I think I’m going to have to write an email to Neal Clarke to find out exactly how much of the content will have been previously published as I was disappointed to find of the three issues published I have read two of the novellas and three of the six short stories.
Issue three has the following
- The Wedding Album by David Marusek (Novella)
- The Surface of Last Scattering by Ken MacLeod (Short Story)
- Slipping by Lauren Beukes (Short Story)
I’m not going to include material I’ve previously read as this blog is more for my benefit in remembering what I have read and thought at the time and any use it may have to a wider audience is coincidental.
Surface of the Last Scattering
I find Ken MacLeod to be a difficult author in the sense that I either love his work or just don’t care. It’s not a matter of disliking something he has written, it just sometimes fails to engage so completely it might be the written equivalent of porridge. Thankfully I was gratified to find that this is one of his works where the concept is so simple; well thought out; interesting and perfectly realised that there is nothing to complain about. It covers so many topics with so few words it’s really quite amazing to see it done.
In about 3,000 words Ken MacLeod covers religion; the compassion of strangers; the essence of history; childhood idealisation of parents; realistic advances in technology and creates something simple yet breath-taking.
5/5
Slipping
Many times in the pub people have commented on what an Olympics with no restrictions on drugs would be like and Lauren Beukes has taken this and made it work but thinking through how the commercial aspects would work in reality. By focussing on the human elements of competitors whose humanity is in doubt (to some) Beukes manages to explore disability; what it means to compete; the nature of fame and how athletes are effectively commodities to be packaged, managed and sold.
4/5
