Greg Egan

Not awful, but shows too little interest in the social part of its setting compared to exciting stuff like "how to visualise the inverse square law" and the exact weight you need to crack an ice sheet. There's a lot of writing on things like the effects of gravity but basically nothing on how a seemingly quite small society with minimal surplus was able to create a megastructure (the last chapter turns this up to 11). The characters are as thin as thin can be, just names without personalities. There's some interesting concepts here, the author just seems to not want to dig into the implications and how things actually work or tell a human story about how people live in that. And for something where he's clearly concerned with some degree of "hard sci fi" realism it feels he didn't think it through outside of a narrow band of physics.… (mer)

The Hundredth House Had No Walls
Laurie Penny
5 stars
A charming and humourous fantasy short that teases all the old tropes in an amusing way. Read with a smile on my face all the whole time and a few guffaws sprinkled liberally throughout. Reminiscent of the better parts of Xanth and utterly delightful.

The Vetting
Michael Cassutt
3 stars
A lawyer battling cancer finds a new perspective while vetting a Syrian man who has been detained by ICE

Zeitgeber
Greg Egan
3 stars
A significant portion of the population suddenly finds their sleep schedules jumped 12-hours out of synch. An interesting premise but the story didn't really feel like it went anywhere.

Water: A History
K.J. Kabza
4 stars
A woman in her twilight years bonds with a youth seeking a bright future. As she reminisces about her youth on Earth and her adulthood on this new planet, she wonders if she has regrets. Beautifully executed and thoughtful.

As the Last I May Know
S.L. Huang
5 stars
A nation once devastated by a powerful weapon of mass destruction sets in place an unthinkable restriction to prevent themselves from casually inflicting the same on others. Now at war, their leader and a member of the Order must face a horrifying choice.

In Xanadu
Lavie Tidhar
3.5 stars
Wishing for something, anything at all, to happen to relieve your boredom has always been a dangerous game. An exhilarating break in routine leads to a sad sad surprising discovery.

The Touches
Brenda Peynado
4 stars
In a world overrun by mutated viruses, can humans living in the virtual world survive without genuine touch? Fascinating universe, but I'm not quite sure what I think of the ending.

Preciousl Little Things
Adrian Tchaikovsky
5 stars
A woman fighting to improve her position in society makes a discovery that upends the worldview of her entire community.

The Time Invariance of Snow
E. Lily Yu
5 stars
A magical blend of physics and fairytales. One of the best short stories I've ever had the pleasure of reading.… (mer)