Sean Dowie Reviews Short Fiction: Asimov’s, Analog, and Clarkesworld

Asimov’s 3-4/23
Analog 3-4/23
Clarkesworld 3/23

Asimov’s in March opens with the stel­lar “The Nameless Dead” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, in which a direction­less mother abandons her earthbound family for space. The catch is that due to the temporal shifts for all spacefarers, she cannot return home to a time when they’re still alive. With her family in the rearview, she is hired by someone whose curiosity about unidentifiable citizens puts the protagonist in detective mode, un­covering a conspiracy with dire consequences. This is a sweeping interstellar story held taut by unrelenting tension. “Planetstuck” by Sam J. Miller is also grand in scope, but its details are different. The narrator is a sex worker who sells information he gathers from his patrons. Meanwhile, the narrator has a past that threat­ens to unravel, as he eventually goes against betrayal and profit for something more. The writing oozes with sensuality and empathy, running an emotional gamut as varied as its universe. “Night Running” by Greg Egan is my favorite in the issue. A drug is used that lets people proceed through parts of their days in an almost sleepwalk. This reserves energy and increases output, but there are side effects to the drug that cause the protagonist’s life to spiral into a chaos he can’t get out of himself, forcing him to seek support. There’s a parallel between that and real life, where many are virtually sleepwalking through earthly, quotidian days until they’re dead inside.

Analog has a variety of breakneck and amus­ing stories, with “An Inconvenient Man” by Adam-Troy Castro being a light and funny treat. Through an excellent comedic voice, we’re shown a perfectly normal man who’d rather not be special become the recipient of first contact with an alien race. The alien’s request is unusual, hurtful, and anything but perfectly normal. It might be a little frivolous, but frivolity can still have impact if its humor and voice buoy it to lively entertainment, and this does just that. “Citizen Science” by Naomi Kanakia is a character-focused science fiction story that is full of engagingly messy characters, particularly the narrator. In the story’s world, Citizen Sci­ence is seen as a sort of pseudoscience fostered by those in lower classes. When the narrator gets into a minor disagreement with a “real” scientist that escalates into nastiness, I expected the narrative to shift to a place where I was root­ing for the narrator to undermine those above her, but Kanakia’s narrator is more complex, and she forms ideals that are bloated with ego and denial, which makes this story all the more compelling and believable.

Clarkesworld offers a selection of astute stories, with “Pinocchio Photography” by Angela Liu as a highlight. The Chen family is in disarray. The father Henry Wei Chen has Parkinson’s disease, while the daughter becomes interested in something other than medicine, her family’s choice occupation. When she learns the art of reanimating cadavers in a college class, her in­terest is piqued. With those cadavers, a service can be offered where the deceased’s loved ones visit them, and a worker photographs them, allowing the family to relive that moment any time. A salve for mourning. I’ve never seen grief explored in this way before. A true showcase of how compact sci-fi can gut-punch better than anything else.

“Love in the New Season of Dance” by Bo Balder is true to its title – this radiates love. Not only in its carefully, adoringly crafted sto­rytelling, but in its interpersonal interactions. A human observer named Leena is tasked with documenting the mating ritual of an alien raced called Amphins, only one of the Amphins nick­named Blue wakes from hibernation too early and will likely die before the others awaken and the mating ritual begins. Leena keeps Blue company as they grow closer, leading to an electric ending.

Recommended Stories

“The Nameless Dead”, Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Asimov’s 3-4/22)
“Night Running”, Greg Egan (Asimov’s 3-4/22)
“An Inconvenient Man” Adam-Troy Castro (Analog 3-4/22)
“Citizen Science” Naomi Kanakia (Analog 3-4/22)
“Pinocchio Photography”, Angela Liu (Clarkesworld 3/22)
Love in the New Season of Dance”, Bo Balder (Clarkesworld 3/22)

This review and more like it in the July 2023 issue of Locus.

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