Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 224, May 2025

by Neil Clarke (Editor), Angela Liu (Contributor), Rati Mehrotra (Contributor)

Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction, articles, interviews and art. Our May 2025 issue (#224)

Fiction
* "Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu
* "The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra
* "We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer
* "Descent" by Wole Talabi
* "Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc
* "Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuvenm, translated by Sue Burke
* "Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert

Non-Fiction
* "Symbiosis and Holobionts, or Life Is a Manifold" by Gunnar De Winter
* "Dialogue Only: A conversation with Jane Espenson" by Arley Sorg
* "Inside the Science Fiction Studio: A Conversation with David Barr Kirtley" by Arley Sorg
* "Editor’s Desk: From Unusual Places" by Neil Clarke

Cover Art
"Jungleman II" by Arthur Haas

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy

204 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 30, 2025

About the author

Neil Clarke is best known as the editor and publisher of the Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning Clarkesworld Magazine. Launched in October 2006, the online magazine has been a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine four times (winning three times), the World Fantasy Award four times (winning once), and the British Fantasy Award once (winning once). Neil is also a ten-time finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form (winning once in 2022), three-time winner of the Chesley Award for Best Art Director, and a recipient of the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award. In the fifteen years since Clarkesworld Magazine launched, numerous stories that he has published have been nominated for or won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Sturgeon, Locus, BSFA, Shirley Jackson, WSFA Small Press, and Stoker Awards.

Additionally, Neil edits  Forever —a digital-only, reprint science fiction magazine he launched in 2015. His anthologies include: Upgraded, Galactic Empires, Touchable Unreality, More Human than Human, The Final Frontier, Not One of Us,  The Eagle has Landed, , and the Best Science Fiction of the Year series. His next anthology, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume Seven will published in early 2023.

He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons.

Reviews

[Hirondelle (not getting notifications)]

So far I have only read We, the Fleet by Alex T. Singer. I liked it - almost golden age sf in tone, a civilization lifeform of mechanical beings (the fleet) encounters a different lifeform as a visitor and eventually friendship develops. It should have been right up my alley, and like I said I liked it, but it was a little bit sentimental and even predictable. But I will be curious for more of the author's stories. Rating, between 3-4..

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu - (4*) Future, music, longing. It's evocative, if simple and almost all emotion.

"The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra - (3*) For as much as I want to love dark future SF library stories, this one's direction somehow left me slightly cold. Nothing I can put my finger on at the moment, but its despair seemed to derail me.

"We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer - (5*) At first I thought it was a bit like Leckie's work, but for all that, it still really hit me in the heart and I even teared up. Very cool story.

"Descent" by Wole Talabi - (4*) A pretty sharp moral tale with all the trappings of hard SF, with plenty of adventure to see us down--all the way.

"Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc - (5*) This one really struck a chord with me, tickled my stony heart. Caught me by my throat and wouldn't let go.

"Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuvenm, translated by Sue Burke - (5*) I'm a sucker for silicon life and the theme of longing.

"Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert - (4*) Also a sucker for Contact/Arrival extraterrestrial puzzles. But this one was just too cute and fuzzy. :)



Solid collection this month. Nothing extremely outstanding, but good nevertheless.



Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

Arctunn.com

[Sasha]

Yarn theory by Marie Vibbert
A scientist knits a message from aliens into a lace pattern and sees something in it. Doesn't feel like a story, more of a vignette. The fact that it feels like the character was based on me (knitter, math/physics theorist, writer, side project obsessive, happily married to another nerd... I mean come on, Marie Vibbert, is this a Fight Club situation and are we one another's insomnia alter egos?)
Wish there was more.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brainsteam Disco, 2191

"We’re in a club inside my head."

This story gets right into it! A swift ride through four music tracks, each with powerfully associated memories of the narrator. The last sentence resonates with me:

“Will you dance with me?” I ask, taking your hand, but what I always meant to ask was, “Will you stay?”

Rating: 4/5

The Library of the Apocalypse
I quite enjoyed how the story maintains its mysterious tension throughout. Details are revealed here and there, each one allowing me to piece together this dystopian world. Each clue brings further intrigue until the last paragraph. Few stories intrigue from start to finish, so this one stands out for me. The second aspect of this story provoked a mixed response in me. The story takes place somewhere in the province of Ontario in Canada. Even before reading the author's reflections on her story, I understood that the ink on the page was bled from the seething anger so many feel here. I read speculative fiction to give myself reprieve from the all-consuming current reality we find ourselves in. I feel tricked, almost. I chose to take precious time during the day to read a story to nourish my soul, and this story took me right back to this hellish landscape. It's still a well-written story. However, with all this news from down south forced upon us, I needed an escape. I needed that magical library that the characters in this story used to escape their own hellhole.

Rating: 2/5

Proxima One
We, The Fleet
Finally getting back to this issue in August, and it does not disappoint. By happenstance, I read Proxima One followed by We, The Fleet, and I discovered that the two short stories (by different authors) are a bit of a mirror image of one another and paired well like cooking a puttanesca while drinking the soave :) In Proxima One by Caryanna Reuven (translated by Sue Burke), there is an artificial intelligence comprised of two halves, "Extra" and "Intra". Spawned from this sentience is Proxima One, an ever-expanding offshoot where each unit gets a physical probe to explore the universe with one collective goal: to find life. I love stories that let you feel the infinite expanse of time. And time is what these AI beings have—a lot of it. And with time, evolution occurs. A Proxima Two eventually evolves, and the mission even changes to one of studying past societies, most of which are long gone. Without giving more away, I find this story a meditation on the search for a singular goal over a cosmic span of time and what that evolution does to the original intent and the sentient life at its provenance.

We, The Fleet by Alex T. Singer also features an artificial sentience that also multiplies and goes forth amongst our cosmos, but this time in search of dead systems so that these beings can cultivate the stars and planets to be their own. It is seen as unfortunate when, on the rare occasion, two spawned children from the fleet accidentally explore the same system, thus leading to destructive war. Where in the previous story the AI yearned to find life, in this story, finding others isn't the goal, but rather to "create" life by colonizing and expanding. While this story explores other themes, I found this juxtaposition with Proxima One most engrossing. The story takes a turn when the fleet meets Margo, a human. You'll have to read it to see how the story plays out!

Rating for Proxima One: 5/5
Rating for We, The Fleet: 4/5

Yarn Theory
A curious short little one this is. I can imagine someone who is both an avid knitter and also a mathematician would be giddy to have this read. For those unfamiliar with knitting and the patterns and thinking involved, there is a bit of outside-looking-in as one wonders how knitting would provide insight into an alien language. Oh the mysterious world of knitting patterns! This is a fun little piece that teases.

Rating: 3/5

Descent
This is the longest of the stories in this issue, weighing in at 21240 words. This is very much a mood piece. We're treated to a journey on an alien planet where Gwaato and a few other intrepid explorers attempt to be the first to descend past the yededek’iyan. An interesting aspect of this novella is the introduction of new words, presumably from the local alien language? The yededek’iyan is a demarcation in the atmosphere of the planet where, below this point, atmospheric conditions are unsurvivable—"the pressure is so high, and the temperature is so low that no known material can survive for more than a few minutes". Apparently, all beings live in the upper atmosphere, and it is unknown if the planet even has a surface! This reminds me of this video that tries to depict what it might be like to just drop through a gaseous planet like Jupiter, layer by layer :). The ending is dark, and multiple themes run throughout. Altogether, this leaves me in a kind of mood. This is one of those stories that could linger in a reader's mind. I wonder what inspired Wole Talabi, the author, to write this story.

Rating: 3.5/5

[Pontus Doverstav · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one!

Standouts for me where We, the Fleet and Descent. I found Descent to be the better crafted story, but the themes/setting/plot of We, the Fleet were more up my alley.

The rest of the issue was also pretty good, the strongest for me here were probably Oh Time Thy Pyramids and Proxima One.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A better than average issue, with an interesting novella-length story by Wole Talabi, and other interesting stories by Rati Mehrotra and Alex T. Singer.

- "Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu: on music and dancing that apparently takes place in the head of a person.

- "The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra: survivors of a war rummage through a ruined city, waiting for the time when a strange library gives them access to imaginary other worlds. Only some survivors return from the visit. And when only one is left, he has to find another purpose to staying in the city.

- "We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer: a fascinating story of a machine intelligence 'mother' that is terraforming and mining a solar system to make more versions of itself. But it gets interrupted when an unknown ship, bearing an organic being, crashes. The rest of the story tells of the being's recovery, and the two of them coming to an understanding of what it means to be a mother that wants the best for their children.

- "Descent" by Wole Talabi: a fascinating tale set in a world where people live on mountains, high above the air that gets thicker and thicker at lower latitudes. Nothing is known about what is below, not even if there is a solid surface. But one man wants to know, and he gets a chance to find out, even if it may end up killing him.

- "Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc: a strange story of a 'sculpture' who has spent ages motionless; until one day it decides to move. That would lead to a journey through time and space, and perhaps the multiple lifetime of universes.

- "Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuven, translated by Sue Burke: various automated space probes, each known as Proxima One, explore space looking for signs of life. Many never see them; but others, by reprogramming themselves, see it in many different ways.

- "Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert: a mathematician who knits listens to an alien message and starts knitting out the message. What she learns may, or may not, be able to decode the message.

[Arturo Sierra]

Liked: We the Fleet.

[Nicole (bookwyrm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This magazine issue was a very good example of what's normal for me in short fiction anthologies: I had a few stories that I loved, a couple that really didn't work for me, and overall the blend was fine. But I think that's best in many ways! Not everyone gets the same thing as I do out of the same stories, and I think there's something for most people in this issue. I think my favorite piece from this issue was "We, the Fleet" with "The Library of the Apocalypse" a close second.

I skimmed the nonfiction pieces included in this issue, but I tend to like interviews best when I'm familiar with the person being interviewed and so neither of those really interested me since I don't have that familiarity.

Here are my thoughts on each of the fiction pieces individually:

"Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu
This one wasn't really my cup of tea. I didn't dislike it, but nor did I like it. It's told in an alternative story-telling style that just didn't work for me. Neat concept, linking memories to songs, so I imagine there is an audience for it (just not me). ~ CW miscarriage, grief

"The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra
I loved this one! It's a story set in Canada after (or during?) the apocalypse, while there are still enough people around to still be fighting. Our protagonist and their friends are struggling to survive, and on clear nights with a full moon they might find a door to a library which can transport them into stories. The way everything plays out is lovely.

"We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer
A beautiful look at love and family from the eyes of a sentient spaceship. I loved the way this story played out, but I won't say any more than that because I think it's a journey best experienced as you go.

"Descent" by Wole Talabi
I don't think I understood this one. It was long and had a lot of description of atmosphere (look, pressure, temperature, density, etc.) that went over my head. I didn't get what its purpose was. Exploration? Seeking mother's (or Mother's) approval? Neat story, just not for me.

"Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc
Another one that I don't think I understood. Neat concept and I liked the imagery, but I don't understand the purpose of any of the action. It seems to be a story about seeking (and so far not getting) a mother's love; I've never had that issue with my own mother, so maybe that's part of why I don't understand this one.

"Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuven, translated by Sue Burke
This one was neat! It's a fun science fiction space exploration story, and I really appreciate that it's one of the stories in translation that Clarkesworld has been seeking out more often. This felt like a cozy SF short story, and I would also love to see more of this universe / concept in a longer form. (Though it's perfect as-is; I didn't feel like anything was left out of the short. I just enjoyed it.)

"Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert
A short short about how yarn and math work together. Plus aliens! It’s a fun but very short piece, only 1,000 words, so I won’t spoil anything else about it.

[Thomas Wüstemann · Rating 2 out of 5]

This issue was a big disappointment. It starts out well with three stories, that get continuously better, with BRAINSTEM DISCO, 2191 being a funny little vignette about memories, THE LIBRARY OF THE APOCALYPSE a charmingly human robot-story and WE, THE FLEET an astounding accomplishment in world building with a humanistic message.
But then it really goes downhill. Central to this issue is a novella, which takes up most of the space. And somewhere buried in DESCENT there might be a good premise with its gba’agbo vs  ii-mo concept (scientific calculation vs experience) and an interesting world, where the bottom is buried under thick layers of atmosphere, so that people can't be sure whether there even IS a bottom. But the execution sadly fails on all levels. First, the indistinguishable fantasy gibberish (most of it unpronounceable) calls Neal Stephenson's apostrophocalypse to mind. If they are talking plain English in the story, why do there have to be cliché apostrophe-creations for simple concepts like days? Then the characters, which are unlikeable from the beginning, start out switching character and behaving totally out of their established characterization. Coincidence and illogical behavior play the main factor in plot progression towards the end, when the suit of our protagonist malfunctions, he nonetheless steps out of the ship and then happens to get another working suit. And it all ends in a big anti-scientific religious mess (Remember the calculation vs experience? Well, not only does experience win the fight, calculation is nearly rendered antagonistic).
The next story, OH TIME THY PYRAMIDS does its best to outperform DESCENT in regard to low level but not quite reaches its level. It's still a pretentious metaphorical mess. 
PROXIMA ONE is a bit of redemption with a cleverly written story of a galaxy spinning AI searching for friends, but it's not enough to save the issue.

[Vincenzo Fiorentino · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu: (3*)

"The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra (4.5*)

"We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer (3*)

"Descent" by Wole Talabi (3*)

"Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc (2.5*)

"Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuven (3*)

"Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert (3.5*)

[David H. · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite stories were Rati Mehrotra's "The Library of the Apocalypse" and Angela Liu's "Brainstem Disco, 2191," and I thought "We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer and "Oh Time Thy Pyramids" to be interesting.

[Greg S · Rating 3 out of 5]

We, the Fleet by Alex T. Singer.

Oh Time Thy Pyramids by Ann LeBlanc

[MTD · Rating 4 out of 5]

The novella “Descent” by Wole Talabi is the standout here, but an overall strong issue.

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an underlying theme of mothers and queens in some of the stories in this issue.

* "Brainstem Disco, 2191" by Angela Liu, 1620 words, 6 pages
⭐️⭐️½
“We‘re in a club inside my head.“
Soundtrack:
—Track #1: Bach – Goldberg Variations
—Track #2: Dido – Here With Me
—Track #3: Ella Fitzgerald – “In A Sentimental Mood”
—Track #4: Daft Punk – “Something About Us”
Too short for much substance. Nice enough, but not really my thing.

* "The Library of the Apocalypse" by Rati Mehrotra, 3850 words, 13 pages
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½
“Hunter’s Moon rises fat and golden over the burned-out husk of the CN Tower.“
A dystopian Toronto and a small group of survivors. One of them is different from the others. I liked it. Good story telling, nice character development in these few words and a promising ending. I would read more.

* "We, the Fleet" by Alex T. Singer, 7700 words, 28 pages, novelette
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“We watched the stranger fall from the sky. Our daughters sent us frantic signals as they tracked her burning trail.“
A fleet of conscious, self-replicating spaceships. There is a queen with her daughters. One day they rescue a strange organic unit that is close to death. They repair it as best as they can, with an unexpected result. This story made me happy and emotional, I would love to read a novel of what happens next. As cozy SF, please. Thank you.

* "Descent" by Wole Talabi, Nigerian, 21240 pages, 67 pages, novella
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The maadiregi at the temple of the talking drum say that there is a word in old Sauúti, the high language of our ancestors, that when spoken backwards, allows the speaker to fly.“
This made me think of the movie „The Core“. Sorry, bad movie… and the similarities are fleeting anyway. We dive down into the deadly atmosphere of a planet, trying to reach solid ground. This is also a story about a mother and a love/hate relationship. Fascinating world.

* "Oh Time Thy Pyramids" by Ann LeBlanc, 7430 words, 25 pages
“My mother was born into perfect stillness, and abides in laudatory silence to this day.“
⭐️⭐️
Very odd. The universe is tomb? Not for me, too abstract, I skimmed.

* "Proxima One" by Caryanna Reuvenm, Spanish, translated by Sue Burke, 4020 words, 15 pages
⭐️⭐️⭐️
“We collaborate. Exist. Persist. But we are alone.“
„No life found.
No life.
No multicellular life.
No intelligent life.
No life.“

* "Yarn Theory" by Marie Vibbert, 1000 words, 4 pages
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“The Mathematician sits on the window seat in her apartment in Krakow, the cat asleep next to her and a cascade of houseplant tendrils gently screening the light.“
Cute little story. Who knew knitting could be so useful when encountering aliens!

* "Symbiosis and Holobionts, or Life Is a Manifold" by Gunnar De Winter, Belgian, Non-Fiction
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Excellent that I already have I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life on my shelf! Gut bacteria! Alien microbes! Fun article!

The full May issue can be found here.

[Matthew WK · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.
Angela Liu 4 stars
Rati Mehrotra 5 stars
Alex T. Singer 4 stars
Wole Talabi 4 stars
Ann LeBlanc 2.5 stars
Caryanna Reuven 2.5 stars
Marie Vibbert 3 stars