of what our world will be like in a few decades.  Oh well.  3 stars.