Truth

I was totally suckered me in by the sense of mystery in Robert Reed’s  “Truth“. The mystery is at first embodied in a prisoner the narrator is watching in preparation for interrogating him. Ramiro, if that’s his real name, is endlessly intriguing: his effortless smiles, his persistent attempts to engage his guards in conversation, and [...]

The Erdmann Nexus

“The Erdmann Nexus,” by Nancy Kress has the trademark detailed descriptions and well-drawn characters, but I have a problem with its One Impossible Thing. The story opens with a slightly confusing passage about a spaceship that’s not the spaceship Dr. Erdmann imagines it to be. Then we actually meet Dr. Henry Erdmann, a physicist retired [...]

Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders

One thing’s for sure about “Alastair Baffle’s Emporium of Wonders” by Mike Resnick; the title lets you know right away that it’s a magic shop story. And if you like sentimental magic shop stories, this one delivers.

From Babel’s Fallen Glory We Fled

“From Babel’s Fallen Glory We Fled,” by Michael Swanwick takes you on a journey through another world. A sentient suit called Rosamund, tells of Carlos Quivera, who survived the ruin of towering city of Babel, one of many cities on the planet Gehenna built by giant black sentient millipedes. Quivera contrives an extremely rough [...]

Shoggoths in Bloom

Professor Harding, educated at a college in Alabama (I’m guessing Tuskegee) and Yale, comes to Maine to pursue a line of inquiry no one else wants: shoggoths. “Shoggoths in Bloom“, by Elizabeth Bear depicts in wonderful, luscious prose the beauty of the Maine shore and sky, as well as the discomfort and wary approaches between [...]

Dark Rooms

In “Dark Rooms“, by Lisa Goldstein, the realistic but fictional Nathan Stevens encounters the fantastic but real George Méliès. Stevens meets Méliès in a dark room watching turn of the 20th century films, when cinema was in its infancy. Stevens has come to Paris to be an artist, and joins Méliès in the new art [...]

26 Monkeys

Like the story says:
Aimee’s big trick is that she makes twenty-six monkeys vanish onstage.
Except it’s not really Aimee’s trick, it’s the monkeys’. Then Kij Jonhson’s “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” goes on to reveal that the monkeys (and one chimpanzee, who is not a monkey) have plenty of other tricks up their, um, arms.

Don’t Stop

So far the only short story (and therefore my favorite) I’ve read from the Nebula nominees is “Don’t Stop”, by James Patrick Kelly. Well, actually I’ve listened to the excellent reading and discussion of the story available at Free Reads. (The text is now available at Asimov’s.)

The Edge of Nowhere

What is it with me and talking dogs? In The Edge of Nowhere, by James Patrick Kelly, three sinister talking dogs show up, looking for a book that doesn’t exist. But then it’s doubtful that anything or anyone in Nowhere exists.

Luminous

I was wrong about “Luminous,” by Greg Egan. I finally got around to reading it, and I have to say I’m disappointed. Since I read “Dark Integers” first, I was hoping for a little more about what happened in Shanghai, who Industrial Algebra was, and some justification for a defect in math allowing contact with [...]