Runalong The Short Shelves - Uncanny Magazine
Helloooo!
This past week I really enjoyed the latest edition of Uncanny Magazine. among the many stories and poems what stood out to me were:-
SuperMAX by Daniel H Wilson - in the future prisons are AI controlled and attempt to find the way to reform the inmates. One day a scientists arrives who claims the AI is the personality of his dead son. This story got a great puzzling response from me as on the one hand this is a tale of guilt and redemption but also raised lots of mora questions. Should we allow AIs to help us on this. The methods used are strong and I felt ambivalent if the technology was the right thing to do. But the fact this story is one I keep mulling over makes me think it’s one worth reading.
Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200 by RSA Garcia - for a very different but hugely enjoyable tale we go to future Trinidad and Garcia makes this story work through the costume of Tantie Merle’s voice. This elderly reflective, funny and smart woman tells us how a relative decided to help her on the farm she needed a robot and that robot met its match in the form of the world’s most bad-tempered goat. It’s more than simply goat versus machine as Tantie Merle and her new Farmhand bond and learn from each other in surprising ways.
The Big Sleep by Steph Kwiatkowski - into space for a disturbing piece of slow burning SF horror. A tale of a generation starship crew many decades into their mission and how the young cycle into the old and keep being awakened and falling to sleep. slowly the ship and and the few feel a dark and dangerous place on the verge of madness. Eerie and memorable!
Love at the Event Horizon by Natalia Theodoridou - I loved this story constantly shifting as a struggling filmmaker who has lost their creative spark ends up floating in space after his ship breaks apart. He is rescued by a strange vessel with its own unusual crew and he is captivated by their Captain. It’s a tale of secrets, love, art and the mystery of this ship blend together perfectly. Our narrator also talks about other endings and perspectives and a story that I really loved.
The Ghasts by Lavie Tidhar - another hugely enjoyable tale of a young woman who has made it her job to take on childhood monsters. But what I enjoyed if Tidhar doesn’t make this a heroic battle it’s simply a daily grind that this woman does to get through the day…then the next and the next. Keeping her head above bills and feeling no real love for it. It then moves into how our main character is getting a strange Bank making her life worse. Very surprising and get neatly sums up the whole tale - we perhaps do need our fears to help us learn to overcome them and live.
Theses on the Scientific Management of Goetic Labour - Vajra Chandraskera - loved this strange tale that reads like a monograph. It’s strange title slowly revealing that’s it’s about a world where demonic magic gets used. A tale of outsiders in magical society, alternate history and yet see down how sometimes people hate difference and competition. The final paragraphs are devastating.
The Music of the Siphorophenes by C L Polk - a great adventure tale awaits in this as a gruff space captain takes on a rock star to explore the secrets parts of space. There are alien encounters, pirates and secrets to our characters that really meld together very well. It’s about battling fears and doing the right thing. You get to really care about our narrator as they try to stay alive and battle their own demons. Hugely enjoyable.
