Status Updates From Clarkesworld Magazine, Issu...

“I want you to read my future in a shattered planet,” he said. “In the entrails of an entire civilization.”

…damn

“When Mars enters the capsule, his twin is vivisecting himself. The coppery smell of blood hangs like a shroud. A military-issue nanoknife, tip dipped red, sits beside the wash basin. Balarabe squats overtop of it, the flesh of his right forearm held open by calipers. With his left hand, he plucks at the long tendons he’s managed to expose. The fingers of his right hand spasm.” The right amount of gore

“I can’t prove to you that I’m conscious. I don’t know what parts of me are truly me and what parts are just schematics.” Sensors in overdrive. All regions of the brain flickering. Maria discovered what true love was, and it was unapologetic madness. “But all parts of me know that I never plan on letting you go.”

Lesbian yearning but she’s an android…

“Chip” was meh

Remember Me in the Meat was so good.

“I wanted you to pick me, so I talked about memory-martyrdom as a grave sacrifice. I didn’t tell you how badly I wanted to be a ghost. There are other things you didn’t understand about me. But we’ll come to that.”

ruler's hand bones. She throws them away afterwards.

Three Fortunes on Alcestis as Told by the Fraud Baeliss Shudai: 3* The ruler of a galactic empire seeks out a sothsayer from a famed family, killing a planet for her to read his legacy. She refuses again and again. The people from that planet come to war against the ruler, who dies. The soothsayer tells the future of an injured soldier, making things up. Later, she sees the future of the soldier's baby with the

The Wondrous Nature of Existence: A Conversation with Michael Swanwick Very interesting. I want to read The Mongolian Wizard.

The Literary Buffet: A Conversation with James Sallis Starts with a very long bio because that man did a lot of things!

Painstaking: 3* Mars can't feel pain and is also inhabited? by an organism that makes him regrow when he is injured. He tried to kill himself, ended up split in two, so now he has a twin Balarabe. They are trying to go to a different country, but some drone/police officers try to catch them. They flee together.

The Iron Piper: 4* Morag goes to a Rugby " festival", meets Maeve and Tam from the Campus, a place recruiting people interesting in tech. Tam is indentured (slave), she trades him a flamethrower for one of his robot suit hands. He burns down Maeve's tent, then leaves. She finds the robot suit abandoned a while later.
It's a series of short stories I should check out.

A Sleeper Ship Is Like a Game of Go: 2* I should have DNFed this story after the first day. Three perspectives (San Francisco, onboard the spaceship Diviner, on a planet that doesn't even get a proper name) with unclear povs. A billionaire is sending a ship to space with his son as the ship's brain. People pay millions to join, and bots do everything for them, but they are still not satisfied? +1* Tech sounds cool

Skipping the essay on black holes, I'm simply not interested enough to distinguish between the various theories

Chip: 4* A newcomer to the city takes a cab to the botanical gardens. The AI driver plays ads and has to stop for 6 minutes outside a fast food restaurant (they could have paid to skip it). They talk, the AI driver wants to be a tour bus and takes the newcomer to their best spots at the end. Very interesting and realistic/depressing.

Think of Me Before I Disappear: Between 3 and 4*. Aniqa took her girlfriend of 4 years to the hospital, only to find out she was a malfunctioning android all along. She wonders if she should file for ownership or accept the 1.5M offered by the company. She spends a few days rediscovering her love for Maria/Delilah.

Editor's Desk: 2025 Readers' Poll Finalists Voting is already over, results next month

Remember Me in the Meat: 2* The narrator Iris has been abused by Clara, joins a cult to get chosen as a saint to kill Clara because of climate-change related offenses. People have a Mesh implanted in their brain, they can forget things except if they remember "in the meat". I'm not sure I get the last part of the story. Told to the cult leader.