The mysterious, gray-eyed Anderssen arrives in La Llorona in search of something. He’s no ordinary mortal and the thing he seeks is miraculous indeed. But, as prophesied, dark forces are on the move to keep him from his goal.
This is a rather dull story. I got a bit of an attempted Stephen King vibe from it but unfortunately the story failed to engaged me in any way. The characters and plot aren’t very interesting or exciting and the writing is riddled with meandering descriptions that don’t go anywhere. There’s nothing appalingly bad about it but in the end it’s an overly long, forgettable story.
(F&SF, June 2008)
Ji and her nagging soul sword arrive in a backwater village to check out reports of a possible insurrection against the Emperor. What they find instead are a whole lot of monkeys and precious few humans. It doesn’t take long before Ji finds out first-hand what happened there.
This is a fun, light fantasy story which doesn’t take itself too seriously but also doesn’t drown in its own irreverence. It feels very much like a good saturday morning cartoon. The only slightly negative note is that the solution to Ji’s predicament is very obvious early on. I definitely wouldn’t mind reading the further adventures of Ji and her soul sword. Hopefully Cunningham will revisit them soon.
(F&SF, June 2008)
When Clem Crowder becomes haunted by the spectre of the headless Silent Woman, he enlists the help of his buddy Dunky Drinkwater and the rotund parapsychology professor Buck Stebbins. Unfortunately the megalomaniac lighthouse keeper/dark sorceror Mesmeron also gets involved. And then there’s the diminuitive medium Madame Zorla and Chief Louie Poolaw.
Though it was a great story with a dark sense of humour, I don’t think anbody who read 2003’s Clem Crowder’s Catch would’ve suspected that the adventures of the sour Maine lobsterman would turn into a genuine series. Unfortunately, since that first story, the supernatural elements have become more and more explicit while ol’ Clem himself has been busted down to a minor character in his own stories. Consequently, most of the original charm has been lost. There are still some laughs but the whole thing feels rather pointless.
(F&SF, June 2008)
Imagine a nanomachine which goes into your brain and boosts your cognitive and creative capabilities. Imagine one which creates whole new characters in your mind, to be used in games and entertainment. Now imagine it goes out of control and overflows your mind with endless worlds full of characters…
More of a thought experiment than a proper story, this is nonetheless a very entertaining piece of flash fiction with a clever, though slightly predictable, ending.
(F&SF, June 2008)
Eileen tells her friend Jill, a fellow teacher, the story of her four year old son’s disappearance many years ago. And of the strange things that happened afterwards.
This story starts very much like a lifetime movie, starring Celtic folk singers no less, which sets off all kinds of internal alarms for me. But once the central mystery kicks in, it gets on the right track. And though I can’t say I understand the ending, it has a strong dream-like logic to it.
(F&SF, June 2008)
A brilliant metallurgist and his boss/lover are contacted by a rogue scientist from a small East European company who have developed a revolutionary new material which will mean the end of the steel industry. But will the big steel corporations allow this new technology to see the light of day? Well, obviously not, but how far are they willing to go? And will they succeed?
This is a pretty standard tale of corporate espionage, with some appropriate scientific gobbledygook thrown in to make it a science fiction story. But there are some nice elements to the story too, such as the main characters’ relationship and the almost poetic description of memory metal. And while evil corporations are rather cliché, the moment when the extent of their deviousness becomes obvious, is a very cool beat in the story.
(F&SF, June 2008)
