Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2006

Reviewed date: 2006 Sep 27
144 pages
cover art

Jack Skillingstead is become a fixture in Asimov's, so I was surprised to find on his website that he's sold relatively few stories. He's an excellent writer, even if his stories are not precisely to my taste. None of the stories in this issue are great, but all of them are readable and entertaining. My favorite is We Are The Cat, mostly because I think spelunking physicists are funny in their own right. It's a cute little story.

  • Novelette: Sunlight or Rock, by John Kessel - Erno Pamsen is a freelance biotech scientist trying to scratch out a living on the moon; he gambles his last money on a bad tip about a fixed game.
  • Novelette: Godburned, by Karen Jordan Allen - Pearl travels to Mexico and touches the Aztec artifact called the Sun Stone, and is reincarnated as an Aztec god.
  • Novelette: Postsingular, by Rudy Rucker - A rogue scientist release nanobots called orphids, which multiple and set up a complete worldwide network that sees all and knows all.
  • The Girl in the Empty Apartment, by Jack Skillingstead - A Donnie Darko-esque story. A man has strange visions of a girl living in an empty apartment, who is calling him to step out of the world.
  • Primates, by David D. Levine - Ed Vick from the Woodland Park Zoo gets a call from a redneck who thinks he's found Bigfoot.
  • We Are The Cat, by Carl Frederick - Spelunking physicists discuss Shroedinger's cat after they're trapped inside a cave after a rockslide.
  • Silence in Florence, by Ian Creasey - A servant who cleans chamberpots is curious when the foreign visitors don't use their pots. Perhaps they are angels, and maybe they could heal her mute daughter.


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