“Rabbit Test” by Samantha Mills Uncanny Magazine, Issue #49, 2022
Review by Lis Carey: In this rather dark short story, we follow the troubles of Grace, whom we meet as an 18-year-old girl who has gotten pregnant, in a late 21st century society where technology has been weaponized to make it almost impossible for pregnancy to evade detection. She’s not paranoid and careful enough to be able to terminate it before it’s detected, and this basically eliminates most of her life choices.
In between parts of the story of Grace and her daughter, Olivia, we get bits about the history of pregnancy tests, including the iconic “rabbit test,” as well as earlier tests, dating back to ancient times, many (but not all) of which were surprisingly effective. As society changed to put women more completely in the power of men, many of them became illegal, and termination, when available, also became illegal.
Grace and Olivia aren’t the only women we get to know, at least a little bit, and none of these included stories are happy reading. It’s a powerfully told story, but also dark, and hard to take, at least for me. The nonsequential telling of it gives a good understanding of the history of pregnancy detection, abortion, and the struggle for women to control their own bodies and make their own life decisions. I’m not sorry I read it, but honestly, if it weren’t short, and weren’t a finalist for the Hugo Awards 2023 Best Short Story, I probably wouldn’t have finished it.
As in all things, make your own decision. (While it’s still legal?)
I received this story as part of the 2023 Hugo Voters Packet.
The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown by Lawrence Block
By Daniel Dern: As a fan of both Lawrence Block and Fredric Brown (their stories and books, that is), I was intrigued and ready-to-be-excited by an announcement back in August 2022, which I saw I-don’t-remember-where and then here in File770, in Item #2, about Block’s then-upcoming novel, The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown (which I’ll now refer to as TBWMFB), Block’s thirteenth book about bookseller/burglar (or vice versa) Bernie Rhodenbarr.
(Cavil/Quibble/Note: Thirteenth book but twelfth novel, because Block’s previous Rhodenbarr, The Burglar In Short Order, is a (highly enjoyable) collection of short stories about Bernie.)
This is intended to be a spoilers-free write-up. (If you’ve read or otherwise know the underlying gimmick — I’m not sure it qualifies as a MacGuffin — in Fredric Brown’s What Mad Universe, then you already have a non-unreasonable expectation of what happens early on, but Block takes it in a different tone and direction from Brown, and since it’s the premise, not a spoiler anyway IMHO.)
I’ll start with my opinions/recommendations, rather than leave them to the end. Arguably much of what’s after this list is snakes-hands; it’s definitely more about Lawrence Block (and why and what I recommend reading his stuff) than TBWMFB.
(1) I enjoyed The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. I’ve read all the previous Bernie The Burglar books, although, other than …In Short Order, probably none more recently than a decade or more ago. I’ve read lots of Lawrence Block; over half a dozen re-re-read. I’ve read a fair amount of Fredric Brown — lots of the sf stories, in the sf magazines and anthologies and collections as I grew up, some recently.
(2) If you’ve read at least a few of Block’s previous Bernie books, odds are pretty good you’ll like The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. This Bernie book is different from previous ones, so if it turns out to not be your cup of tea (or klava, for Steven Brust Vlad Taltos-verse fans), click here for 50% of your time back. (Not responsible for ripple-effect changes.)
(3) If you’ve read other Block but not his Burglar books (though this seems unlikely), ditto — but I suggest you read one or two of those first, to meet the characters first. The Burglar In Short Order should suffice; more won’t hurt.
(4) If you haven’t read any Block, (a) see (3) above and, (b) good news, Block’s got LOTS of great reads. My favorites include the John Keller Hit Man series (five books – note, many parts show up, particularly in e-form, as individual stories. Best read in order. Note to author: More Keller, please!); the Evan Tanner books (in particular, I commend the first, and also the currently-last Tanner On Ice, which has an sf-adjacent not-quite-a-MacGuffin a la Heinlein’s The Door Into Summer (but no cat), in particular); the Ehrengraf for the Defense collection(s?); his other story collections; and his non-fiction collections (his stamp collector columns, and The Crime of Our Lives (essays and anecdotes). (I’m also fond of A Random Walk, which is perhaps arguably sf or adjacentish.)
There are many reasons to enjoy and savor reading Block. The characters, perfect-timing zinger endings, the New York City bits, and the prose itself, including, like Donald Westlake, drop-in bits that may or may not serve the movement or character, but are simply delightful. (The Westlake one that comes to mind is from one of his Dortmunder stories, inventorying the passengers in a goonmobile, including “stately, plump Buck Mulligan.” (Also used, with more context, in Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely’s superb All-Star Superman run.)
Ed Gorman nailed it, in his introduction to the Hard Case edition of Block’s Borderline (although it feels like I read it in some other essay/intro collection: “A long time ago I said that Lawrence Block writes the best sentences in the business. I don’t see any reason to change my mind.” (Possibly I’d read Gorman’s original remark. I’d thought it was said by Stephen King, but the web says it was Ed Gorman; who am I to disagree?) Some of my favorite places are from Block’s John Keller stories; somehow, for example, the beginning of Keller’s Designated Hitter. I can’t explain it, but I know when I’m enjoying prose as it goes.
(4) If you haven’t (yet) read any Fredric Brown, tsk! but that’s not an impediment to reading The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown. (I subsequently reread Brown’s What Mad Universe, and stand by my opinion.)
Where to get TBWMFG:
I read the paperback, courtesy of my library (also available as an e-book), a belated several months ago. (My fault, I’d gronked my initial library reservation.) So I’m very belatedly getting back to this write-up.)
For serious fans/collectors; Subterranean Press is doing a deluxe signed-and-limited hardcover, scheduled for release October 1, 2023. I can’t see (from listings) whether there are any “extras.” (Note, many of Block’s e-book versions include essays, bio info, photos, etc. — worth checking out via HooplaDigital or Libby library borrows!)
And there’s an audiobook, available through various sources.
This is probably as good a place as any to mention some places to get your Fredric Brown. NESFA Press has two Brown collections (in paper and/or e-book): From These Ashes: The Complete Short SF of Fredric Brown, and Martians and Madness: The Complete SF Novels of Fredric Brown. E-library-wise, Hoopla, Libby, and OverDrive (which has been replaced by Libby, but this search may burp up different results than Libby’s).
Plus there are numerous non-SF reprints/collections, from various publishers, many in your library’s physical stacks, bookstores, and your friends’ shelves.
CLEARING THROAT AGAIN. Before I launch into talking about The Burglar Who Met Fredric Brown one more note (for now), and one disclaimer:
Bernie Rhodenbarr doesn’t actually meet Fredric Brown in TBWMFB. (To be fair, while none of the previous titles make similar “met” claims, Bernie doesn’t meet any of the other title-name-dropped people.)
This write-up isn’t really a review, by my definition. (In case you haven’t yet figured that out from the title or the text so far.)
BLOCK AND/OR SF: Unlike Fredric Brown, who wrote a fair amount of SF alongside a lot of crime/mystery/detective stuff, Lawrence Block, like Donald Westlake, John D. MacDonald, and others, has only a few excursions into or dalliances with sf.
(I don’t consider Tanner On Ice to be sf in any way, and I’m not sure how to categorize A Random Walk, but IMHO it’s not genre sf. That doesn’t stop me from periodically re-reading either of these books, but it makes me mildly curious where my town’s library — which has separate-from-general-fiction zones for mystery/crime, sf/fantasy, and romance — would file it.)
Conveniently, Janet Rudolph got deets straight from the author’s mouth (or email, in her interview cited in Item #2 of File770’s August 23, 2023 scroll, her “An ‘Impertinent’ Interview with Lawrence Block” at Mystery Fanfare. Talking with Block about TBWMFB:
You ever write any SF?
I had a story in a magazine, Science Fiction Stories, in 1959, and it was chosen for Judith Merril’s best-of-the-year collection. And in 1984 Fantasy & Science Fiction ran “The Boy Who Disappeared Clouds.”
But there’s no doubting that (like Stephen King), Block knows and enjoys sf. Here’s Block’s post about Fredric Brown.
Where Brown’s What Mad Universe is a mix of grim plot and cultural satire, TBWMFB is (give or take Bernie The Burglar’s inevitable caper-turning-into-having-to-solve-a-murder-he’s-blamed-for) a romp, where characters and author are clearly having fun. And, hopefully, so will you.
IN SCROLLS TO COME: Block, and Westlake, both have non-fiction collections of various articles, essays, book introductions, correspondence, etc. (including some about each other, they worked in the Scott Meredith Agency contemporaneously or near, and were good friends. I’m brooding about a post on these books; they’re informative, engaging, and entertaining — and it’s interesting to hear them speaking directly, as themselves, rather than through a narrator or character.
Review by Lis Carey: I believe the cover shown is the anthology that contains this short story, a finalist for the 2023 Best Short Story Hugo. My apologies to all if I have this wrong.
Zhong Lixin is a Chinese astronaut, on China’s Tiangong Space Station in 2028. He’s working on his assigned projects, along with another astronaut, Duan Guozhu, when they hear what they’ve never heard before on the station — the emergency alarm. Soon they’re working on repairs, fixable ones, fortunately, damage caused by micrometeors colliding with the station. They’ve been fortunate, and can continue their mission.
Then they get new, disturbing information. Some of that same micrometeor cluster hit the International Space Station, and have caused a fire on it.
“International” or not, the Chinese regard the ISS as an American space station, and when this accident occurs, the ISS crew consists of three Americans. But this is space, and they’re all astronauts together. Yet, Zhong and Duan don’t know of any way they can rescue the Americans.
Fortunately, despite existing tensions between the two governments, those on the ground take the same view about not leaving astronauts stranded whatever their nationality. Even better, someone on the ground has an idea. It’s speculative, risky, involves doing things never tried before. Success is far from guaranteed.
What follows is a nailbiter, exciting, scary, and completely compelling.
A worthy finalist.
I received this story as part of the 2023 Hugo Voters Packet.
“A Dream of Electric Mothers,” a novelette by Wole Talabi, first published in Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction, Sheree Renèe Thomas (editor), Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki (editor), Zelda Knight (editor), Tordotcom, ISBN 9781250833006, November 2022
Review by Lis Carey: Brigadier-General Dolapo Abimbola Titilope Balogun is the youngest member of the cabinet of what I think is the country of Yoruba, with what is currently Kenya again separated into Yoruba and Dahomey. (I was intent on the story, and I’m not 100% sure I picked up the political detail correctly, except that Dahomey is definitely “the other country.” If someone can correct me, please do.) They are facing rising tensions with Dahomey, over a border dispute, and are seeking a solution that neither surrenders the territory in dispute, nor results in war. So far, they’re not having success.
Someone proposes consulting the Electric Mothers, the combined electronic memory of all the people of the country who have died since its creation. It’s the Electric “Mothers” and not Elders or Fathers or something else, because when accessed, it manifests as the united voices of many women. This might be because the designer of it was a woman–Balogun’s great-grandaunt, in fact.
Balogun is skeptical of the need to consult the Electric Mothers at this point. She feels they haven’t been deliberating very long, and they shouldn’t rush to seek the electronic ancestors’ aid quite this quickly. They can surely work it out themselves.
But, as mentioned, she’s the newest and youngest member of the cabinet, and also the only one who has never experienced communion with the Electric Mothers before. She does not carry the day. Even with one of the oldest cabinet members sharing her reservations, they do not carry the day.
They go through some (not all) of the usual formalities, and enter the chamber where they will consult the Electric Mothers. All the cabinet members will commune with the ancestors; they will all experience it individually, and they will all ask the same one agreed question. It won’t take long; no such consultation has ever lasted more than five minutes.
Balogun sticks to her duty on that one question, but it turns out she has her own personal question to ask, not at all related to her duty. While the response to the agreed, official question is unexpected and somewhat disturbing, it’s with her own question that we learn the most about Balogun, her motives, and about the Electric Mothers. Also, of course, about this African country in a future that’s not next week, but also, not the distant future.
It’s a very good story, focused on my favorite thing, good, interesting characters in their own setting. I’d love to read more set in this background.
I received this story as part of the 2023 Hugo Voters Packet.
Review: How to Resist Amazon and Why: The Fight for Local Economies, Data Privacy, Fair Labor, Independent Bookstores, and a People-Powered Future! Danny Caine (author and narrator) Pear Press, ISBN 9781732380394, April 2021
Review by Lis Carey: Danny Caine runs an independent, employee-owned bookstore, Raven Book Store, in Lawrence, Kansas. He’s also an active small business advocate, and makes an excellent case that Amazon is destructive of small businesses, local economies, and fair business regulation and practices.
Some of the stories in here are funny and delightful; others are horrifying.
Caine examines the ways that Amazon, as the owner of the platform many small businesses sell on, as well as a direct competitor to those business, and able to set the rules that everyone on the platform competes under, exploits information businesses wouldn’t share with any other competitor, and can rig the rules. Once a business comes to depend on Amazon sales, getting banned by Amazon can be a death sentence, and there’s really no appeal process. Amazon, in such instances, is judge, jury, and executioner.
There’s also the matter of worker safety, and worker pay. Amazon brags about its $15 an hour minimum starting pay, but that’s for actual Amazon employees. Same with safety practices. The actual Amazon warehouses tend to have a pretty good record overall. But many people who appear to be in every way Amazon employees are in fact third party contractors, and they don’t get the guaranteed minimum $15 an hour. Amazon also sets performance standards that are essentially unmeetable, and that creates pressure to value speed over safety.
Many of the “Amazon delivery vans” that we see daily are in fact owned by third party companies, small companies founded to meet the Amazon demand for delivery trucks and personnel, and aren’t covered by Amazon’s corporate minimum wage, or any other Amazon policies covering employees. And these are the majority of the people delivering your Amazon packages, in trucks marked with the Amazon logo, and wearing Amazon shirts and hats. If there’s an accident, and someone is injured or killed (this has happened, and hit the news sometimes), you’re not going to be suing a huge company with very deep pockets, who can afford to pay large damages. You’re far more likely to be suing a tiny local company that is more likely to go bankrupt.
Since most of these companies exist only to deliver Amazon packages, this seems like a cheat.
Caine has a lot more to say. What he isn’t saying, and I’m not saying (and not doing, either), is to boycott Amazon. Generally, it’s difficult to impossible. If I need something heavy, such as the new air conditioner I recently bought, or the rollator I’m considering now after my knee recently gave way under me, I’m going to need it delivered, and often Amazon is the only retailer that will deliver. It provides the backbone of many other commercial websites–including Danny Caine’s own Raven Book Store. I do my best to get as many as possible of my audiobooks from sources other than (Amazon-owned) Audible, such as Libro.fm, which lets you support your preferred local bookstore with your audiobook purchases, or
Audiobooks.com, which at least isn’t Amazon. For print books, there’s Bookshop.org, which also lets you support your local bookstore, when you want something they don’t have on the shelf. (Although I have a bit of conceptual problem with this one. If I want a print book, and it has to be ordered anyway, I’m going to order it directly from my favorite bookstore, Gibson’s Bookstore.) There are alternatives for ebooks, too, though sadly I’ve found nothing that’s really a substitute for Amazon there.
But my point is, without committing to a full boycott of Amazon, which can be very hard, you can start shifting some of your business elsewhere, and supporting your local businesses, which keeps the money circulating locally and supporting the local economy–and businesses bound by regulations that Amazon often avoids being subject to. You don’t have to be a purist on this to start doing a little bit of local good.
Caine has a lot more to say, and he tells it more interestingly than I do.
It won’t surprise you to know that this book isn’t available on Amazon. I got the audiobook on Libro.fm, and it’s available in print at Bookshop.org.
Review by Brown Robin. This is a book which requires some professional-level suspension of disbelief, but I believe it compares favorably to such satires as Dr. Strangelove and Atomic War Bride.
The Prime Minister of Australia is presented with a familiar yet thorny problem, an invasion of rabbits. Scientists are roped into an effort to develop a toxin to put the matter to rest. This effort fails spectacularly, resulting in super rabbits and a toxin remarkably effective against humans. Australia becomes the ruler of the world. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t last.
There are so many touches to like and admire in this silly, silly book. The practice of staged wars, something like the Aztec version of lacrosse, all to win the tourist and entrepreneurial dollar. The production of materiel destined for the sea floor in a full-employment scheme. A character whose previous career consisted of only preternaturally bad choices, who yet has the ear of his Prime Minister, and proceeds to walk the world to its doom with his Big Ideas, which really seemed to work for a while…
Like Strangelove, there’s hardly a female in this story, but I feel that’s part of Braddon’s point. This is a old boys’ club world, with an outcome one would expect from the patriarchy. I appreciated the [spoiler alert!] fact that in the end, the Australian aborigines inherit the Earth.
I imagine this novel as written over a weekend, as it is chock full of keen insight and cutting humor, and a whole lot of nonsense, but if you can see past the howlers and boners, you’ll find a neat dissection of what passes for grownups in our political realm. Though I have to admit, I found Prime Minister Fitzgerald an appealing enlightened despot. He really did mean well.
In a new visit to the galaxy where the Radch worry everyone else, but even the Radch worry about the Presger, three still relatively young adults are striving to make their way, be responsible, and just figure out who they are, they’re all about to make decisions that risk upending the treaty with the Presger, who could quite possibly destroy everyone.
Translation State (Imperial Radch), by Ann Leckie (author), Adjoah Andoh (narrator) Orbit, ISBN 9781549164835, June 2023
Review by Lis Carey: Qven is a junior, that is, not yet full adult, Presger translator. His only purpose is to learn human ways and language, match with an older, more experienced translator, and be an intermediary between the impossibly dangerous Presger and the human worlds. He’s the pride of his Clade–until he starts to wonder if there might be a different life possible.
Enae has been hir grandmaman’s household manager and aide, until grandmaman dies, and leaves hir not the house and the wealth believed to go with it, but a position as a junior diplomat, which includes the mission of finding the Presger translator who disappeared two centuries ago. That translator must be found, or at least returned to the Presger if found, because Presger translators are too dangerous to wander unsupervised through human societies.
Reet, a mechanic who grew up as an adopted son in a family of devoted parents and adopted siblings, is determined to know his genetic heritage, and finds what may be a path to that knowledge. At least, a fraternal organization of descendants of a destroyed habitat believe they know who his family was. However, they may have ulterior motives–and they may also be quite mistaken.
Meanwhile, outside of these immediate concerns, the Radch AIs controlling ships and space stations, who had declared their independence from the Radch, will soon be presenting their petition for recognition as a “significant species” to the Conclave that administers the treaty with the Presger.
Qven’s Clade has decided he must be brought to the Conclave to make the match they are determined on and he is equally determined not to make. Reet, beginning to have an alarming idea of who his genetic kin might be, and Enae, with similar suspicions and a determination to do hir duty as soon as hir determines how that works with hir growing concerns about right and wrong in that regard, as well as Reet’s dubious “friends,” have all decided they must be at the Conclave too.
Qven, Enae, and Reet are all making decisions that risk upending the treaty, and will at a minimum upset all their elders and superiors.
Along the way, we still don’t meet any Presger, but we do start to get a much clearer idea of what makes the Presger, and even the human-derived Presger translators, so very dangerous when they want to be, or when they don’t quite know exactly what they’re doing.
It’s a fascinating story that reveals more of the galaxy the Radch operate in, the other human cultures and alien species that also inhabit it, and Presger and Presger translators. Major and secondary characters all have their own absorbing personalities and back stories, along with clear and often conflicting ideas of right, wrong, and what can actually be achieved.
Adjoah Andoh is, as always, an excellent narrator.
Rose House isn’t just a house, and it isn’t just the capstone to radical architect Basit Deniau’s career. It’s an intelligent, self-aware, autonomous A.I. With Deniau now deceased, it answers to no one but itself, is bound by nothing but Deniau’s will requiring it to let his former student, Selene Gisil, in for seven days each year, and the law that requires all AI’s (most of which are several levels below it in functionality) to inform authorities of any dead bodies within its area. There’s a reason people call Rose House a haunt, and a reason sensible people who aren’t radical architects, don’t want to go in there.
Rose/House by Arkady Martine Subterranean Press, April 2023
Review by Lis Carey: Rose House is the creation of radical architect Basit Deniau, run by an AI. A real, opinionated, arrogant AI. Maritza Smith is the tired, disillusioned police detective in China Lake, somewhere in the American southwest, who takes the call from Rose House when, as required by law, it makes the call to report that there’s a dead body inside it.
Well, another dead body inside it. Deniau’s corpse, transformed into a diamond, has been there for a year, ever since his death. The only living person allowed inside is Dr. Selene Gisil, his former protégé, later critic, and now, unwillingly, archivist of his records and memorabilia. Even she’s only allowed in seven days a year.
But at the moment, she’s in Türkiye. Who is the dead body? Who is the killer?
One might think Selene Gisil is an admirer of Deniau. She very much is not. Gisil had been his student, but became convinced his work was poisonous. Years later, he died and she discovered in his will that he had made her effectively his archivist, with access to his greatest achievement, Rose House, seven days a year. No one else is allowed in at all, and so Gisil is the one everyone turns to for any information she can give them.
It’s not just resentment, though. Rose House is a truly intelligent AI, a “haunt,” and Gisil finds it truly creepy. In this first year after his death, she has managed only three days in the house, and then left, wishing she could choose never to return.
Now she has to go back, because there’s a new dead body in there, and Detective Smith can’t get in there without her. May not get in there with her, but definitely won’t without her.
What follows is Gisil’s discomfort with being inside Rose House again, Smith’s attempt to investigate the death with only what she could carry in and what Rose House will allow, and her partner police detective in the tiny town of China Lake, Oliver Torres, on the outside, following up on strange visitors showing an interest in Rose House right now. A man claiming to represent a company involved in auctions and art representation. A woman who says she’s a reporter with the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. They’re both willing to talk–to a point–and he sets to work trying to check the information they’ve given him.
Along the way, he discovers he can’t communicate with Maritza after she’s inside Rose House.
On the inside, Maritza is finding that the AI in the walls (and floors, and ceiling) can do a great deal more than control access to the building, and the climate within. Along the way, she persuades Rose House (or does Rose House persuade her) to allow her into the part of the building that the dead man wanted to visit. The AI also shows her a replay of events, not an easily understandable replay of events, involving the man–and Maritza begins to get an idea of what happened.
Gisil is having her own creepy experiences, with more prior understanding of what Rose House can do than Maritza had.
Soon the question for both of them is, will they get out of there alive?
Oliver’s own investigation outside is also getting alarming, confusing, and guilt-inducing–he let Maritza go into Rose House without backup, and he, too, starts to realize she’ll only get out if Rose House wants her to.
It’s a tense, fear-inducing experience, for the characters and the reader.
Body Shocks. Edited by Ellen Datlow Tachyon Publications, 2021
Review by Warner Holme: Ellen Datlow’s Body Shocks is a collection of stories in, as the title implies, the body horror genre. This can be a difficult genre for many readers, and short and long the stories in this book definitely are not for the faint of heart. More than two dozen stories, it’s a pack collection with a relatively wide variety of material.
Cassandra Khaw’s “The Truth That Lies Under Skin and Meat” is a series of priced statements relating to a woman considering her life and the obsessions which meat brings to mind for her. There are very short sections, each headed by a good or service and associated with a particular cost (although a number of the costs are “free”) and the objects themselves each lead into the following text exploring the situation more thoroughly.
While there are brief sections questioning the issue of nature versus nurture, it is a minor element in this story. Instead the study twisting development of a woman’s homicidal impulses, and how they relate to the possibly supernatural aspects of this story. Specifically, on a number of occasions the lead is described as transforming physically, and while this is not the main aspect of the story it most definitely creates an additional atmosphere of oppression and instability. The way that the situations are described, and the mention of triggers early on, bring interesting questions of control to this tale.
“The Old Women Who Were Skinned” is Carmen Maria Machado’s addition to this anthology. Told matching the same manner of a fairy tale, it details the lives of two elderly women who cannot help but use skins to their advantage, and attract the attention of an emperor. Like most good fairy tales it includes its share of the impossible, including the presence of fairies themselves.
While taking the form of a fairy tale, it is very much an old-style one. There is visceral gore and unambiguous sex within a brief word count. There is a clear and explicit message related to vanity involved, although there are certainly other themes which might be extracted. Nobility get away with crimes they should not, and the ending happens to be anything but happy. It is a nice little story, likely to turn the stomach and twist the heart.
In addition to a wonderful introduction by the author, wearing a she explains her logic and thought processes in creating this collection, each story is preceded by a nice little paragraph discussing the author. These are always appreciated, simultaneously giving a little context to the story and providing an easy jumping on point for readers who want more material from that writer.
A special note should be given on the interior design by John Coulthart. In addition to a gorgeously disturbing cover, everything from the table of contents to the pages following each story feature images of and related to the human body which remain anywhere from unsettling to downright nausea inducing. Given a certain lack of unity can exist in any anthology regardless of theme, this design work and art is an excellent tool to help connect the pieces to one another.
Overall Body Shocks is easy to recommend to readers who enjoy this kind of horror. There are a large number of pieces with a great variety of style. One shouldn’t enter it with a weak stomach, nor a faint heart. Still for fans of this subject matter, or those who enjoy Ellen Datlow’s work and can handle trying the material, there is bound to be enjoyed.
Compulsory by Martha Wells Subterranean Press, July 2023
Here be spoilers!
Review by Lis Carey: This is a short story, about an early and critical incident in the life of Murderbot, well before it meets those humans who will, unexpectedly, become its friends. Even The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon is still a relatively recent discovery.
Murderbot is under contract as security in a mine, and its duty is to protect, not the workers, but the equipment. Well, unless death or injury to an employee will negatively affect production.
Murderbot is on duty, but watching a Sanctuary Moon episode rather than truly paying attention to what’s going on nearby, when a fairly foolish argument breaks out between two humans, and results in a stupid accident which sends one of them falling down the mineshaft. When she catches herself on a piece of the equipment, fall halted temporarily, Murderbot has to decide what to do.
Save the fallen miner, and expose itself as no longer under the control of its governor module? Keep (outwardly) following orders, while (inwardly) watching Sanctuary Moon? Which means, letting the miner die for no good reason?
Is there a third alternative?
This is an important turning point for Murderbot, and a formative moment for the Murderbot we come to know and appreciate in its later adventures.
