Status Updates From Clarkesworld Magazine, Issu...

Great article from Octavia Cade about ecological grief (I'm just here for Sirocco the kākāpō), and interviews with Indra Das and R.S.A. Garcia, and Neil Clarke looking at the international impact of having to close briefly due to AI spam.

Fishing the Intergalactic Stream - Hall: The fisherman to end all fishermen.

Midnight Patron - Robinson: Art, uh, finds a way.

The Face of God: A Documentary - Neri: God as a comet, sort of.

Fractal Karma - Ratnakar: That was way too much math for me, LOL. Interesting concepts at least.

A Space O/pera - Yee: Filipino space mission gone awry, dog is fine.

The Buried People - Brown: Post-apocalyptic Scotland, some people can hibernate in the snow.

The Children of Flame - Moore: Post-apocalyptic Wales, mutual support vs. feudalism.

the face of god - 5 stars - knockout end to a lackluster volume. galactic divine horror. fascinating premise, well-done multi-POV, fantastic writing well translated. apocalyptic hubris.

midnight patron - 3 stars - oh, I feel you, crow. legacies and art as civilization. if you've never felt that urge before, I hope you get the chance.

"fishing - 3.5 stars - slowburn creeping horror of the capitalistic kind. pretty fun. didn't think I'd enjoy a story about fishing quite this much, but there you go! the true horror in the dark, etc."

fractal karma - 0 stars but I finished it - are you serious... two whole pages of dialogue.... written like this... because... they're on... ketamine. interesting ideas unfortunately hampered by atrocious storytelling which mostly takes places through stilted, infodumping dialogue.

oh my god this dialogue is so bad

children of the flame - 3.5-4 stars - great worldbuilding, interesting plot, well-developed characters in a few words. community + rebuilding + symbiosis. found the robot endearing. one of those pleasantly self-contained little tidbits that are fun to read. main complaint is that it drags at the start, but not so much as to put me off it entirely!

buried people - 2 stars - one of those stories you sit through and nod along to, because the world is interesting and vibrant, and the narrative FEELS like it has a point, a reason to exist... and then it doesn't. not the worst, writing was okay, but it fell flat for me in the end. needed to be longer.

A Space O/pera - 1 star - am I stupid? this felt narratively incoherent. was excited to see a story from a Filipino author but it was bad :(

Ok, that first story was odd. Have to think about it.