Status Updates From Clarkesworld Magazine, Issu...

Just reading the Peter Watts story, “Giants”.

Couldn't get into the Watts' prose. Skipped it.

Leigh Kennedy's orangutan story, reprinted from Asimov's in 1983. I was really uncomfortable with the climax of the story, involving a human's sexual advances being rejected by an orangutan. The main character was a whiny, selfish guy I had a hard time liking. I liked the orangutans. 2 stars

Brendan DuBois' short story was a heart-rending near future plunged backwards in time by the complete loss of functioning integrated circuits, complete with superstition and a witch hunt. 4 stars

Xia Jia's mini-anthology of near future China, translated from its original Chinese in the publication Science Fiction World. Some happy, some horrific, some haunting, some humbling, all good bite-sized food for thought. 4 stars.

"murmuration [...]" by halleluyang wow. I started uncertainly, tripping over the semi-robotic language and the first person plural pronouns, but like Dante's inferno, my mind adjusted to the language, and suddenly I was lost in the story. beautiful, heartfelt story of a distributed ai who has list on of its mothers to political conflict. 5 stars.

"Weather" by Susan Palwick was absolutely lovely. Very real characters, compelling narrative, exploring new ways we'll deal with death through denial in the near future. 5 stars