Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, September-October 2023

by Sheila Williams (Editor), Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Whitlock

September/October 2023. Check this out! Dean Whitlock ’s harrowing novelette about child labor is intense from start to finish. Kristine Kathryn Rusch has created an equally intense novella about “The Break-in” that doesn’t go quite as planned. You won’t want to miss either of these thrilling tales!

Our annual “Slightly Spooky” issue is packed with spooky stories, some of which are even hard SF! Lavie Tidhar reveals that there’s more than one kind of haunt in “The Ghost Fair”; Anya Johanna DeNiro gives us centuries of encounters with the “Water-Wolf”; in “The Pit of Babel,” Kofi Nyameye proves that humanity will clearly stop at nothing; Christopher Rowe lands “Cynthia in the Subflooring”; Lisa Goldstein plunges her character into an equally difficult situation “In the Fox House”; David Erik Nelson pens some dark “The Dead Letter Office”; Derek Künsken discloses “Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel”; Gregory Feeley dives into the perils of “The Unpastured Sea”; and Michèle Laframboise explains the “Tears Down the Wall.”

Robert Silverberg ’s Reflections brings us “Advertisements for Myself, Again”; in On the Net, James Patrick Kelly explains “My Interview With ChatGPT”; Norman Spinrad ’s On Books considers “Science Fiction Arising”; Kelly Lagor ’s Thought Experiment contemplates “Aliens, Outsiders, and Things.”

NOVELLA
The Break-In by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
NOVELETTES
Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock
The Unpastured Sea by Gregory Feeley
Tears Down the Wall by Michèle Laframboise
The Water-Wolf by Anya Johanna DeNiro
The Dead Letter Office by David Erik Nelson

SHORT STORIES
The Ghost Fair by Lavie Tidhar
The Pit of Babel by Kofi Nyameye
In the Fox’s House by Lisa Goldstein
Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel by Derek Künsken

POETRY
Sphinx by Mary Soon Lee
Highrise by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Olympia by Ursula Whitcher
When the Mirror Shows Frankenstein’s Monster by Ali Trotta
Fragrances of the Night-blooming Space Garden by Katherine Quevedo
What Remains by Terri Yannetti

DEPARTMENTS
Editorial: Thirty-Seventh Annual Readers’ Awards’ Results by Sheila Williams
Reflections: Advertisements for Myself, Again by Robert Silverberg
On the Net: An Interview with ChatGPT by James Patrick Kelly
Thought Experiment: Aliens, Outsiders, and Things by Kelly Lagor
On Books by Norman Spinrad
Next Issue
The SF Conventional Calendar by Erwin S. Strauss

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Novella, Science Fiction Fantasy

212 pages, Single Issue Magazine

First published November 1, 2023

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Sheila Williams is the editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine. She is also the recipient of the 2012 Hugo Award for Best Editor, Short Form.

Sheila grew up in a family of five in western Massachusetts. Her mother had a master's degree in microbiology. Ms. Williams’ interest in science fiction came from her father who read Edgar Rice Burroughs books to her as a child. Later Ms. Williams received a bachelor's degree from Elmira College in Elmira, New York, although she studied at the London School of Economics during her junior year. She received her Master's from Washington University in St. Louis. She is married to David Bruce and has two daughters.

She became interested in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine (as it was then titled) while studying philosophy at Washington University. In 1982 she was hired at the magazine, and worked with Isaac Asimov for ten years. While working there, she co-founded the Dell Magazines Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing (at one time called the Isaac Asimov Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy writing). In 2004, with the retirement of Gardner Dozois, she became the editor of the magazine.

Along with Gardner Dozois she also edited the "Isaac Asimov's" anthology series. She also co-edited A Woman's Liberation: A Choice of Futures by and About Women (2001) with Connie Willis. Most recently she has edited a retrospective anthology of fiction published by Asimov's: Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: 30th Anniversary Anthology. Booklist called the book "A gem, and a credit to editor Williams."
She has been nominated for 4 Hugo Awards as editor of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.

See also Sheila Williams's entry in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

Reviews

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications)]

June 2025

Read “Embot’s Lament”by James Patrick Kelly, the science fiction is perhaps a time travelling historian living inside the mind of a random modern person, a battered wife looking to escape her husband. And it is good to very good, the writing and pace and the ending. Not a "large scale" story, but a good one.

March 2024 --

So far, of this issue I have only read Berb by Berb by Ray Nayler from the 2023 Readers' Award finalists page (I did save a couple other stories and will probably get to them sooner, or more likely, later).

Short story, a Mojave desert set story, where world history diverged after 1938 and there was a rather different kind of Manhattan project, which the (outsider) desert residents are still processing. Ray Nayler is very very skilled at writing short fiction (I can not judge his form at longer fiction but just because I have not read his longer fiction yet), the character definition (by what they say, what they observe) is glorious, the world so vivid and rich in details. But the story feels a bit short, a bit vignette-like and even if I have not yet read many of his short stories, this is not one of my favourites of his.

Incidentally, please help, english is not my native language and I often do not get phonetic puns or things which would be obvious, which word is "berb" supposedly meant to be a mispronunciation for?

“Looked like a li’l berb,” one of the troops said, half dead from exhaustion, the word shifting in his parched southern mouth. The mispronunciation became the name.

Edit - thanks to Rose below, Berb probably comes from bird, and the title a reference to "bird by bird" which makes perfect sense and adds to the structure of the story...

And an extra quote because it is glorious and I guess lots of us will recognize it


I watch it come, finishing my coffee. This is my pre-breakfast cup. I call it my “stabilizer.” Before the first sip, there’s no telling what you might get in response if you spoke to me. But by the end of the cup, I’ve become predictable. You can confidently greet me without having me just walk away, or suggest how you might otherwise engage your orifices.

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the November-December 2023 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction. The first half has good stories, the second – not so much.
Contents:
Celebrations 2023! [Asimov's Editorials] essay by Sheila Williams report on the awarding best works from 2022 with photos. 2*
Homo Superior—Us? [Reflections] essay by Robert Silverberg what we know about Neandertals and how they were represented in fiction. 3*
Chatty [On the Net] essay by James Patrick Kelly musings about ChatGPT and analogs, what they can and cannot do. 3*
Ahead of the Market poem by Ken Poyner
The Ghosts of Mars [Mars (Dominica Phetteplace)] novella by Dominica Phetteplace a teenage disabled girl is the only living person remaining on Mars. Around 20 years ago a colony was founded, her parents gene-moded her to better withstand Mars conditions, incl. radiation. However, supposedly Mars lower gravity led to severe deformities: The low gravity on Mars combined with my various bone deformities had stunted my growth. I was four feet tall on a good day, on a day when I could stand all the way up. I was shorter in my walker and even shorter in my wheelchair. Some people think I am intellectually disabled as well. There was one-in-a-century solar flesh, which led to all colony but her getting cancers, so they are on their way to Earth (there is a treatment). The colony is a failure, so it ought to be constantly repaired. Most bots get AI for auto-repair. However they start to act strangely and there are happenings like self-boiling tea, which suggests ghosts… a nice story. 4*
Voyager 1 Prepares to Meet a Stranger poem by Daniel A. Rabuzzi
Embot's Lament short story by James Patrick Kelly Embot is a time traveling robot that stays invisible and records lives of ordinary people in his past (our present). This time he follows a woman, who for a first time decided to run away from her abusive boyfriend. However, he kept her segregated from the world and she doesn’t know what to do. Should Embot interfere? Not a lot of SF but good 3.5*
Berb by Berb short story by Ray Nayler set in the author’s alt-history, where flying saucer crashed in the US in 1938 and the tech allowed to be victorious against Berlin Tokyo and Moscow. Now there are 1950s, and some people including the protagonist settled in Arizona desert. Here strange alien creature called Berbs are running around, possibly animals, possible evolving machines… 3.5*
The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot novelette by John Alfred Taylor (the author is 91 years old!) a guy meets a girl Judith in 1939 Futurama (a set showing future 1960) at the New York World's Fair. He accidentally looks in her booklet to see there moving pictures of hydroplane. Years later he finds that it was an unrealized design from 1932 that had to be constructed in 1940… years later, in 1965 he meets her again. 3.5*
Neptune's Acres short story by Robert R. Chase environmental problems led to creation of ocean mansions, and there is a meeting of potential investors on one such when the storm hits. 2.5*
Meet-Your-Hero short story by Prashanth Srivatsa in this India you can buy a lottery ticket where the main praise is a virtual meeting with a local movie superstar in his mansion. A poor boy uses last money for a ticket and wins. However, while he adores the actor, the info he gives to the star leads to his expulsion. 3*
Your Clone Could Use a Reboot poem by Robert Frazier
Death of the Hind [The Hind] novella by Kevin J. Anderson and Rick Wilber a generation ship finally reached a habitable planet. The problem is that the planet is barely habitable, while ship simply falls apart. One group says that reports of ship failures are fakes and to land is to die, other goes with the landing. 3*
The Four Last Things short story by Christopher Rowe too weird. 2*
The Disgrace of the Commodore short story by Marguerite Sheffer, the ghost of a ship captain and remains of his sailing ship used and re-used. 2.5*
Oratorio poem by Joshua Cage
In the Days After ... short story by Frank Ward a world, where as we find in a mid-story, some people accidentally turned unaging. And this can be a problem. 3*
Blade and Bone novella by Paul J. McAuley far future Mars meets Western. An old soldier joins a company that is hired by an off-worlder to follow local Indians, who looted body parts and a blade from a tomb. A nice stylization but SF as a background. 2.5*
On Books (Asimov's, November-December 2023) [On Books] essay by Kelly Jennings In the Heart of Hidden Things maybe interesting

[Michael Frasca · Rating 4 out of 5]

An average issue. Here are my favorite stories:

The Ghosts of Mars by Dominica Phetteplace
The Mars base is abandoned, but a teen who wouldn’t survive the journey back is left behind to deal with the gremlins, ghosts, or…?

Embot’s Lament by James Patrick Kelly
When in the field, anthropologists have to guard against ‘going native.’ This can be especially difficult for a time-traveling empathy robot.


Berb By Berb by Ray Nayler
In the 1930’s, a crashed flying saucer gives the US a leg up on the rest of the world.
An allegory for the Manhattan Project and its unintended consequences, and taking responsibility for one’s actions.


The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot by John Alfred Taylor

Two World’s Fairs, an enigmatic Louis Simpson quote, and an answer to a 25 year old mystery…all wrapped up in futuristic industrial design. What more do you need in a short story?


Neptune Acres by Robert R. Chase
An seemly clever solution to seashore living in the time of climate change.
A by-invitation-only open floating-house showing held during a nor’easter.
What could go wrong?
Remember, there is no such thing as bad publicity!

Meet-Your-Hero by Prashanth Srivatsa
A boy scraps together just enough rupees each week to buy a chance to meet his movie idol for reasons that are not at first apparent.

The Four Last Things by Christopher Rowe
Life/death is a binary, but there is also an in-between. Four disparate eschatonauts and their intrepid metaphorical mule travel to that unknown realm.

The Disgrace of the Commodore by Marguerite Sheffer
They can take away and dismantle your life’s work, but your children and their children’s children will always remain after your shame is long forgotten. 

In the Days After by Frank Ward
A strange disaster strikes 1 in 100, affecting each in the same and yet different way.
50 years later…

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review (for now) is just for “Blade And Bone” by Paul McAuley, a novella set on a partially-terraformed Mars after The Quiet War. It's pretty good, plus there's a temporary free copy available from Asimov's at https://www.asimovs.com/about-asimovs...

The story, aside from the Quiet War echoes, reminds me of McAuley's Jackaroo worlds. So if you like either (or both) of those series, you might want to try this one. It's kind of a downer story and ends on a cliffhanger -- but it's well-written and has lots of colorful McAuley goodness. Cautiously recommended to McAuley fans. Here's the author's preview remarks: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

Typically these Asimov award-nominee temps stay up for a few months & then vanish. I'll be trying some of the others. . .

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications)]

Of this issue, I have only read, so far, The Pit of Babel by Kofi Nyameye which is available as a pdf on the 2023 Readers’ Award Finalists.

It starts great, a tale of the fight between Satan and humanity told bible style (I am not totally sure about grammar of "diggeth" but I mean that literally, I do not know), and fairy tale style with annotations afterwards. It is fun and short, but for me it did not stick the landing, I was expecting more, a lot more, twists from the annotations, an idea or concept (not sure which, but some...) which was not there. Still, it was interesting..

[Oleksandr Zholud · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the September-October 2023 "Special Slightly Spooky Issue" of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. there are several interesting pieces, but otherwise, it is an average issue.

Contents:
Thirty-Seventh Annual Reader's Awards' Results [Asimov's Editorials] essay by Sheila Williams last year’s best pieces plus comments of the readers. On quite a few I chose other works…
Advertisements for Myself, Again [Reflections] essay by Robert Silverberg other SF authors like Asimov actively promoted themselves (the latter published three! Autobiographies) so Silverberg tries to emulate the best. 3*
An Interview with ChatGPT (12/18/2022) [On the Net] essay by James Patrick Kelly a real interview with minor edits, the AI even wrote a short SF story that has sense. 3.5*
Sphinx poem by Mary Soon Lee
Aliens, Outsiders, and Things [Thought Experiments] essay by Kelly Lagor about several movies based on Campbell’s Thing and aliens in the pop-culture. 3*
Highrise poem by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Deep Blue Jump novelette by Dean Whitlock a near future, in the southern US, there is a new potent drug - Dreamberry ... It was a hybrid, an odd mix, as though wild blueberry and Afghan poppy had been grafted onto a Kiwi vine, the product of a subtropical Mendel, perhaps, abetted by an Amsterdam chemist. More likely it was a complicated accident of fruit miscegenation, melded for a generation or two in the crucible of climate change. It grew in only two places, about ten miles apart, both of them high desert canyons. So it grows on vines in canyons and cartels kidnap kids to collect the berries, for kids are light enough and if they fall, who cares. Kim is the girl of thirteen and she is n charge of a team of child laborers who pick dreamberries. She picks the weakest and helps them survive: here she picks the youngest, a six-year-old girl named Po. There are two rules: never eat what you gather (watchers will shoot you, no warnings) and don’t reach puberty (girls then are taken to other illegal businesses). When Kim’s body breaks the second rule, she should find a way out. 4*
Olympia poem by Ursula Whitcher
The Ghost Fair [Geshem and Mili] novelette by Lavie Tidhar a future where physical coins’ value depends on the virtual currency from the virtual world, where uploaded dead live after death. There are Geshem, a First Human and an ex-Jovean Spetsnaz Mili. Geshem is asked to guide a reach guy from the Moon to the ghost fair in First Human's territory. 3*
When the Mirror Shows Frankenstein's Monster poem by Ali Trotta
The Unpastured Sea [Neptune's Reach] novelette by Gregory Feeley an excerpt from a novel, a story within story, getting to the station far away, hard SF but not too engaging. 2*
The Pit of Babel short story by Kofi Nyameye a sacred text about a Babel tower in reverse and Devil's attempts to stop invasion to his lands. Quite unusual. 3.5*
Tears Down the Wall novelette by Michèle Laframboise a near future US, some people don’t want to pay rent and live in tents attached to the sides of buildings. The buildings’ owners don’t like it and protect their constructions with spikes and the like. Readers follow a police detective Zach is investigating the death of a social activist whose tent fell from one of the buildings. The investigation with clues and the detective’s life in danger. I prefer it to this year Hugo nominee The Mimicking of Known Successes as a detective SF story. 4*
The Water-Wolf novelette by Alan DeNiro a weird fantasy of multiple transitions: in space, time, societies and gender. Too much dreamlike to follow it. 2*
In the Fox's House short story by Lisa Goldstein Camille wants to leave her ex-husband in whose house she leaves. He is about to return with his new wife. Once she sees two little foxes and follows them to meet a fox clothed as a human and talking. He suggests that she lives in his house, but she is afraid to be even more constrained than in the house she left. 2.5*
The Dead Letter Office novelette by David Erik Nelson a horror story. Patrice is working at a post office after leaving her old life. Her ex-boyfriend destroyed her life by posting a private video with her. Later he died in a car accident. Now she is interested what to do with letters to Santa (or Satan), told to send them to destruction, but does something else. 3*
Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel short story by Derek Künsken part meta-story, part parody. Six tales of alien species that encourage other species to develop time travel from a trantus worm is a behavior-altering parasite that infects many intelligent species of the Galaxy. Hard-wired into their extremely large genomes is information on how to build time travel devices. to insectoids who procreate with own descendants (who survived and thus evolutionary fit). 4*
Fragrances of the Night-Blooming Space Garden poem by Katherine Quevedo
The Break-In [Diving Universe] novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch The whole series doesn’t work for me, so I skipped it.
What Remains poem by Terri Yannetti
On Books: SF Arising (Asimov's, September-October 2023) [On Books] essay by Norman Spinrad he muses how now “science fiction” has come to be used as the moniker of any fiction that speculates around the nonexistent but possible and does not violate the known scientific laws of mass and energy. Reviews books on the margin, namely The City We Became, Noor and Sweep of Stars

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

4+ stars just for Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock
Lately, near-future end-stage-capitalist hellscapes are not so much my thing, but I loved this story and it caught me right in the feels. Heard on the Asimov's Science Fiction podcast, read by the author. Excellent

[Kaiju Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overview: A knockout novella by Paul McAuley and very good story by Robert Chase make this a better than average issue. While there were several stories that didn't work for me, I appreciate the efforts here to take some risks and provide a significant array of very different stories. That said, the poorly written/plotted and totally derivative Death of the Hind, despite its ease of entry and space-opera feel and famous/respected authors I'd personally have not included (despite it being a sequel to a previous published story). 3.25 stars for the issue.

Novellas:

The Ghosts of Mars by Dominica Phetteplace – This longish and sometimes repetitive first-person narrative gets away with some of its faults by attributing them to the narrator, who is a 16-year-old girl alone on Mars that confesses she tends to ramble. The plot contains a lot of telling as almost all of it happens off screen, but the concern here is really for this girl, Paz. I was engaged and enjoyed the story even when it got sort of ridiculous and tossed up a bunch of unexplained and unexplainable content. 3.5 stars. (Side Note: the Prequel Story Candida Eve, published in Analog, doesn’t have to be read prior to this one. That tale covers Pax’s mother’s arrival/adventure on Mars and both are completely self-contained).

Death of the Hind by Kevin J. Anderson & Rick Wilbur – An even clunkier sequel to the clunky “Hind”, the Death of the Hind has lackluster plotting, lots of pointless minutia, cardboard characters, and downright illogical behaviors. A group of barely disguised truth deniers (who all but take up ‘fake news’ as a rallying cry) refuse to leave the dying ship and even stoop to assassination, despite it making absolutely no sense at all. Then, Anderson and Wilbur just totally drop it. Ditto the hell spouting/showing A.I. Bruce (who wasn’t in the previous story). The whole thing ends anticlimactically and at 36 pages, this stinker brings down the issue considerably. 1.75 stars.

Blade and Bone by Paul McAuley – Really enjoyed this longish novella. The plot itself isn’t really anything Earth-shattering (or Mars-shattering as the case may be) but the character development and world building are stellar. As with most McAuley, it took me several pages to find the rhythm, after which I felt I had to start the piece over, but I’m really glad I did. While I’ve been reading McAuley shorts for decades now, I haven’t read a longer work since the Confluence Trilogy (which I also really liked). Clearly, it’s time to change that, as this novella is related to his Quiet War series. I’ll be taking a look at that soon. 4.5 stars.

Novelette:

The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot by John Alfred Taylor – A harmless mostly by the numbers story that failed to wow me but also failed to frustrate me, not sure why. Probably it was Isaac Shulman’s voice. I just liked the character. Too bad his brush with time travel didn’t have more oomph to it. 3 stars.

Short Stories:

Embot’s Lament by James Patrick Kelly – I like JPK’s writing style and the agency theme of this short story. Jane’s escape from abuse is an all-too-common real-life story with not so happy endings. I’m glad that here, with Embot’s help, she’s likely to fair better than many. 3 stars.

Berb by Berb by Ray Nayler – This felt like a summary of a section in a much bigger story. I love the premise and allusions. Nayler does an excellent job in a very few words creating a fascinating alternat history that I'd very much like to know more about. And yet, this is just a little too thin. Piqued. Not satisfied. 3 stars.

Neptune Acres by Robert R. Chase – While this one lacks any real payoff, it still serves as highly readable and entertaining. I’d have loved a few more pages with a bit more plot to go with the fantastic setting. Nonetheless, the setting and the characters are strong enough to make this work. 3.75 stars.

Meet-Your-Hero by Prashanth Srivatsa – Srivatsa fleshes out his setting and characters quickly and adequately while delivering a short and overly one-note tale. Science fiction plays an extremely minor and debatably unnecessary role here. Anything longer would’ve become tedious without more going on. 2.5 stars.

The Four Last Things by Christopher Rowe – Swing and a miss. I love a cryptic puzzle story as much as the next guy, but this one just didn’t work. No characters to hold on to, and other than a few descriptions, I found this boring beyond belief. 1 star.

The Disgrace of the Commodore by Marguerite Sheffer – A well written mini though unspectacular. A story about a commodore in purgatory read a little too much like being in purgatory. 2 stars.

In the Days After by Frank Ward – I didn’t feel this one was all that well thought out. An interesting premise but poorly handled, and only a snippet. 2 stars.

Poetry:

Ahead of the Market by Ken Poyner – Amusing but succinct. A few clever prose sentences on extraterrestrial gems broken out into blank verse. A solid 90% (or higher) of the poetry in Asimov’s doesn’t strike me as actual poetry. This is a perfect example.

Voyager 1 Prepares to Meet a Stranger by Danile A. Rabuzzi – I liked Elizabeth Howell’s prefatory quote more than the ‘poem’.

Your Clone Line Could Use a Reboot by Robert Frazier – a fine view of a degrading clone. 3 stars.

Oratorio by Joshua Gage – A cute prose narrative ‘poem’. 2 stars.


Departments:

Reflections: Homo Superior – Us? By Robert Silverberg – This is a kind of what we knew back when and what we know now take on the maligned Neanderthal. Despite my love for Silverberg, and this column, I have to say that this article’s conclusions, based primarily on the research by Anneline Pinson, I found highly debatable. While the conclusions may be entirely accurate, I don’t feel like what’s written here has come remotely close to evidencing that. Sure, something led to our scoring the evolutionary touchdown over Neanderthal, but was it TKTL1? I doubt it. I don’t feel one can simply identify genetic differences and attribute a species success based only on those differences. For example: a plague could have wiped out Neanderthal. Last I checked, millions of species without TKTL1 have survived and are with us today. There’s more to this story than just genetics. Like random chance. Let’s rewind time and find out.

On the Net: Chatty by James Patrick Kelly – Part 2 of ChatGPT. Unless readers are actually digging in to the links provided here (which I never do), there isn’t much on offer that all of us don’t already know.

On Books by Kelly Jennings – Seven books by seven women reviewed, all glowingly positive, several of which I’d really like to read. The reviews consist mostly of plot and character description, much of it very detailed. Personally, I like reviews to give a brief overview of the plot, then describe what about the novel works or doesn’t work, themes, who it’s for, etc. I don’t need a summary of the whole book. These read like detailed jacket copy. As I can’t remember the last time I read seven flawless books in a row, I’m always a little suspicious of glowing reviews. All that said, this is an acceptable review column. I do like the details provided for de Bodard’s Xuya series and Bujold’s Penric stories. That info helps readers make smart choices. (As an aside, I really liked the Curse of Chalion by Bujold, so appreciated this review for Penric’s Labors pointing me back in that direction. As for de Bodard, I’ve read many of her shorts and novellas in this magazine, most of which I’ve struggled with but have always felt that I was missing something magical happening, so I appreciated this review as well.)

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was another middling issue for September/October 2023 of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. It featured stories from Lavie Tidhar, Derek Kunsken, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and others. This issue had one novella, five novelettes, and four short stories. The issue started off with a few good stories, and then the rest were very forgettable or outright bad. It seems that Asimov’s just can’t get a full issue's worth of good stories, about half are always bad to terrible. This issue, in particular, had a few fantasy stories rather than science fiction, which was unexpected. The worst part was that the stories were awful. Rusch’s novella was a big part of this issue, and it was the last story in the magazine. By the time I got to it, I was so burned out by the poor quality of the preceding stories, that I DNF'd it early on. Maybe it would have been a decent story, but it didn’t pull me in at the beginning and so I set it aside.

I did manage to get a couple of really good stories out of this issue and will highlight those below:

5 ⭐ - Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock tells the story of a dystopian society where children are forced to pick narcotic Dreamberries from a giant plant system of vines. Shooters in towers watch the pickers and shoot them if they try to eat the berries. The berries are worth more than the lives of the children. Some children jump through the vines to the canyon below to end their lives.

5 ⭐ - The Unpastured Sea by Gregory Feeley is a hard science fiction story telling the tale of Tokunbo, who goes on a dangerous and thrilling mission into the atmosphere of Neptune. Tokunbo discovers some very interesting natural processes within the thick atmosphere and makes history.

4 ⭐ - Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel by Derek Kunsken is a fun little story giving a brief summary of six separate occasions where life has evolved some method of traveling through time.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good issue. My favorite stories were:

Novelette:
Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock
The Dead Letter Office by David Erik Nelson

Short Stories:
The Pit of Babel by Kofi Nyameye

I also enjoyed:

Novelette:
The Unpastured Sea by Gregory Feeley
Tears Down the Wall by Michele Laframboise
The Water-Wolf by Anya Johanna DeNiro

Short Stories:
The Ghost Fair by Lavie Tidhar
In the Fox's House by Lisa Goldstein

Unfortunately, I DNF'd The Break-In by Kristine Kathryn Rusch even though I love her work.

[Mark Catalfano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked "Deep Blue Jump" by Dean Whitlock

[Kaiju Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Asimov’s September/October 2023

A few solid stories rescue an otherwise weaker, less than ‘slightly’ spooky, issue. That said, Kelly Lagor’s Thought Experiment on the Thing is both excellent and spooky. Worth a purchase for that article, Kunsken’s recap, and The Pit of Babel.

Novella:

The Break-In by Kristine Kathryn Rusch – I normally like Rusch’s novella length tales, but this one felt too procedural. Too many characters with not enough time to really get to know them doing not much more than going through the motions of a break-in/stopping-break-in. Add to that the no-ending and it earns 2 stars.

Novelettes:

Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock – This is Dean’s first pro sale and it is quite good. I typically like my allegory tales to be clearly allegorical so as to skip the need for a lot of world building, but Dean somehow has his berries and eats them too here. The world building isn’t really done at a large enough scale to get an actual believable picture of what’s going on, but he does so well with the immediate setting and characters that it doesn’t matter. 3.5 stars.

The Unpastured Sea by Gregory Feeley – My first time to read Mr. Feeley, and I’m unimpressed. The first three quarters of the story drag severely and the writing is extremely clunky. Once the plot (that of exploring Neptune) gets going, it is interesting, but only for a few pages, upon which the story ends abruptly. The intro informs that this is a novel excerpt and it feels very much like a reverse fix-up. This does a disservice to what might be a better larger work. 1.75 stars.

Tears Down the Wall by Michele Laframboise – This story has an excellent setting and a decent premise, but Laframboise spends too much front-loaded time on the former and not enough prep on the latter. Ironically, I think a slower pace and some extra length might have made this a better story. As it stands, it’s a painfully slow read with a huge missed opportunity feel about it. I did enjoy it though. 2.75 stars.

The Water-Wolf by Anya Johanna DeNiro – While well-written with a potentially interesting subject matter, this story never brings its characters or setting to life. The style serves only to slow what little narrative there is to an absolute crawl. This read as almost paragraph by paragraph stream of consciousness thoughts. Perhaps a deep re-read would illuminate, but I simply didn’t enjoy my first pass enough to justify that and frankly I wish I had DNF’d at the 15 minute mark and given myself the gift of those last 30 minutes. 1 star.

The Dead Letter Office by David Erik Nelson – Great setup and character development devolves into what felt like an old Tales from the Darkside episode. Somehow, the story even conveys the budget of one of those old shows. The dead letter office itself felt very 80’s to me, though the subject matter and world is very modern day. 3 stars.

Short Stories:

The Ghost Fair by Lavie Tidhar – Tidhar absolutely nails a creepy setting and sketches out some interesting characters, but the core story, that of a ‘Parker’ searching for a long lost something (moon princess?) and a confrontation with a ‘Carter’ (or the ghost of a Carter) only to have it all end in a kind of matrix revolutions reset just didn’t work for me. 2 stars.

The Pit of Babel by Kofi Nyameye – Told in a biblical style and starring Lucifer in his best role since… Lucifer (the comic by Mike Carey). Nyameye gets right to the story and nails the delivery. 4 Stars. (Side note: this is only the second story I’ve read by Nyameye, the other being The Lights Go Out, One by One, in the March/April 2019 issue, which I also gave four stars. I don’t give out four stars often…)
In the Fox’s House by Lisa Goldstein – Fairy tales have huge narrative cottages in my mind, perhaps from having a large volume of Grimm when I was way too young to read and process them. I remember all of those stories as if they were events I experienced. Like memories. When I go back to them I’m always surprised at how many of them are only a page or two long, with few exceeding three or four pages. This modern fairy tale by Lisa Goldstein would have benefited using that ‘straight to the point’ structure. Otherwise, entertaining and informing. 3 stars.

Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel by Derek Kunsken – I may be wrong, as it has been a long while since I’ve read them, but this ‘story’ seems to reference several previous stories: Schools of Clay maybe, Pollen from a Future Harvest for sure, and again maybe Tachyon Hearts Cannot Love… and it doesn’t matter. This isn’t a story really, but it’s a great intro into why everyone should be reading Kunsken. Schools of Clay is a masterpiece of weird hard xeno-bio science fiction. Put on your thinking cap and dig that one up if you liked this one. 3.5 stars.
Poetry:

Sphinx by Mary Soon Lee - Enjoyable with a nice final image of an old man doing the night watch with the Sphinx. 3.5 stars.

Highrise by David C. Kopanska-Merkel – Modern and barely poetic take on Icarus falls flat. 1 star.

Olympia by Ursula Whitcher – Beautiful and evocative mix of memory and presence. “There are little dog-sharks in the water.”

When the Mirror Shows Frankenstein’s Monster by Ali Trotta – Good poem, unfortunate title. 3 stars.

Fragrances of the Night Blooming Space Garden by Katherine Quevedo – Well placed on the final page of Six Incidents. Like a bouquet, lovely but fleeting. 3 stars.

What Remains by Terri Yannetti – Some nice word pairings but otherwise sophomoric. Didn’t work for me. 1.5 stars.

Departments:

Reflections by Robert Silverberg – Silverberg continues to entertain. I’d seriously considering getting some of these omnibuses if I hadn’t read so many of them already.

On The Net by James Patrick Kelly - ChatGPT is interviewed: both comforting and creepy, though not all that illuminating.

Thought Experiment by Kelly Lagor – Deep dive into the history of ‘The Thing.’ Excellent article.

On Books by Norman Spinrad – This article is half book review half opinion piece. Spinrad doesn’t spend enough time on the books (almost nothing on The City We Became) to get a good sense of whether I’d like them or not, but I prefer that to just summarizing the entire plot, which is what other reviewers tend to do (Peter Heck). The opinion piece side of it is certainly an interesting topic, but one I don’t feel warrants the perspective of an octogenarian white male. That said, I approve of this selection of diverse writers and only wish I knew more about the books being 'reviewed'.

[Denise Barney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just catching up on my monthly Asimov's.

Minor quibble: I'm somewhat disappointed that the cover art is by Shutterstock. I really enjoy seeing a visual artist's interpretation of one of the stories in the magazine. The use of stock images seems to becoming more prevalent.

Lots of poetry in this issue! Note to @Sheila_Williams: you may want to consider an anthology of sf poetry. I would buy a copy to revisit some of the wonderful poems Asimov's has published over the years, especially that of Robert Frazier and Jane Yolen. In this issue I especially enjoyed "Voyager I Prepares to Meet a Stranger," by Daniel A. Rabuzzi.

As for the stories, the novelette "The Open Road Leads to the Used Car Lot" by John Alfred Taylor is an intriguing look at time travel, the 1939 World's Fair, and a mysterious woman told from the perspective of the man left behind. The title alone intrigued me (reminiscent of Carole King, maybe?) and the story moving.

"The Ghosts of Mars" and "Blade and Bone" both take place on Mars. "The Ghosts of Mars" takes place in the near future; "Blade and Bone" on a terraformed Mars where humans have been augmented and are traveling the Solar System and beyond.

There are several short stories, including one by James Patrick Kelly, as well as the usual columns. I enjoyed Robert Silverberg's column, "Homo Superior--Us?" which discusses recent rethinking about the intellectual capabilities of Neanderthals. Apparently they were not hulking brutes as previously thought. Only a small difference, a gene known as TKTL1, which controls the development of neurons in the brain's frontal lobe. Fascinating stuff!

[Ken Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Ghosts of Mars" - Dominica Phetteplace

Evocative planetary exploration, First Contact novella. Nicely paced and rewarding.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorites were:

"The Ghosts of Mars" (novella) by Dominica Phetteplace. Colonists left Mars to get cancer treatments back on Earth, but teenage girl is left behind because her genetic mods make her impervious to cancer but unable to survive Earth's gravity.

"Neptune Acres" by Robert R. Chase. Human attempts to tame the ocean and build expensive property near (or in!) the waves are doomed, but that will never stop real-estate tycoons! Would you risk your life to save a dolphin? (I'd like to think I would but I haven't been tested.)

"The Death of the Hind" by Kevin J. Anderson and Rick Wilber. The title made me think of Hind Rajab :-( but that tragedy hadn't happened yet when this story was published. Rapidly failing generation ship with rogue AI finally reaches Goldilocks zone planet, but the planet seems very inhospitable. Boy with Down Syndrome torn between family members with opposing views.

"The Disgrace of the Commodore" by Marguerite Sheffer. Too peaceable to be command a sloop, the commodore who was struck off the navy list is in purgatory, in the hold of his own former ship.

"In the Days After" by Frank Ward.
50 years ago, a strange disaster stuck a few people at whatever age they were at the time. Shunned for being "immortal," a woman pays an official visit to a family with even more unusual circumstances.

"Blade and Bone" by Paul McAuley. Battles on Mars; ancient artifacts have a mind of their own.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a rare theta radiation event from the Sun which caused most of the Martian settlers to get cancer, Paz remains behind despite urgings from Earth. She was biofitted for Mars and did not get cancer. After a while some robots go rogue and appear to be doing unprogrammed things and she attributes it to “The Ghosts Of Mars”, programming glitches from beyond the grave. But a more plausible but surprising cause has been found in Dominica Phetteplace’s novella. Jane is struggling to leave her violently abusive husband and is wavering in her resolve when a firm Uber driver and an Embot encamped in her brain swing things for her in “Embot’s Lament” by James Patrick Kelly, and Ray Nayler gives us a mesmerising peek into an alternate Earth where tech from a downed saucer in 1939 both swung the war for the Allies and created enormous problems in “Berb By Berb”. John Alfred Taylor takes us back to the World’s Fair of 1939 where a chance meeting with the inscrutable Judith leads to revelations from the far future for Isaac in “The Open Road Leads To The Used Car Lot”. After almost a century of travel the Hind, a generation ship, has reached Goldilocks, their destination. But a malfunctioning ship AI and dangerously delusional colonists threaten the orderly descent to the surface in “The Death Of The Hind” by Kevin J. Anderson & Rick Wilber. A memorable tale. Lev is tasked with finding some relics belonging to an ancient female warrior on terraformed Mars but competing interests complicate matters in “Blade And Bone” by Paul McAuley, a novella set after The Quiet War.

[Lee Pfahler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read the novella "The Death of the Hind" by Kevin Anderson and Rick Wilber. It was very good; tightly written with very few extraneous words which begs the question, why can't Anderson write this way for his novels?

[Mark Catalfano · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked "The Ghosts of Mars" by Dominica Phetteplace. Ironic, no?

[Jeff J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the strongest issue but I always find some stories to be worthwhile reads.

[Michael Frasca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here are my favorite stories of this issue:

- The Break-In by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Raiders try to secure high-tech weaponry being auctioned off as relics and objects of art. Set in the Diving universe and a sequel to The Death Hole Bunker with a big TO-BE-CONTINUED at the end.


- Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock
Kids are often used to produce wealth for the rich and powerful because their small size and helplessness are quite useful in certain situations. Is there only the one ultimate escape from slavery and abuse?



- The Unpastured Sea by Gregory Feeley
Exploring Neptune’s depths.
Plant the flag. 
And don’t worry because we will bring you back safely.
Guaranteed!


- Tears Down the Wall by Michèle Laframboise
The rent is too damn high!

-- Jimmy McMillan
In a world controlled by rentiers, the city is a great place to work and play…if you can afford a flat. Sleeping in a tent on the side of a high rise is affordable, but accidents—and murder—can happen.


- The Dead Letter Office by David Erik Nelson
doxxed sorter woman
frosty dim lit boiler room
a gift from Satan
A disturbingly creepy story of defilement, retribution and closure.


- The Ghost Fair by Lavie Tidhar
Down to the stones where old ghosts play.
-- I. S. Anderson
Old ghosts and old feuds on an old earth; one of the first folk gives a fresh perspective on things.


- The Pit of Babel by Kofi Nyameye
So they gathered their strength and their Engines and in common purpose began to dig; and the name of the project was Babel.
-- Book of Amrainaiyeh 25:5
Going down worked out so much better than going up.


- In the Fox’s House by Lisa Goldstein
Same situation, but different species; a woman finds herself facing a very familiar decision. Will she have the opportunity to realize it in time to make a better choice?


- Six Incidents of Evolution Using Time Travel by Derek Künsken
The author makes a convincing argument that evolutionary pressures may—indeed, must!— lead to time travel being used to adapt to environmental conditions.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Young children are sold into farmwork slavery picking the lucrative dreamberries, narcotic fruit. When seven year-old Po arrives the 13yo lead picker Kim must show her the ropes, where the slightest infringement can incur death by shooting. Some of the pickers who break take the “Deep Blue Jump”, suicide into the deep vines but a shocking encounter by Kim casts doubt on the certainty of death in Dean Whitlock’s grim tale. Tokunbo has been living on an orbital around Neptune when he is chosen for a mission to enter the top of the giant planet’s atmosphere. While drilled in emergency procedures he is not prepared for the impact of an organic object during descent nor the discovery of objects floating in the atmosphere in “The Unpastured Sea” by Gregory Feeley. In a world where the transients live in tents attached to the walls of high-rise buildings the mangled body of an activist has been found at the base of a building apparently after an accidental fall. Policeman Zach however, suspects foul play but something even more unsavoury is at play in “Tears Down The Wall” by Michele Laframboise. David Erik Nelson gives us a seasonally appropriate horror tale with “Dead Letter Office”, where a young Postal Service worker is intrigued by letters addressed to ‘Satan’ and “Sauta” etc. Her curiosity leads to an expiation of guilt and shame over an indiscretion with an ex that led to revenge porn and doxxing, and she decides to pay it forward. Excellent if distressing. When a cache of alien tech, thought to include weapons, is discovered, it is auctioned off and stored in a secret warehouse on Wyr. But advanced governments want it stolen or destroyed and launch a stealth brigade to Wyr. A curious security guard in the warehouse, Lebede, has noticed the unusual activity and so begins the siege and battle for the artifacts. Told from 3 viewpoints “The Break-In” is an exciting piece of space opera from Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Well worth a read!

[BookNerdTV · Rating 4 out of 5]

Deep Blue Jump by Dean Whitlock

Listened to the Asimov’ Science Fiction podcast version of this utter engrossing novelette!

From the first sentence I was grabbed by my lapels and pulled into this gritty, dystopian tale set in a corpo-capitalist state where human-trafficking and corrupt government literally enslave the least fortunate among us. Dystopian themes featuring corporate oligarchies, complicit governments and corrupt hierarchies are woven into a powerful narrative about choice, the power of love, and freedom.

To say more would spoil the story, so I will not…..other than read or listen to Deep Blue Jump!!!

A really good read!!!!!

[Dennis Lynch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once again, I am reminded that Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Along with Alan Steele) is one of my favorite authors!