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Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2016
CONTENTS
Novella
"What We Hold Onto" by Jay O'Connell
Novelette
"Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace
Short Stories
"Clearance" by Sarah Pinsker
"Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera
"Rambunctious" by Rick Wilber
"Rats Dream of the Future" by Paul McAuley
Poetry
"We Argue About Pluto" by Emily Hockaday
"Back Lot at Ed's Scrapyard, Roswell" by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Ancient Ocean" by G. O. Clark
"The Robot Grows Old" by Geoffrey A. Landis
"Born a Spacer" by Tony Daniel
"Mars is a Robot World" by Andrew Darlington
Departments
"Editorial: Behind the Scenes" by Sheila Williams
"Reflections: My Trip to the Future" by Robert Silverberg
"On the Net: There's Something About Mars" by James Patrick Kelly
"On Books: Very Hard Science Fiction" by Norman Spinrad
"SF Conventional Calendar" by Erwin S. Strauss
Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2016, Vol. 40, No. 6 (Whole No. 485)
Sheila Williams, editor
Cover art by Dominic Harman
Novella
"What We Hold Onto" by Jay O'Connell
Novelette
"Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace
Short Stories
"Clearance" by Sarah Pinsker
"Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera
"Rambunctious" by Rick Wilber
"Rats Dream of the Future" by Paul McAuley
Poetry
"We Argue About Pluto" by Emily Hockaday
"Back Lot at Ed's Scrapyard, Roswell" by David C. Kopaska-Merkel
"Ancient Ocean" by G. O. Clark
"The Robot Grows Old" by Geoffrey A. Landis
"Born a Spacer" by Tony Daniel
"Mars is a Robot World" by Andrew Darlington
Departments
"Editorial: Behind the Scenes" by Sheila Williams
"Reflections: My Trip to the Future" by Robert Silverberg
"On the Net: There's Something About Mars" by James Patrick Kelly
"On Books: Very Hard Science Fiction" by Norman Spinrad
"SF Conventional Calendar" by Erwin S. Strauss
Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2016, Vol. 40, No. 6 (Whole No. 485)
Sheila Williams, editor
Cover art by Dominic Harman
116 pages, ebook
First published April 29, 2016
1 person is currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Sheila Williams
285 books67 followersLibrarian 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 29, 2016
This is specifically a review of Jay O'Connell's splendid novella, "What We Hold Onto," not the Asimov's issue as a whole.... "What We Hold Onto" presents a layered and evocative vision of the future. Differences between our world and the story's future are unobtrusively threaded into the narrative. Some differences are large (climate change has already taken place); some medium (people can modify their bodies so that their skin displays images); some small (pet insurance has become hugely expensive). This mixture, together with the richness of the details, makes the world very real. More importantly, the characters are real, and the themes are human and heartfelt. The story speaks about loneliness, friendship, death, about being a parent and about watching your parents age, about holding onto the past and letting it go. The narrator's relationship with her two college-age sons particularly moved me. There is also a strong romance element, which I very much enjoyed. I didn't know why the man was so drawn to the narrator, perhaps because the narrator herself didn't know, but I cared about both of them, and willed them on toward what I hoped would be a happy ending. An excellent story.
June 10, 2016
What a great issue! A lot of heartfelt stories of character adapting to ever-changing technology. The focus on character might upset the people more into the 'sci' of sci-fi, but I really appreciated it.
Jay O'Connell's novela, "What We Hold Onto" was a special delight. It's a touch story of loss and romance, and what it takes to move on. The futuristic world was both strange and completely believable. The character eminently human despite all the mods and technology at their fingertips.
Mercurio D. Rivera's "Unreeled" was powerfully creepy in ways I wasn't prepared for. A wonderful treat!
This is one of the best issues in a very long time.
Jay O'Connell's novela, "What We Hold Onto" was a special delight. It's a touch story of loss and romance, and what it takes to move on. The futuristic world was both strange and completely believable. The character eminently human despite all the mods and technology at their fingertips.
Mercurio D. Rivera's "Unreeled" was powerfully creepy in ways I wasn't prepared for. A wonderful treat!
This is one of the best issues in a very long time.
September 6, 2016
An average issue that tends to focus more on the 'softer' side of SF, covering mental states and people's relationship with things and memories. Not much 'meat' for those into hard SF but if you keep reading, the stories by Rick Wilber, Paul McAuley and Jay O'Connell may be of interest.
- "Clearance" by Sara Pinsker: looking through clearance material at a beach conference sounds boring but some items may lead the user to see strange beaches and to reconciliation with her daughter.
- "Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera: the husband of an astronaut whose mind have returned from a journey into a black hole finds her changed. But is this just from the experience of traveling into a black hole, just paranoia, or the hint of an alien change?
- "Rambunctious" by Rick Wilber: told from the viewpoint of a young girl in a future where climate change has wrecked havoc, it tells the story of her grandparents who appear to tell her that they are not from this world and are preparing her, and others, to take over their jobs.
- "Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace: next in the series of stories about AI helpers embedded in their users, this one is trying to encourage her user to take on other jobs and to overcome a conflict that she has with her mother.
- "Rats Dream of the Future" by Paul McAuley: an unusual story about a reporter who tells the story of missing the scoop of a lifetime when a scientist invites her to see his project that tries to wire together the minds of rats to predict the future, making a killing in the futures markets. But then the project goes wrong, the government asks her for details of his whereabouts and she hints that maybe the rats may have other things on their mind(s).
- "What We Hold Onto" by Jay O'Connell: a mother looks for a helper to help her record and discard the belongings of her grandmother. As they go through the belongings, she finds herself attracted to him and his nomadic way of living. An interesting story to ask readers to think about just what kinds of things should be discarded and preserved, both physical and in memory.
- "Clearance" by Sara Pinsker: looking through clearance material at a beach conference sounds boring but some items may lead the user to see strange beaches and to reconciliation with her daughter.
- "Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera: the husband of an astronaut whose mind have returned from a journey into a black hole finds her changed. But is this just from the experience of traveling into a black hole, just paranoia, or the hint of an alien change?
- "Rambunctious" by Rick Wilber: told from the viewpoint of a young girl in a future where climate change has wrecked havoc, it tells the story of her grandparents who appear to tell her that they are not from this world and are preparing her, and others, to take over their jobs.
- "Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace: next in the series of stories about AI helpers embedded in their users, this one is trying to encourage her user to take on other jobs and to overcome a conflict that she has with her mother.
- "Rats Dream of the Future" by Paul McAuley: an unusual story about a reporter who tells the story of missing the scoop of a lifetime when a scientist invites her to see his project that tries to wire together the minds of rats to predict the future, making a killing in the futures markets. But then the project goes wrong, the government asks her for details of his whereabouts and she hints that maybe the rats may have other things on their mind(s).
- "What We Hold Onto" by Jay O'Connell: a mother looks for a helper to help her record and discard the belongings of her grandmother. As they go through the belongings, she finds herself attracted to him and his nomadic way of living. An interesting story to ask readers to think about just what kinds of things should be discarded and preserved, both physical and in memory.
June 14, 2016
Asimov's SF continues to be one of the best sources of high quality science fiction stories available. I wanted to mention two stories in particular in this issue.
Jay O'Connell's novella "What We Hold Onto" is an immersive experience and one I think will particularly appeal to older readers who are dealing with or have had to deal with reaching that stage of life when our parents are passing on and we have to decide what to do with all of the stuff they - and we - have accumulated in life. It delves into the problem of letting go - of people and of things - and how wrenching an experience that can be. O'Connell is very good at filling in the details of a near-future world, projecting where certain current trends may take us and what that world would be like, socially and technologically. He really immerses you in the look and feel of things to the point that you're really there experiencing it as you read. As someone who's already dealt with the loss of parents and who's dealing with the problem of stuff and what we hold onto, I found his projected solution not only intriguing but appealing to the point that I dearly wish it was an option in our current-day world. An exceptionally well done piece.
Sarah Pinsker's "Clearance" is a very different sort of story, showing just how creative one can be in finding different ways and/or framing devices to tell a story - in this case by listing the items a woman finds in the clearance sections of gift shops at a couple of beach resorts where converging realities are in the background but are part of the "new normal" for the world of this story. Well worth checking out.
Overall, another fine issue with stories well worth the read.
Jay O'Connell's novella "What We Hold Onto" is an immersive experience and one I think will particularly appeal to older readers who are dealing with or have had to deal with reaching that stage of life when our parents are passing on and we have to decide what to do with all of the stuff they - and we - have accumulated in life. It delves into the problem of letting go - of people and of things - and how wrenching an experience that can be. O'Connell is very good at filling in the details of a near-future world, projecting where certain current trends may take us and what that world would be like, socially and technologically. He really immerses you in the look and feel of things to the point that you're really there experiencing it as you read. As someone who's already dealt with the loss of parents and who's dealing with the problem of stuff and what we hold onto, I found his projected solution not only intriguing but appealing to the point that I dearly wish it was an option in our current-day world. An exceptionally well done piece.
Sarah Pinsker's "Clearance" is a very different sort of story, showing just how creative one can be in finding different ways and/or framing devices to tell a story - in this case by listing the items a woman finds in the clearance sections of gift shops at a couple of beach resorts where converging realities are in the background but are part of the "new normal" for the world of this story. Well worth checking out.
Overall, another fine issue with stories well worth the read.
September 2, 2016
Terrific novella by Jay O'Connell, with a sweeping, detailed portrayal of the future, and an ordinary person dealing with ordinary problems amidst it all
October 17, 2016
Found this via Duotrope, where curiosity about a writer who'd had two acceptances to Analog in a week led me to a blog and a superb novella. This entire issue could end up in a best anthology.
September 24, 2023
There were two decent stories in this issue. The rest of it I could have done without. The major disappointment was the novella by Jay O'Connell, "What We Hold Onto." This was primarily a piece of over-written fiction with a few SF trappings so that it could appear in this magazine. One example should suffice:
"We stood on the warm tarmac of a suburban street out of a postwar boom documentary, buttery morning sunlight splashing the tidy white clapboard ranch house nestled in the grassy sward before us. It smelled like late spring, fresh mown grass mingling with the barest whiff of a charcoal barbecue. The yard's single diminutive maple was fully leafed in emerald. The front door was painted a darker, kelly green and sported a shining brass knocker beneath a mullioned window." (p. 81)
Asleep yet? Okay, I challenge you to find the SF component of that paragraph. It could appear in any prizewinning mainstream fiction story. Right? But that's not why I bought this magazine. I want SF! You know. The second and third words of the magazine's title. Not something Asimov would have never bored us enough to write. The story is great if you're a college professor who wants to show his undergraduate Creative Writing class how to write real pretty. It's not so great if you're an SF fan looking for a fun SF story.
That's what this magazine lacks. Fun. Even the two decent stories weren't exactly fun. They were just mildly interesting.
The best story was "Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera. A crew went out to space on a voyage, but was it the same crew who returned? It looks like it, but then why are they behaving in ways so uncharacteristic of themselves? This was a suspenseful possible replacement story, lots of good tension here, except it was too short. Way too short.
The other good story was "Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace. "Today I was very surprised to find out there was an AI implanted in my head." Great premise, eh? I liked the conversations between the main character and the AI. There was such a build-up throughout the story regarding the theme or point of it all that I was expecting something rather grand and insightful. An introspection on the nature of what it means to be human perhaps. What resulted instead was okay but somewhat trite, cliched, a bit too easy. It wasn't a waste of time, but I had to substitute in my mind the ending I would have written for the author in order to make it a really good story.
This magazine took me a long time to read, especially because the novella which covered almost the entire last half of the magazine was such a drear.
Note to self: look for more of Mercurio D. Rivera's writing.
"We stood on the warm tarmac of a suburban street out of a postwar boom documentary, buttery morning sunlight splashing the tidy white clapboard ranch house nestled in the grassy sward before us. It smelled like late spring, fresh mown grass mingling with the barest whiff of a charcoal barbecue. The yard's single diminutive maple was fully leafed in emerald. The front door was painted a darker, kelly green and sported a shining brass knocker beneath a mullioned window." (p. 81)
Asleep yet? Okay, I challenge you to find the SF component of that paragraph. It could appear in any prizewinning mainstream fiction story. Right? But that's not why I bought this magazine. I want SF! You know. The second and third words of the magazine's title. Not something Asimov would have never bored us enough to write. The story is great if you're a college professor who wants to show his undergraduate Creative Writing class how to write real pretty. It's not so great if you're an SF fan looking for a fun SF story.
That's what this magazine lacks. Fun. Even the two decent stories weren't exactly fun. They were just mildly interesting.
The best story was "Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera. A crew went out to space on a voyage, but was it the same crew who returned? It looks like it, but then why are they behaving in ways so uncharacteristic of themselves? This was a suspenseful possible replacement story, lots of good tension here, except it was too short. Way too short.
The other good story was "Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace. "Today I was very surprised to find out there was an AI implanted in my head." Great premise, eh? I liked the conversations between the main character and the AI. There was such a build-up throughout the story regarding the theme or point of it all that I was expecting something rather grand and insightful. An introspection on the nature of what it means to be human perhaps. What resulted instead was okay but somewhat trite, cliched, a bit too easy. It wasn't a waste of time, but I had to substitute in my mind the ending I would have written for the author in order to make it a really good story.
This magazine took me a long time to read, especially because the novella which covered almost the entire last half of the magazine was such a drear.
Note to self: look for more of Mercurio D. Rivera's writing.
December 13, 2021
A couple of the stories really impressed me (especially "Unreeled" by Mercurio D. Rivera). The book reviews mentioned some fiction releases set in a quantum mechanics world, which has piqued my interest. I'm planning to track one down now.
December 6, 2018
This is book very excelent
October 22, 2019
Another collection of very good SF stories.
Read
March 12, 2017"What We Hold Onto" by Jay O'Connell - Thought-provoking look at holding onto and letting go of stuff, people, emotions, and memories. Starting out, I'll admit that I was a bit skeptical seeing a menopausal female main character in first-person point of view being written by a male author. But my doubts were quickly put to rest, and I was impressed with all the characterization. I also found the near-future setting both completely believable and seamlessly woven into the story. **** (3/11/17)
[This novella was made available online as one of the finalists in the 2016 Asimov's Readers' Award Poll.]
[This novella was made available online as one of the finalists in the 2016 Asimov's Readers' Award Poll.]
July 5, 2016
One novella, one novelette, four short stories, and five poems in this issue.
Among my favorites: "Project Symmetry." This story is set in the same universe as Dominica Phetteplace's earlier stories, "Project Empathy" and "Project Synergy." Told as diary entries by Bel, who discovers she has a Watcher chip, an AI implanted in her brain. "What We Hold On To" is the novella, and tells the story from the POV of a middle-aged woman who is divorced, with two nearly grown sons. Her mother is in a coma and she has to decide to take her off life-support or have her "suspended." And there is all the stuff her mother has collected. She highers a Nomad to help, but instead of simplifying her life, he makes it more complicated. "Rats Dream of the Future" is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong on the frontiers of science and technology.
Norman Spinrad wrote this month's column "On Books." As usual, for him, he didn't review the novels per se but used them to riff on "hard science fiction" and how successful these three particular authors were (Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora" was included). I feel like I'm in a lecture hall with an English professor, an especially crotchety one at that!
Among my favorites: "Project Symmetry." This story is set in the same universe as Dominica Phetteplace's earlier stories, "Project Empathy" and "Project Synergy." Told as diary entries by Bel, who discovers she has a Watcher chip, an AI implanted in her brain. "What We Hold On To" is the novella, and tells the story from the POV of a middle-aged woman who is divorced, with two nearly grown sons. Her mother is in a coma and she has to decide to take her off life-support or have her "suspended." And there is all the stuff her mother has collected. She highers a Nomad to help, but instead of simplifying her life, he makes it more complicated. "Rats Dream of the Future" is a cautionary tale about what can go wrong on the frontiers of science and technology.
Norman Spinrad wrote this month's column "On Books." As usual, for him, he didn't review the novels per se but used them to riff on "hard science fiction" and how successful these three particular authors were (Kim Stanley Robinson's "Aurora" was included). I feel like I'm in a lecture hall with an English professor, an especially crotchety one at that!
September 3, 2016
It was an okay issue.
I really couldn't get into the title story, "What We Hold Onto." I think it may have been as simple as that I wasn't the target audience here. I didn't really understand the themes because perhaps I haven't had much experience with them myself. Or I just didn't get it. Either way, this one wasn't great for me.
I still love Dominica Phetteplace's ongoing story arc. That near-future, believable-technology aspect of science fiction is one of my favourites.
Clearance, like What We Hold Onto, I think is aimed at a parent, or at least someone older than I am. Same idea though; I didn't really get it.
Unreeled was quite a thrill ride for me though. That's one story that I wish had lasted longer.
Actually, the same goes for Rats Dream of the Future and Rambunctious. They were all fun and refreshing and I wished they hadn't ended as soon as they did.
I really couldn't get into the title story, "What We Hold Onto." I think it may have been as simple as that I wasn't the target audience here. I didn't really understand the themes because perhaps I haven't had much experience with them myself. Or I just didn't get it. Either way, this one wasn't great for me.
I still love Dominica Phetteplace's ongoing story arc. That near-future, believable-technology aspect of science fiction is one of my favourites.
Clearance, like What We Hold Onto, I think is aimed at a parent, or at least someone older than I am. Same idea though; I didn't really get it.
Unreeled was quite a thrill ride for me though. That's one story that I wish had lasted longer.
Actually, the same goes for Rats Dream of the Future and Rambunctious. They were all fun and refreshing and I wished they hadn't ended as soon as they did.
May 11, 2016
"Project Symmetry" by Dominica Phetteplace is the third in her excellent series of novellas about Bel, Blue Cup and AI in a near-future plutocratic dystopia. I am looking forward to the next two novellas, which are slated to appear in Asimov's in the near future.
June 7, 2017
Too many poems
a problem I also have
at least it was free.
a problem I also have
at least it was free.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews