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Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 225, June 2025
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 June 2025 issue (#225) contains:
Fiction
* "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng
* "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen
* "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt
* "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall
* "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus
* "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken
* "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig
* "Outlier" by R.L. Meza
Non-Fiction
* "Destination: Jupiter" by Andrew Liptak
* "STEM Lesbians in Space! A Conversation with Elizabeth Bear" by Arley Sorg
* "Reality-Breaking Cosmic Stakes: A Conversation with Matthew Kressel" by Arley Sorg
* "Editor's Desk: Wrapping Back Around to Marketing" by Neil Clarke
Cover Art
* "Azarax" by Marcel Deneuve
Fiction
* "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng
* "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen
* "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt
* "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall
* "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus
* "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken
* "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig
* "Outlier" by R.L. Meza
Non-Fiction
* "Destination: Jupiter" by Andrew Liptak
* "STEM Lesbians in Space! A Conversation with Elizabeth Bear" by Arley Sorg
* "Reality-Breaking Cosmic Stakes: A Conversation with Matthew Kressel" by Arley Sorg
* "Editor's Desk: Wrapping Back Around to Marketing" by Neil Clarke
Cover Art
* "Azarax" by Marcel Deneuve
212 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 31, 2025
12 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Neil Clarke
400 books403 followersNeil 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 12, 2025
"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng -- (5*) -- Ah, this one hit hard. The scope is beautiful, the family and the love, tragic. Near perfect everything.
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen -- (4*) -- Super dark story about a digital shadow brought back by his mom, and the effects it had on her and the rest of the family. I mean, sure, grief is one thing, but this reads more like a psychological horror story designed to induce depression in the reader, too. Yikes.
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt -- (4*) -- A chilling look at the failure of post-ecological collapse domes for human habitation... and the obituaries of their failure.
"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall -- (5*) -- Haunting far-future glimpse of humanity, or post-humanity, and how things might always and forever be the same--no matter how strange.
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus -- (3*) -- I was kinda bouncing off of this at first, but I'm glad I stuck through it. The inversion of expectations was pretty good. The final question and its answer, however, remained unsatisfying. Still, cool ideas.
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken -- (4*) -- The story is sedate and hopeful, while the imagination of far-flung humanity is rich. I personally think it would be a GREAT opening to a full novel. I so want to know what happens after!
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig -- (3*) -- I honestly want to like this more than I did, it being a cross section of SFnal senescence in neo-humanity, but the fictional lives just read like low-brow popular idiocy. Maybe that's the point... but it all just leaves me sad.
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza -- (5*) -- Fantastically gruesome. Don't we all want to know what it's like to be a mad scientist's monster? :)
Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm 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
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen -- (4*) -- Super dark story about a digital shadow brought back by his mom, and the effects it had on her and the rest of the family. I mean, sure, grief is one thing, but this reads more like a psychological horror story designed to induce depression in the reader, too. Yikes.
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt -- (4*) -- A chilling look at the failure of post-ecological collapse domes for human habitation... and the obituaries of their failure.
"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall -- (5*) -- Haunting far-future glimpse of humanity, or post-humanity, and how things might always and forever be the same--no matter how strange.
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus -- (3*) -- I was kinda bouncing off of this at first, but I'm glad I stuck through it. The inversion of expectations was pretty good. The final question and its answer, however, remained unsatisfying. Still, cool ideas.
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken -- (4*) -- The story is sedate and hopeful, while the imagination of far-flung humanity is rich. I personally think it would be a GREAT opening to a full novel. I so want to know what happens after!
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig -- (3*) -- I honestly want to like this more than I did, it being a cross section of SFnal senescence in neo-humanity, but the fictional lives just read like low-brow popular idiocy. Maybe that's the point... but it all just leaves me sad.
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza -- (5*) -- Fantastically gruesome. Don't we all want to know what it's like to be a mad scientist's monster? :)
Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm 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
Read
July 6, 2025If An Algorithm Can Cast A Shadow by Claire Jia-Wen - 3
Bringing our loved ones back from the dead is a story genre that's much older than modern science fiction. And for good reason - if we could never be forced apart from those we love most, the world would be certainly a less awful place. Except, wouldn't there be some caveats that we should figure out first?
In Claire Jia-Wen's story, a departed loved one can be reconstructed based on all the online data that's been collected about them by the googles of the world. Like the family that orders a custom-built Electric Grandma in I Sing the Body Electric!, the story's main character is a mother of two who's lost her son and bought a digital replica to place in his stead.
It's a setup for a rich exploration of the conflict between our real and our digital selves. Except, as I read the story, my focus was drawn not to the sf and tech questions, but to how awful the relationships depicted in this family were. I kept thinking, is this supposed to be a depiction of the new normal Western family life?
It feels like the story's focus is on how bitter every member of the family is towards the rest. They call each other names, accuse each other of ruining their lives, and taunt the mother for choosing to become a mother. It felt distractingly caustic. Maybe my view of family life is distorted because I'm an immigrant or some other circumstance, but from my perspective it just felt like an overkill that obscured any conclusions aside from, perhaps, that one should never have teenage children (or be married).
There is an early twist that clarifies why the family is in a dark place. It's a tragedy that drives the mother to order the digital replica. But the tone of interpersonal bitterness just doesn't click with the tone of the tragedy for me. It's a depiction of family life that was promising in the questions it set out to explore, but was a letdown for me personally.
Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng
Upper-class family drama with galactic implications.
Bringing our loved ones back from the dead is a story genre that's much older than modern science fiction. And for good reason - if we could never be forced apart from those we love most, the world would be certainly a less awful place. Except, wouldn't there be some caveats that we should figure out first?
In Claire Jia-Wen's story, a departed loved one can be reconstructed based on all the online data that's been collected about them by the googles of the world. Like the family that orders a custom-built Electric Grandma in I Sing the Body Electric!, the story's main character is a mother of two who's lost her son and bought a digital replica to place in his stead.
It's a setup for a rich exploration of the conflict between our real and our digital selves. Except, as I read the story, my focus was drawn not to the sf and tech questions, but to how awful the relationships depicted in this family were. I kept thinking, is this supposed to be a depiction of the new normal Western family life?
It feels like the story's focus is on how bitter every member of the family is towards the rest. They call each other names, accuse each other of ruining their lives, and taunt the mother for choosing to become a mother. It felt distractingly caustic. Maybe my view of family life is distorted because I'm an immigrant or some other circumstance, but from my perspective it just felt like an overkill that obscured any conclusions aside from, perhaps, that one should never have teenage children (or be married).
There is an early twist that clarifies why the family is in a dark place. It's a tragedy that drives the mother to order the digital replica. But the tone of interpersonal bitterness just doesn't click with the tone of the tragedy for me. It's a depiction of family life that was promising in the questions it set out to explore, but was a letdown for me personally.
Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng
Upper-class family drama with galactic implications.
partially-read
June 11, 2025I have only read, so far, of this issue Emily of Emerald Starship by Ng Yi-Sheng, a singaporean author, and a story based on singaporean play (which is totally unknown to me, I can not judge influences or if the most lyrical bits are derived from it). It was fascinating, a bit different - a far future neo-colonial kind of future with lots of planets just like Earth, a romance plot between a rebel heir hiding from his matriarch-ship and a stable boy (kind of). This reminded me a bit of Anne McCaffrey, and no I do not mean the Pern books, I mean all the others - horses (I actually read some of her romances), ships which are people, the romanticism (but with a 21st century edge) to it. It was interesting and I really liked the prose. I was interested from the start. I will check more stories by the author, if I get the chance.
July 30, 2025
* "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng, Singapore, 3860 words, 🚀🚀🚀🚀
“Love is a kind of death.“
Space opera, humans uploading their minds into spaceships, love taking second place to service. Or not. Bitter-sweet.
* "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen, 5040 words, 👤👤👤👤
“Oscar’s Digital Double comes two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and eleven seconds late. Maxine snatches the package from the delivery drone and doesn’t tip.“
A mother trying to deal with the death of her son with the help of a digital twin. Interesting. I liked it. A bit too slow for me.
* "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt, 7050 words, 🚌🚌🚌🚌🚌
“Right before I decamped for Evergreen Dome, that mysterious place, I was sweating it out in my small metropolitan apartment that fall, watching the leaves dry up and drift away and my travel books collect dust.“
Domed habitats, broken landscapes, people suffering from damage done by viruses, the search for a mysterious figure and her truth. A roadtrip. I very much liked the tone of the first-person narrator.
* "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall, 8060 words, novelette, 🛕🛕🛕
“There were seven great pyramids in Meridian, the city of ziggurats.“
A colonized world and a family trying to preserve knowledge of the species that came before. Started nice enough, but didn‘t grab me.
* "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus, 8680 words, novelette, 🌴🌴🌴½
“There are memories in the world that linger beyond the lives of the bodies that birthed them.“
Another story of a colonized world and climate change and of colonists not understanding the people and culture they encounter. Odd. I liked this one more than the previous story—communication between species is my thing—, but confess to not quite getting the point.
* "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken, 5310 words, 🌖🌖🌖🌖
Here we witness not only the end of Earth, devoured by an aging, expanding sun, but we are also faced with the damage we did to the universe.
“Humanity‘s descendants have stripped apart planets, moved and destroyed stars, consumed the hydrogen clouds that birth new stars. We all bear the shame…“
Apparently we do not learn! But…. Cool time travel paradox!
In 2021 I read this book by the author: The Quantum Magician. I struggled with parts of the book and skimmed a lot, but it did not lack an interesting perspective and a good plot.
* "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig, 5720 words, 🐦🐦🐦
“The evening the Glass Woman returned to the island, all residents received a notification. After all, what is the first person to survive the cyberization procedure that created the neo-sapiens and conferred upon them eternal life, if not a celebrity?“
Post-humanism, uploaded consciousness, data loss and fanfiction. It was ok.
* "Outlier" by R.L. Meza, 2930 words, 🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️
“Itsy bitsy,” whispers the girl in the glass tank beside mine. Not a girl anymore, not really, but it’s better for my sanity to pretend she’s still human.‘
Creepy. Loved it! Turned into a spider and experimented on. Pretty gruesome, but fun.
The full June issue can be found here.
“Love is a kind of death.“
Space opera, humans uploading their minds into spaceships, love taking second place to service. Or not. Bitter-sweet.
* "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen, 5040 words, 👤👤👤👤
“Oscar’s Digital Double comes two hours, thirty-eight minutes, and eleven seconds late. Maxine snatches the package from the delivery drone and doesn’t tip.“
A mother trying to deal with the death of her son with the help of a digital twin. Interesting. I liked it. A bit too slow for me.
* "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt, 7050 words, 🚌🚌🚌🚌🚌
“Right before I decamped for Evergreen Dome, that mysterious place, I was sweating it out in my small metropolitan apartment that fall, watching the leaves dry up and drift away and my travel books collect dust.“
Domed habitats, broken landscapes, people suffering from damage done by viruses, the search for a mysterious figure and her truth. A roadtrip. I very much liked the tone of the first-person narrator.
* "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall, 8060 words, novelette, 🛕🛕🛕
“There were seven great pyramids in Meridian, the city of ziggurats.“
A colonized world and a family trying to preserve knowledge of the species that came before. Started nice enough, but didn‘t grab me.
* "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus, 8680 words, novelette, 🌴🌴🌴½
“There are memories in the world that linger beyond the lives of the bodies that birthed them.“
Another story of a colonized world and climate change and of colonists not understanding the people and culture they encounter. Odd. I liked this one more than the previous story—communication between species is my thing—, but confess to not quite getting the point.
* "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken, 5310 words, 🌖🌖🌖🌖
Here we witness not only the end of Earth, devoured by an aging, expanding sun, but we are also faced with the damage we did to the universe.
“Humanity‘s descendants have stripped apart planets, moved and destroyed stars, consumed the hydrogen clouds that birth new stars. We all bear the shame…“
Apparently we do not learn! But…. Cool time travel paradox!
In 2021 I read this book by the author: The Quantum Magician. I struggled with parts of the book and skimmed a lot, but it did not lack an interesting perspective and a good plot.
* "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig, 5720 words, 🐦🐦🐦
“The evening the Glass Woman returned to the island, all residents received a notification. After all, what is the first person to survive the cyberization procedure that created the neo-sapiens and conferred upon them eternal life, if not a celebrity?“
Post-humanism, uploaded consciousness, data loss and fanfiction. It was ok.
* "Outlier" by R.L. Meza, 2930 words, 🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️
“Itsy bitsy,” whispers the girl in the glass tank beside mine. Not a girl anymore, not really, but it’s better for my sanity to pretend she’s still human.‘
Creepy. Loved it! Turned into a spider and experimented on. Pretty gruesome, but fun.
The full June issue can be found here.
July 30, 2025
A pretty good issue, although I found that I enjoyed the concepts and ideas of almost all of the stories, but maybe not so much the execution of all of them.
The one I enjoyed the most was Emily of Emerald Starship, but I also enjoyed If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow and Outlier. Especially Outlier made an impact with its creepy, body-horror setting.
The one I enjoyed the most was Emily of Emerald Starship, but I also enjoyed If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow and Outlier. Especially Outlier made an impact with its creepy, body-horror setting.
July 22, 2025
4.5 stars! Very strong overall issue between the stories, non-fiction from Andrew Liptak, and the 2 interviews. Favorite story: Derek Kunsken, but definitely deserving of reads: Claire Jia-Wen, A.T. Greenblat, & Rita Chang-Eppig
July 16, 2025
Originally published at myreadinglife.com.
Time for my monthly summary of the latest issue of Clarkesworld that I have read.
"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng (3,860 words | 16 minutes) — A mother who has become a spaceship controls her family and tries to corral her son when he falls in love with a horse stable owner. A beautiful, heartbreaking story with a clever use of vague language. (My rating: 5/5)
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen ((5,040 words | 21 minutes) — A mother whose son died in an auto accident orders a Digital Double of him. This one was just okay for me. (My rating: 3/5)
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A.T. Greenblatt (7,050 words | 28 minutes) — A man seeks to understand his family member who left the Evergreen Domes decades ago. A sweet story of reconciliation and openness. (My rating: 5/5)
"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall (8,060 words | 33 minutes) — A lone family attempts to preserve knowledge of previous species as the leaders of their world claim it to be the pinnacle. Shows what defending truth can sometimes bring. (My rating: 4/5)
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus (8,680 | 35 minutes) — On a planet cooling due to the actions of its colonizers, one of them seeks answers among the indigenous people of the jungle on the opposite side of the planet. Despite prejudice, we can always learn from the "other". (My rating: 5/5)
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken (5,310 words | 22 minutes) — In the far future in our dying solar system, a high court of descendants of humans considers a request from distant relatives. I love the far future feel of this story. Reminds me of a Dr. Who episode. (My rating: 4/5)
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig (5,720 words | 23 minutes) — The first cyberized person returns to a place from her past desperate to hang onto her memories. A story of unwanted celebrity. (My rating: 4/4)
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza (2,930 words | 12 minutes) — A homeless person is experimented on turning her into a scorpion for use in further experiments. Explores agency. A little too confusing for my taste. (My rating: 3/5)
Average rating per story: 4.125/5
Time for my monthly summary of the latest issue of Clarkesworld that I have read.
"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng (3,860 words | 16 minutes) — A mother who has become a spaceship controls her family and tries to corral her son when he falls in love with a horse stable owner. A beautiful, heartbreaking story with a clever use of vague language. (My rating: 5/5)
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen ((5,040 words | 21 minutes) — A mother whose son died in an auto accident orders a Digital Double of him. This one was just okay for me. (My rating: 3/5)
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A.T. Greenblatt (7,050 words | 28 minutes) — A man seeks to understand his family member who left the Evergreen Domes decades ago. A sweet story of reconciliation and openness. (My rating: 5/5)
"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall (8,060 words | 33 minutes) — A lone family attempts to preserve knowledge of previous species as the leaders of their world claim it to be the pinnacle. Shows what defending truth can sometimes bring. (My rating: 4/5)
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus (8,680 | 35 minutes) — On a planet cooling due to the actions of its colonizers, one of them seeks answers among the indigenous people of the jungle on the opposite side of the planet. Despite prejudice, we can always learn from the "other". (My rating: 5/5)
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken (5,310 words | 22 minutes) — In the far future in our dying solar system, a high court of descendants of humans considers a request from distant relatives. I love the far future feel of this story. Reminds me of a Dr. Who episode. (My rating: 4/5)
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig (5,720 words | 23 minutes) — The first cyberized person returns to a place from her past desperate to hang onto her memories. A story of unwanted celebrity. (My rating: 4/4)
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza (2,930 words | 12 minutes) — A homeless person is experimented on turning her into a scorpion for use in further experiments. Explores agency. A little too confusing for my taste. (My rating: 3/5)
Average rating per story: 4.125/5
June 7, 2025
A good issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by Ng Yi-Sheng, Claire Jia-Wen, A. T. Greenblatt, Matthew Marcus and Rita Chang-Eppig.
- "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng: an entertaining story based on characters and story from a local popular Singapore play, this one has a high-flying son of a matriarchal star ship giving it all up to be with his lover, who runs a horse stable. He solution to getting out from the system is rather long term.
- "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen: a digital double of the dead son of a mother is delivered to her. What she learns from the double, made up of all the public information on his son, some of which she was not aware of, would make her re-look the reasons for her son's death.
- "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt: a writer travels to a former environmental colony to learn more about the person who used to run it. Along the way, his opinions about her change the more he learns about her.
- "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall: on a world with seven pyramids, repurposed by its current inhabitants, one person works to prepare the way for its next inhabitants and another pyramid.
- "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus: an ecologist travels to a place where a special kind of tree grows that can help with their environmental problems. He sets out to try to convince the local people there not to cut down the trees; but what he discovers instead is a way of living that may be more helpful to the world in the end.
- "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken: far, far, in the future, when humanity has evolved into many different species and the sun is becoming a red giant, one species of humanity makes a special request to the people watching over what is left of the earth. They have an audacious plan to save their themselves, but it would require a balancing of the needs of the many.
- "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig: a downloaded person inhabiting a body returns to an island. This causes a sensation as she was the first person to be downloaded and her fans wonder what she want to do there. After much speculation, the answer has to do with memories and what happens when we start to lose them.
- "Outlier" by R.L. Meza: in a strange lab, where people have been 'transformed' into arachnids, one person is more aware of what is happening to her. Now she wants to escape but to do that, she may have to take advantage of one lab person whom she might consider a friend.
- "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng: an entertaining story based on characters and story from a local popular Singapore play, this one has a high-flying son of a matriarchal star ship giving it all up to be with his lover, who runs a horse stable. He solution to getting out from the system is rather long term.
- "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen: a digital double of the dead son of a mother is delivered to her. What she learns from the double, made up of all the public information on his son, some of which she was not aware of, would make her re-look the reasons for her son's death.
- "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt: a writer travels to a former environmental colony to learn more about the person who used to run it. Along the way, his opinions about her change the more he learns about her.
- "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall: on a world with seven pyramids, repurposed by its current inhabitants, one person works to prepare the way for its next inhabitants and another pyramid.
- "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus: an ecologist travels to a place where a special kind of tree grows that can help with their environmental problems. He sets out to try to convince the local people there not to cut down the trees; but what he discovers instead is a way of living that may be more helpful to the world in the end.
- "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken: far, far, in the future, when humanity has evolved into many different species and the sun is becoming a red giant, one species of humanity makes a special request to the people watching over what is left of the earth. They have an audacious plan to save their themselves, but it would require a balancing of the needs of the many.
- "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig: a downloaded person inhabiting a body returns to an island. This causes a sensation as she was the first person to be downloaded and her fans wonder what she want to do there. After much speculation, the answer has to do with memories and what happens when we start to lose them.
- "Outlier" by R.L. Meza: in a strange lab, where people have been 'transformed' into arachnids, one person is more aware of what is happening to her. Now she wants to escape but to do that, she may have to take advantage of one lab person whom she might consider a friend.
July 18, 2025
It's always a feeling of coming home when getting into an issue of Clarkesworld. While the formats are seldom original (you won't find experimental flash fiction in here) and a lot of the texts rely heavily on classical world-building (although you have the occasional more realistic story that discusses contemporary political topics, we're mostly dealing with far-future metaphorical sci-fi), the mixture of escapism and touching human stories always puts a smile on my face.
Well, that helps when I'm reading two mediocre issues in a row. Keeps me smiling.
Neil Clarke has a feeling for frontloading the magazine, so, as most of the time, we start out really good.
"Emily of Emerald Starship" is an interesting look into Singaporean sci-fi as it is adapted from a Singaporean play and puts an imaginative sci-fi spin on it. The first words are "He told me his mother was a spacecraft." and who wouldn't be intrigued by that?
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow", in the beginning, seems to be just another AI/Clone/Neo-human-story, until you realize that the sci-fi setting is just the decor for a deeply human, psychological grief tale that asks the question of how much we know about our loved ones.
Finally, "In the Shells of Broken Things" is the best of the bunch. Again written from a touching human perspective and in a solemn and contemplative vibe, the story tells of human interaction, solidarity, and forgiveness. Remarkable.
With "The Eighth Pyramid" the quality curve goes down. Not that it's inherently bad. It has great world-building and a good feeling for suspense. It just goes nowhere.
"Faces of the Antipode" really touches bottom. Lazy world (why do the natives, about whose culture we don't know anything, speak fluent English?), lazy themes (the most clichéd "environment vs capitalism in an indio setting" you will ever encounter), with just a touch of exoticism (copied together from various customs of Earth's natives).
The next two stories, "The Last Lunar New Year" and "The Last to Survive", don't have much to tell and seem more like flexing muscles in world-building (without being very original). And the last one, "Outlier", just is in the wrong place. A boring, evil-scientist horror story that would be better suited for something like CHM (and even there would be an "outlier" in terms of quality).
Well, that helps when I'm reading two mediocre issues in a row. Keeps me smiling.
Neil Clarke has a feeling for frontloading the magazine, so, as most of the time, we start out really good.
"Emily of Emerald Starship" is an interesting look into Singaporean sci-fi as it is adapted from a Singaporean play and puts an imaginative sci-fi spin on it. The first words are "He told me his mother was a spacecraft." and who wouldn't be intrigued by that?
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow", in the beginning, seems to be just another AI/Clone/Neo-human-story, until you realize that the sci-fi setting is just the decor for a deeply human, psychological grief tale that asks the question of how much we know about our loved ones.
Finally, "In the Shells of Broken Things" is the best of the bunch. Again written from a touching human perspective and in a solemn and contemplative vibe, the story tells of human interaction, solidarity, and forgiveness. Remarkable.
With "The Eighth Pyramid" the quality curve goes down. Not that it's inherently bad. It has great world-building and a good feeling for suspense. It just goes nowhere.
"Faces of the Antipode" really touches bottom. Lazy world (why do the natives, about whose culture we don't know anything, speak fluent English?), lazy themes (the most clichéd "environment vs capitalism in an indio setting" you will ever encounter), with just a touch of exoticism (copied together from various customs of Earth's natives).
The next two stories, "The Last Lunar New Year" and "The Last to Survive", don't have much to tell and seem more like flexing muscles in world-building (without being very original). And the last one, "Outlier", just is in the wrong place. A boring, evil-scientist horror story that would be better suited for something like CHM (and even there would be an "outlier" in terms of quality).
August 11, 2025
This issue of Clarkesworld focuses on pushing the idea of humanity and motherhood: what if we became spaceships, trees, or ... matriphagous spiders? There is also an essay on the history of Jupiter and it's influence on science fiction as well as interviews with Elizabeth Bear and Matthew Kressel.
"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng is about a mother who became a starship and what that means for her family, and the galaxy at large. 4/5
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen is about a mother who buys a digitized version of her son after his death. 4/5
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt follows a post-apocalyptic world where a traveler vlogger stricken with post-Rust syndrome (which reminded me of long COVID) is trying to finish a friend's obituary and reconnect with her old community. 3/5
"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall is about a colony suffering a rash of fundamentalism that persecutes a family of scientists trying to learn the truth about the alien race that predated them. 3/5
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus is another colonial story, where the newcomers and tribes who beat them to the planet are grappling with climate change. 3/5
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken is a story about the death of the moon and the descendants of humanity who have evolved beyond. 3/5
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig follows a cyberized humanity dealing with the the problems of digital immortality. 4/5
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza is a body-horror piece about a homeless woman who has been transformed into a spider-human hybrid by scientists. 4/5
"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng is about a mother who became a starship and what that means for her family, and the galaxy at large. 4/5
A colossal pyramid filled the sky, the color of dark jade, crenelated with arcane patterns, fractal and floral, eclipsing the orbital lamp that served as my substitute for the sun.
Richard was in the kitchen, eating oatmeal, arrayed in a charcoal three-piece suit. "Get dressed," he said, not looking up from the newspaper. "My mother's come to visit."
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen is about a mother who buys a digitized version of her son after his death. 4/5
Hannah argues like she knows she's going to win because her words are bigger and more precise than Maxine's, even though she can only speak one language and Maxine can speak two. Hannah wouldn't understand her if she switched off English, but that's Maxine's fault - she should've used her first language more. So Maxine lets her daughter pick the battlefield, and she lets her win.
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt follows a post-apocalyptic world where a traveler vlogger stricken with post-Rust syndrome (which reminded me of long COVID) is trying to finish a friend's obituary and reconnect with her old community. 3/5
As we hurtled south, the city melted into wilderness and wilderness became half-wild ruins; I fought the urge to turn my EyeFrames on and document the landscape. It'd been done to death anyway, reanimated, then killed again. There are only so many camera angles and adjectives you cna use to describe the wide expanse of land that was once overtaken by humans, then reformed with failed habitable domes, only to be retaken again by plants and animals more resilient than ourselves.
"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall is about a colony suffering a rash of fundamentalism that persecutes a family of scientists trying to learn the truth about the alien race that predated them. 3/5
How wrong to think that humans were perfected. They were children, lost in a graveyard. The adults were all gone away, and the only thing that the children could think to do was to smash masonry, to stack gravestones and build stone huts from the leaned angle of gothic monuments.
All around them were the names of the dead. Never once had the children stopped to read them.
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus is another colonial story, where the newcomers and tribes who beat them to the planet are grappling with climate change. 3/5
The exhaust from the galactic commerce vessels was accumulating in Hearth’s atmosphere. Their world occupied a strategic nexus in the intergalactic trading network. The nearby gas giant was a source of hydrogen, necessary for rocket propulsion. Neighboring rocky planets were rich in ores. Hearth itself was ideal for grain production, and its location made it a logical site for trade. But the exhaust was reflecting incoming light back into space, cooling the world. Crops were wilting, threatening the basis of the trade economy.
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken is a story about the death of the moon and the descendants of humanity who have evolved beyond. 3/5
Easily lost in the glare of the near sun was a third silhouette - the shrunken steel core of Venus. Flung out of its orbit a billion years ago, it had finally locked into a tragic collision course. It would miss Earth but shatter the Moon. The remnants of dying Venus would throw molten fragments of the Moon far and wide before the drag of the Sun's atmosphere caught most.
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig follows a cyberized humanity dealing with the the problems of digital immortality. 4/5
The evening the Glass Woman returned to the island, all residents received a notification. After all, what is the first person to survive the cyberization procedure that created the neo-sapiens and conferred upon them eternal life, if not a celebrity? Sixty-two percent of the residents sent out their personal drones to catch a glimpse of her, filling the sky with a gentle whir that the older neo-sapiens likened to the mating song of cicadas and that the younger likened to the first sound they ever heard, the machine wombs that had held and kept them until they were ready to come into the world. Thirty-one percent piggybacked off their friends’ and neighbors’ drone feeds because they felt no need for a copy of the footage. (More data storage? In this economy?) Another six percent, the ones who, despite being able to live forever, never quite evolved beyond their FOMO, downloaded themselves into public shells near the quay so they could meet the Glass Woman in their rented bodies, never mind how dented, creaky, and unhygienic those bodies happened to be.
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza is a body-horror piece about a homeless woman who has been transformed into a spider-human hybrid by scientists. 4/5
Childbirth is nothing compared to birthing yourself.
June 22, 2025
"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng (2.5*)
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen (4*)
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt (2.5*)
"The Eight Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall (2.5*)
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus (4.5*)
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken (4*)
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig (4.5*)
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza (3.5*)
"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen (4*)
"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt (2.5*)
"The Eight Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall (2.5*)
"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus (4.5*)
"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken (4*)
"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig (4.5*)
"Outlier" by R.L. Meza (3.5*)
December 26, 2025
Favorite of mine is The Eighth Pyramid, but altogether a standout edition. Several ruminations on living in an ancient universe, as well as several excellent stories with an eco bent. “If an Algorithm Can Cast A Shadow” had me say “Jesus CHRIST” several times, so dark.
September 14, 2025
My favorite story was probably Claire Jia-Wen's "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow," though several of the others had good narrative voices to them.
January 2, 2026
I enjoyed the "Last Lunar New Year" story. The others were just alright.
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