David’s Reviews > Third Class Superhero > Status Update
David
is on page 102 of 173
"Two-Player Infinitely Iterated Simultaneous Semi-Cooperative Game with Spite and Reputation" is an odd beast: a list of statements describing a (frustratingly) vaguely imagined multiplayer game and its high scorer's strategy. It ends up in that liminal Yu-space often inhabited by his middling protags who traverse a banal existence one degree of separation from a better life.
— Jan 14, 2025 11:18AM
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David
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"Autobiographical Raw Material Unsuitable for the Mining of Fiction" captures brilliantly the anguish of a writer who wants to write the story of his mother's life before she dies, but suffers writer's block. A coda of sorts to "Reality" and it affected me profoundly.
— Jan 28, 2025 04:37AM
David
is on page 163 of 173
"32.05864991%": a brilliant treatment of the word "maybe", that Schroedinger's cat of matchmaking, carrying multiple probabilities and meanings, which we anticipate with dread or hope, but always collapses to a single state in every alternate universe, except perhaps this one. Wow.
— Jan 26, 2025 11:44AM
David
is on page 145 of 173
"Man of Quiet Desperation Goes on Short Vacation": in which the titular man, 46, realizes his lack of agency and can't stop running between "middles". Like the previous story, very meta and full of profundity.
— Jan 23, 2025 04:49AM
David
is on page 133 of 173
"Florence": a tale about cosmic distances and time, about the senescence of humanity, and regret, and loneliness. Oof.
— Jan 21, 2025 06:51PM
David
is on page 113 of 173
"Realism": I fell asleep several times. Then woke again, back where I started. This is a story. This is not a story. No, it's a story about a story. Nay, it's a story that never ends, or never begins. What I'm trying to say is, it's hard to grok. Until the last line.
— Jan 21, 2025 06:17PM
David
is on page 91 of 173
"My Last Days as Me": Brilliant tale of a sitcom actor Tinged with Melancholy. Wow.
— Jan 12, 2025 09:08PM
David
is on page 69 of 173
"Problems for Self-Study" hits some of the same high notes with its struggling physics doctoral student on the spectrum as David W. Goldman's "Axiom of Choice" does with its lovestruck math ABD. I feel so seen. But ugh, the equations didn't survive the OCR intact...
— Jan 11, 2025 09:25PM
David
is on page 57 of 173
"The Man Who Became Himself" radiates _Being John Malkovitch_ vibes, sans voyeurism, but with John inhabiting himself. Yeah, this one's wild and yet poignant. Brilliant.
— Jan 11, 2025 03:38PM
David
is on page 39 of 173
"401(k)" is a cute indictment of bland corporate culture, jobs that suck the life out of you, Capitalized Thoughts, and oversaturated consumerism. It's hell, really.
— Jan 10, 2025 09:30PM
David
is on page 28 of 173
Title story is a bright entry in the crowded "supers" subgenre, and could have been the tale of a joker in the Wild Cards universe. I quite like the ending.
— Jan 10, 2025 07:28AM
