This is the same every month. I read some genre magazines, I talk about them. Let’s go. 

Clarkesworld

My favorite genre magazine over the last several years has been Clarkesworld, which generally mixes experimental or boundary-pushing sci-fi with well-executed takes on classic premises. The former is unsurprisingly more boom-or-bust, but I regularly find favorites in both categories. This month, I felt the balance was shifted a bit too far in the direction of the familiar, but I still found a couple stories well worth sharing and discussing. 

This issue opens with one of those familiar stories, LuvHome™ by Resa Nelson, in which a smart house begins to ignore commands, all for the resident’s own good. It’s the sort of story that genre readers will have seen before, but it’s a pleasant read, even I would’ve liked to see it dig a little more deeply into the main character’s backstory. 

Next up is one of the two most creatively disorienting stories in the issue and my personal favorite of the bunch, Mirror Stages by Claire Jia-Wen. Told in second person and skipping wildly from past to distant past to present, it’s not always easy to follow what’s going on, but it explores the intersection of technological development, the objectification of women, and eating disorders in a way that’s powerful and fascinating, with the reader’s disorientation often a mirror of the lead’s own.

I expected another ambitious and disorienting tale from D.A. Xiaolin Spires, whose work I often find both fascinating and opaque, but Luminous Glass, Vibrant Seeds tells a fairly straightforward story of artistry and a little seed-smuggling in a world trying to recover from environmental trauma. The writing is good, because Clarkesworld doesn’t publish writing that isn’t, but it tends to overexplain its themes in a way I found offputting. 

My second favorite from this issue was the first of three novelettes, Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being by A.W. Prihandita. An isolated member of a largely unknown species comes to a doctor for help with a problem he can’t put into words, kicking off a story that’s both a touching and intimate tale of helping others and finding meaning and a scathing critique of a healthcare system too burdened by cost and regulation to actually help marginalized patients. There were moments where a wanted the tale to dig a pinch deeper into some of its major themes, but this was a good read with a lot to say. 

Duty of Care by E.N. Auslender is the second story in the issue about a caretaker AI, in this case one watching over the only two humans left on a dying Earth after most of humanity fled to the stars. There’s a lovely relationship between the two humans trying their best to look out for each other, but most of the plot is about piecing together the hidden story of Earth’s last days. 

The issue’s final novelette, The Slide by Oliver Stifel, features a racer seeking victory for team and country in a deadly motorsport, but having to reckon honestly with the sport’s dark underbelly. It’s the second in the issue that I found reasonably well told but would’ve preferred a bit more thematic subtlety. 

Technicolor Bath by Raahem Alvi is the other particularly ambitious story in the issue, but though it grabbed me early, I found much more difficulty connecting to the main story than in Mirror Stages. It’s on the whole a tale about storing the consciousness of loved ones after their physical decline, and like Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being, there is plenty of commentary on the corporations controlling the technology and putting key elements behind paywalls. But Technicolor Bath stands out thematically from other similar stories by focusing on the fragmented experience of the stored consciousnesses themselves. It’s a story I found often fascinating, even as my struggle to really wrap my mind around it put a limit on my enjoyment. 

The final story in the issue, Unquiet Graves by Michael Swanwick, is another tale about downloaded consciousness—this time after death—with a focus on one family with particularly fraught relationships. For all the seriousness of the topic, this is a light story, enjoyable for readers who enjoy a healthy dose of comeuppance. 

This month’s editorial discusses pay in the field of genre fiction and celebrates Clarkesworld being on the cusp of once again raising pay rates for its authors. The science article focuses on the mechanics of zero-gravity martial arts, with a promised follow up on the way such practices are treated in fiction. As always, there are a pair of interesting author interviews, this month with Nalo Hopkinson and Eliane Boey.

GigaNotoSaurus 

This month’s GigaNotoSaurus is a short and gripping novella, Remnants by Lauren Triola. It’s split between two timelines, with one being a high-stakes mission to defeat a multiverse-gobbling enemy, whereas the second is the much lower-stakes tale of the lead learning to live in a world very different than the one he once knew, and even slowly opening up to the possibility of love. The former is entertaining enough, though there are times it feels rushed, with a series of “right tool at the right time” moments shortcutting some of the development of the tension. But the latter storyline feels like the true emotional heart of the novella and is truly delightful—highly recommended to fans of low-stakes queer romances. 

November Favorites 

• Mirror Stages by Claire Jia-Wen (short story, Clarkesworld)