Reviews and Comments

An interesting issue with good stories by Cécile Cristofari, Alexandra Munck, Chi Hui and E.N. Auslender.

• "Nothing of Value" by Aimee Ogden: in a future when people travel to worlds by beaming information about themselves to be recreated at the destination, one person goes to Mars to meet her former lover during student times. But times have changed, and the meeting does not go well. But forgetting the meeting may just be one transport away.

• "Down the Waterfall" by Cécile Cristofari: a woman discovers the secret of time travel and uses it to try to get back to a certain day, when she missed the poetry recital of a beloved friend, for a special reason.

• "Binomial Nomenclature and the Mother of Happiness" by Alexandra Munck: in an alternate Earth, two moons made of virtually invisible 'sonder matter' are discovered. One researcher designs virtual glasses that can see the matter, and discovers it all around people and emanating from them. Further investigations reveal different shapes being emitted by people with different emotional moods. This may turn out to be a way to discover the reason a talking elephant attempts a shocking act that, unusually, may be related to a particular Shakespeare play.

• "Stars Don't Dream" by Chi Hui, translated by John Chu: an interesting story about individuals coming together to collectively launch an interesting mission in space, at a time when humanity have retreated into virtual environments. The individuals won't live to see the end of the mission, but the story shows what happens far, far in the future.

• "Just Another Cat in a Box" by E.N. Auslender: a morbid story of a man who wakes up, knowing he has been created out of matter, into an unexpected world that has changed beyond recognition. What he discovers will be the reason for the world to be in that state, and what he must eventually do if a future version of him is to have a chance to, maybe, save the world.

• "Rail Meat" by Marie Vibbert: a thief gatecrashes a party for the wealthy, hoping to steal some treasures. Instead, she meets a fellow thief. They start a relationship while planning a heist of a wealthy yacht racer; but only if they can work to get the racer to win, in a yacht race at the edge of space, where one of them may have to make a leap of faith to achieve victory.

• "You Dream of the Hive" by C. M. Fields: a woman is 'pulled' out of a Hive Mind and sent for rehabilitation. But she only yearns to rejoin the Hive, and may have the means to do so via an implant which is yet to be removed.

• "You Cannot Grow in Salted Earth" by Priya Chand: a person makes a journey to a distant world, only to return home, for there are no more worlds that could be claimed.

A fascinating book that looks at why people often fall for tricks and scams that, usually on hindsight, appear so obvious. As the authors explain, it is due to our natural tendency to believe what we see or accept what we have being told as the truth. What this book does is show how scammers take advantage of this tendency, and also try to equip the reader with the necessary ways to look closer or dig deeper for more information to reveal the scam.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part covers the habits we use that make us fall for scams. These habits are:

• focusing too much on what is being presented. This leads us to exclude or ignore other information that would reveal the scam. A prime example is survivorship bias, where we only have information on those who make it (how to be a non-graduate billionaire), but not on those who don't (excluding the experience of numerous non-graduates that never go on to become billionaires).

• predictions that follow our expectations, leading us to not scrutinize the actual results, leading to researchers to falsify data so that the results are what are expected for the study to fulfil their research grants or get better positions on the strength of the studies.

• being committed to our version of events, leading us to discount evidence that contradicts it. This could lead to false memories of events and belief in conspiracy theories because reality doesn't match the false memory. We also become more critical only of views that don't match our expectations.

• efficiency is the tendency for us to accept things at face value, rather than trying to look for more information to back up the views, like accepting that some people may be good at chess or exams without realizing they may be cheating. If we are already committed to a course of action, even if it is a scam, we may find it hard to back out, because the 'sunk costs' makes it more efficient to continue the course of action.

The second part looks at the hooks scammers use to make us believe whatever is being presented.

• consistent data that makes us believe that something must be correct (because it is consistent). Only, in real life, there is always noise in data, so data that is too consistent should be considered suspicious.

• familiarity with the way things are advertised allows scammers to present something that looks familiar but is actually a scam: fake websites that look similar to actual bank websites, for example.

• precision makes us think the results must be true because the results are so precise. Perhaps too precise: studies that present impossibly precise results should be suspect, as the data cannot back up the precision.

• the potency of a social intervention to make us believe it must be valid since it has such a huge effect. Again, the data may show that this potency was exaggerated or only done on a small scale and thus, may not be valid for the general population.

The authors also present ways to see through the scams, from asking for more data, asking the right questions or looking at the scam presentations in a new way that would reveal the contradictions or missing information that would show that what is being shown is not the truth.

Note: This is a summary, as a review of each of the stories may be too long for BookWyrm to hold. The full review can be read at my website [ sohkamyung.github.io/reviews/fiction/2023/20231212-BigBookCyberpunk.html ].

A fabulous anthology of stories centred around the genre of Cyberpunk, as seen by the editor. The stories here centre around technology and its possible effects on people and society and range in style from contemporary to the more ‘punkish’ which involve a lot of cyber-slang, sometimes to the point where I have trouble understanding the story.

The book is divided into several sections, each with stories related to that section. It starts with a story that the editor considers the precursor to the kind of cyberpunk stories in that section. And the book starts with a story the editor considers a precursor to the whole field of cyberpunk.

With such a huge anthology, it would not be possible for the reader to enjoy every story, but I personally found myself enjoying most of them, and seeing the kinds of speculations that the field of cyberpunk has (and still is) contributing to contemporary speculative fiction.

A better than average issue, with interesting stories by Fiona Moore, Ng Yi-Sheng and Fu Qiang.

• "Morag's Boy" by Fiona Moore: a follow-up to the author's earlier story, this one has a boy sent to a farm. What he learns there, along with his skills in fixing machines, would send him on a journey of invention, in a world where technology and civilization has partially collapsed, and people are still picking up (and repairing) the left-over machines.

• "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Cyborg" by Samara Auman: a story told from the viewpoint of an intelligent crow who, at the start of the story, finds its favourite human cyborg dead. As the story develops, we learn more about where the crows come from, their relationship with the dead person and what the crows will do in memory of her.

• "In Memories We Drown" by Kelsea Yu: in a deep underwater lab cut off from the surface after an unknown disaster hits, one person tastes a marine plant and discovers that it can surface vivid memories of her favourite food. But this may turn out to be a curse when the plant also surfaces vivid memories of her loved ones, now maybe lost to her.

• "Waffles Are Only Goodbye for Now" by Ryan Cole: an intelligent fridge lies buried in a house during a conflict and gets a visit from a refugee looking for food. Time passes, and they develop a relationship. But it may soon end when the refugee has to move on, unless the fridge is willing to give up on memories of its beloved owners.

• "The World's Wife" by Ng Yi-Sheng: in a sequence of unlikely events, the corpse of a person in space has become the home planet for intelligent bacteria. But now the bacteria want revenge over an accidental act unknowingly caused by the person's wife.

• "The Last Gamemaster in the World" by Angela Liu: in a future where people are hooked up to virtual reality, the person in charge visits his mother to talk to her before going back to his job. For while everybody is enjoying the game, somebody has to stay outside to watch over everybody else.

• "Kill That Groundhog" by Fu Qiang, translated by Andy Dudak: three people sit down in a cafe, not for the first time, to discover why they are stuck in reliving one particular day. They try various schemes to break out of the day and eventually hit on a plan that may do it. But it may not end the way they planned it.

• "Eight or Die (Part 2)" by Thoraiya Dyer: the second part of the story where aliens recruit a human to help them capture a criminal that may be planning genocide. The human has now fit into an alien society and after going on a dangerous mining operation, he is now on the way to a deadly island filled with mechanical killers where the criminal is hiding.

A set of short fiction, set in a time in a far future where humans have become mythical in a world populated by mechanical beings. The beings are 'haunted' by the idea that humans might have had children and, via the workings of a 'god', set out to recreate children, as well as tell stories (disturbing stories) about how children might come into being or how humans might have treated children.

An enjoyable episode in the Murderbot Diaries, this one continues from where "Network Effect" left off, with a colony left on a world contaminated with alien material that can infect both humans and AI and constructs. In the book, Murderbot and its friends continue to talk to the colonists, hoping to convince them that life with the corporation that is coming to claim their planet is not good (think bonded slavery). Then they learn that there was another colony established and now their job just got twice as tough (or harder).

As if this wasn't enough, Murderbot is suffering from a personal "redacted" problem that is affecting his efficiency. It is only later in this story that the nature of the "redacted" problem becomes clear, and it is something that can also affect humans, which makes Murderbot feel more human (ugh).

The first half of the book is more about subterfuge, as the team try to make contact with the other group of colonists without alerting the corporation. But it may be all for nothing, when the corporation misleads the colonist over what Murderbot's group wants to do. Now, Murderbot reveals what "redacted" is, how it is affecting him and also what he and the group must do to win back the colonist. This, of course, leads to a pitched battle that Murderbot must fight in its own way to win.

Murderbot has also learned that in some ways, he is like the humans he wants to protect. And by the end, who knows where Murderbot and his best friend, ART, will now end up doing.

A good issue of Interzone. Hopefully a sign that the magazine's new editor, Gareth Jelley, is now hitting his stride. Stories I particularly enjoyed were those by Alex Penland, Sloane Leong, and a fabulous one by Marie Brennan.

• "0x11 Scenarios to Stop the Train" by Jon Lasser: a story about the various 'what might happen' scenarios if Anna Karenina had access to Siri and asked it what to do (elope or stay with her partner). Many of the scenarios involve a train.

• "Sfumato" by Alexander Glass: the Mona Lisa has been stolen, and a former thief turned detective is on the trail. Readers might be able to guess that the robbery and some of the characters involved in the story are not from that time period in Paris.

• "We Are Only Ourselves" by Alex Penland: a man returns home to find his wife has turned back into a man. The story then proceeds to tell the tale of their initial friendship, which became more than just friendship, the apparent divine intervention that turned him into a woman, and what their future may be for them and their daughters, for the family can also divine the future, and what they see is darkness for their land and for themselves.

• "Our Lady of the Void" by Hesper Leveret: a researcher goes on a trip to deep space to study the culture of the people making such journeys. But what she learns about the superstitious and religious beliefs of the crew would put the crew, and herself, in danger.

• "Another Country" by Rachael Cupp: a nurse struggles to take care of a notable senile person, while in the background the world is apparently tethering on the edge of a conflict.

• "With the Blade as Witness" by Sloane Leong: a fascinating story set on a world where people live in tribes, each guarded by large biomechanical guardians with a living heart housing a person who controls them. Now, one such person has to seal a proposed merger with another tribe, but in doing so, learns more about herself, her potential partner, and what effects the guardians can have on the people housed in them for too long.

• "999 Swords" by Marie Brennan: a fabulous story set in a feudal-like Japan, where a master swordsman and his monk-warrior servant wait for their deaths from a traitorous enemy. To pass the time, the monk-warrior tells the story of his life, leading up to becoming a servant for the swordsman, which contains a twist at the end that would involve the swordsman's teacher.

A collection of fantastic stories (of short, medium and long length) that shows how broad the author's writings can be. Stories that invite the reader to become part of the story, flash fiction and 'traditional' forms of writing can all be found here. Stories that I really enjoyed include a trickster Coyote's journey into the land of the dead, one involving Toad and other characters by Kenneth Grahame, a magnificent journey through a dreamland created by H.P. Lovecraft, and a story that asks the reader whether the characters should have the privilage of a happy ending.

• "Tool-Using Mimics": an unusual picture of a little girl wearing a squid or octopus-like costume triggers a speculative story about what the girl really is: just a girl in a costume, or perhaps an octopus mimicking a girl as a disguise, or something else.

• "Mantis Wives": the various ways female mantis deal with the fact that they eat the males.

• "Butterflies of Eastern Texas": a train conductor on an unusual train meets a girl on the train that constantly releases butterflies.

• "Five Sphinxes and 56 Answers": a retelling of the story of Oedipus Rex, as seen from the viewpoint of the Sphinx, who wonders whether her task was worth all the trouble. Interspersed is another story about a girl who has her own Sphinx-like troubles with her mother.

• "Ratatoskr": a young girl is terrified one night when she sees an image of a giant squirrel in a storm, which she later decides is Ratatoskr, who in old Norse mythology is a squirrel who runs up and down the world tree Yggdrasil to carry messages between the eagles perched atop Yggdrasil, and the serpent Níðhöggr. This would lead her to a 'spiritual' connection with squirrels that she would later encounter.

• "Coyote Invents the Land of the Dead": the trickster, Coyote, and her friends, enter the Land of the Dead to search for her dead lover. But the search may be futile, for the lover may not be easily found during the strange and unusual dead world that they journey into; and possibly beyond.

• "The Ghastly Spectre of Toad Hall": a tale based on the characters by Kenneth Grahame, this one has Toad telling a story to his friends of how a ghost haunts Toad Hall and possibly caused the death of his predecessors. Of course, the spectre turns up, and the friends look for a 'loophole' to prevent Toad's death. In the end, Toad prepares to meet his doom, but he may yet be saved by an unexpected loophole.

• "The Apartment Dweller's Bestiary": on the various beasts an apartment dweller can get or encounter and how they can fill your time or missing relationships with people.

• "The Apartment Dweller's Stavebook": on the various symbols you can draw on objects or yourself to encourage or discourage events.

• "The Apartment Dweller's Alphabetical Dreambook": on the meaning of various symbols or desires you see in your dream, and how to, maybe, interpret them.

• "The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe": a long and fascinating story set in the Dream World that may be familiar to those who have read Lovecraft. One day, a student from a women's college in the Dream World is enchanted by a man from our world (known as the Waking World) and runs away with him. Now, it is up to the Professor, Vellitt Boe, to track her down and bring her back. As the story develops, we learn more about this Dream World, where mad old gods rule and can bring death and destruction on a whim. And it is such destruction that Boe hopes to prevent when it is revealed to her how important the runaway girl is. She will have to travel through an underworld full of ghouls and other beasties, before she will meet the girl that, in a twist, may well change the nature of the Dream World.

• "Noah’s Raven": a raven on Noah's Ark laments the extinct birds that are lost as the ark struggles through the flood, until it is at last set free by Noah to find land.

• "Crows Attempt Human-Style Riddles, and One Joke": viginettes of jokes that may be told be crows.

• "The Privilege of the Happy Ending": a story of a girl and her old hen who set out on a journey to find a new home when their old one, and the surrounding land, are ravaged by marauding wastoures, hordes of devouring creatures. Their journey seems hopeless as they wander from place to place looking for a home, until an unexpected event makes them realise that the only way is to stop the wastoures. And the hen, who has special abilities for a hen, would have an unexpected role in this. But is the journey of the girl and the hen meant to have a happy ending? That depends on the author's whims and the reader's decision on when to stop the story; or not to end it.

An interesting story that starts off being told in three separate parts before coming together at the end in a tale of being who you should be and on having friendships with others.

In one tale, Jin Wang is one of a few Asian-Americans in a school and gets picked on by other non-Asian students, as well as facing racist stereotypes. He eventually makes a good friend, another Asian student, and even gets involved in a relationship with a classmate. The another is the story of the Monkey King, who gets picked on by the other celestials for being a monkey. The third is about Danny, who has to suffer the agony of a visit from his very stereotyped cousin, Chin-Kee.

All three tales collide at the end when Danny lashes back at Chin-Kee, revealing the connection between the three tales and what Danny has to do to try to put things right.

So, an interesting story about being an out-of-place teen (as well as a Monkey King) going through relationship emotions and also low-level bullying, before learning acceptance and finding their way among peers.

An average issue, with interesting stories by L Chan, Andrea Kriz, Shi Heiyao and Rajan Khanna.

• "Re/Union" by L Chan: in a future where departed relatives are recreated digitally for a family reunion, arguments over the quality of meals made by descendents are still a flash point. But maybe not this time, courtesy of a 'ghost' in the machine.

• "There Are the Art-Makers, Dreamers of Dreams, and There Are Ais" by Andrea Kriz: in a future where art generating AIs are banned and only approved human artists can create original art, one to-be artist struggles to get approval to imitate an artist. But maybe imitating another artist may not be what the artist should stuff to do, after seeing what her house AI and other self aware AIs could do.

• "Rake the Leaves" by R.T. Ester: in a place that seems slightly out of kilter, a man has a conversation with a professor about hidden messages in a song by 'Dinah Ross'. It is only later when the man and others attempt a trick with a drone that sucks up raked leaves do they realise just what is off with the place they are in.

• "Keeper of the Code" by Nick Thomas: a person discovers a packet of data that should not be there. Upon reading it, he discovers it contains a plea for help but it may be over her may not have the power to fulfill.

• "Happiness" by Octavia Cade: all the various ways you could die happy, based on your choices.

• "Stranger Shores" by Gregory Feeley: a post human works on a document on humanity's journey to space in the past while it seems to complete its own journey in the present.

• "The Librarian and the Robot" by Shi Heiyao, translated by Andy Dudak: a librarian fleeing her destroyed home world goes to Earth to recover and preserve old books. There, she finds a war robot. Reactivated, the robot is given the task of helping her preserve and find more old books. The robot learns and, eventually takes over her job, ready to pass on knowledge to whoever comes next.

• "Voices Singing in the Void" by Rajan Khanna: on various planets and environments, builders create settlements for their Creators and send back queries to their Conductor for help and feedback. But the Conductor does not reply for reasons of its own.

A retelling of the story of David and Goliath, as told from the viewpoint of Goliath, who turns out to be mainly an administrator in the Philistine army, but was cast into the role of a Champion of the Philistines by a captain, eager to win the favour of the king.

Put into a badly made outfit of metal, he then has the task of sending his challenge to a battle with the champion of the armies of Israel, with the captain believing that the challenge would go unanswered due to Goliath's size. While waiting for a challenger, Goliath decides to stay in the desert, contemplating his life.

Of course, the challenge is finally answered and is a foregone conclusion. But the retelling, in excellent cartoon format by Gauld, shows that some stories may not be what they seem, and the characters involved may have been forced into their roles by others who may not have to suffer the life and death consequences.