| Title | : | Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 209, February 2024 |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1642361577 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781642361575 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 154 |
| Publication | : | First published January 31, 2024 |
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 209, February 2024 Reviews
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I only read, so far, the Isabel J. Kim short story
Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole which is precisely what it says on the cover. It's about another short story, one of the most famous in sf/fantasy, Ursula K. LeGuin's
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (and a cursory goodreads search shows a few other works referring to it (it is an important interesting philosophical idea...). So you need to know what the LeGuin story is about to read this.
And it is a sarcastic, very in tune with modern world political reflection on that world and universe. It is not exactly conventional fiction with characters (but then again neither is the LeGuin short story), it is got rage and a voice. It feels "fast", it is very meta.
Not typical of Kim's work by the way (though her short stories are all very varied).
Rating, I will dodge that (but right now if I had to rank her stories for others to read, this would likely be near the bottom). How impactful this is, let me see how much I retained from it later... -
For Zohar Jacobs' "The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin"
For Isabel J. Kim's "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole."
This is part of a continuing buddy read where we are reading stories and books inspired by Ursula Le Guin's famous original. The thread is located here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... -
Review is for Kardashev’s Palimpsest - which is the best novelette I’ve ever read. Absolutely beautiful and breathtaking in scope. Everyone must read this if they can.
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This issue isn't quite as good as the previous one, but it has a barn-burner of a story called
"Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole," by Isabel J. Kim. She has written very good stories in the past, some of them within the pages of this very magazine, but I think this is the best one I've seen from her yet.
It's an answer to Ursula K. Le Guin's famous story
"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," which is less of a story and more of a thought experiment. The thought, in this case, is a variation on Spock's pronouncement from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan--"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one."
Because Omelas as a city, culture and civilization, you see, depends entirely on the misery of one small child locked away in a room at its base. Everyone in Omelas knows this and either makes an uneasy peace with it or, as the title refers to, "walks away." There have been many replies to/engagements with this story over the years (including an episode of
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), but I don't think I've ever seen one like this. Kim's story pulsates with rage, as she takes Le Guin's original premise and turns it inside out, applying it to today's world and all the things governments, rich people and capitalism enable or overlook to ensure their systems remain running.
The kid was the drop of blood in the bowl of milk whose slight bitterness would make the sweetness of the rest of Omelas richer. Without the kid in the hole, Omelas was just paradise. With the load-bearing, suffering child, Omelas meant something.
And of course, it was true that the whole city literally ran on the load-bearing suffering child in a very real physical way that was not a metaphor. And everyone really liked having running power and no blackouts and good schools and low crime and community-oriented government and safe sidewalks and public transit that worked.
This story hits you like a gut punch. So far, it's the best story I've read this year.
There are two other excellent stories in this issue.
"Kardashev's Palimpsest," by David Goodman, is a tragedy/love story that spans literally billions of years in the narrative of Dee and Vee, who were once human and now are "computational matter, wrapped in the hardest, densest materials any species ever created." We follow these two as humans evolve past their biological bodies and are uploaded into a virtual universe, and graduate to self-contained mindships exploring the galaxy. Earth is destroyed and Dee thinks they lose Vee in its destruction; but eons later, the two find each other again, just in time to see the universe winding down...or perhaps being reborn. It's a timeless love story, and proof that for a narrative to succeed, you need characters, not just high-concept ideas.
Finally, we have
"Lonely Ghosts," by Meghan Feldman, which tackles the need for companionship and connection, even between machines. Sini is an exploration android apparently abandoned on an alien planet--its last contact with its human minders was thousands of years before. Now, the only being it can reach is CRABB, a megacity construction droid on one of the planet's moons. But Sini has been seeing the ghosts of its previous handlers for centuries and is basically afraid that it is going insane. So it reaches out to CRABB for reassurance, and the construction droid ends up using its last long-range warp packet to bring Sini to its moon, where it has been building a city all by itself for eons. This is a fairly short story, but it has some lovely characters.
On Bluesky, the editor Neil Clarke has this to say about the state of his magazine:
"Round two of the Amazon magazine subscriptions nightmare is shaping up to be far worse than round one. I'll have more to say when I've finished reviewing my math (and maybe looking at Feb. data), but it's not good.
Always a good time to subscribe."
Please, think about subscribing to this excellent magazine. I would hate to lose it. -
An average issue, with interesting stories by Zohar Jacobs and Yang Wanqing.
- "Scalp" by H.H. Pak: a young janitor does his job in a facility where people infected with an extreme addiction are sedated and put into virtual worlds to recover.
- "The Flowers That We Intend To Share" by Rajeev Prasad: robots that take care of modified plants in a greenhouse began to develop awareness. The two sons of the parents who own the greenhouse are determined that the robots can explore the world, against the wishes of the parents.
- "The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin" by Zohar Jacobs: set in an alternate world where the Soviet Union has a base on Enceladus, the story centres about the base commander who discovers that religion is becoming popular as the base, which is against Soviet principles. His attempts to stamp out it occur when a major discovery is made, prompting new explorers to come from the Earth. But the new people bring news of changes on Earth, leading the commander to consider a new path for the base and for himself.
- "Kardashev's Palimpsest" by David Goodman: in the far, far, future, a Seeker recreates his earlier self to explore his beginning on Earth and his relation with a long-lost companion that, perhaps, is not lost forever.
- "The Peregrine Falcon Flies West" by Yang Wanqing, translated by Jay Zhang: a girl makes a trip to the west of China, on a fanciful desire to follow a falcon. But events in this warming world make a change when unknown aliens turn up and turn the climate around, but maybe not for the better in the long term for humanity. The girl, and her interest in birds and their intelligence, may be what is needed to break through and communicate with the aliens.
- "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim: an unsettling story of a community people are happy and healthy, except for one child who must suffer in a hole. Then, the child is murdered, and disasters occurs until another child can be found who can suffer on behalf of the community. Conflicts break out between those who say the child must suffer and those who think the community are moral monsters for doing it.
- "The Beam Eidolon" by Ryan Marie Ketterer: a conscious planetary entity's peaceful existence is shattered when four people arrive to dig up its earth, cut up its forests and eat its creatures. Now the entity just wants to take revenge for its suffering.
- "Lonely Ghosts" by Meghan Feldman: a robotic planetary surveyor keeps asking an unseen entity exploring on a nearby moon whether it is along on the planet, for it is seeing the ghosts of its trainers, and now even doubts the existence of the other explorer. -
This issue was interesting, especially the short story by Isabel J. Kim. But there were too many underwhelming stories, so the overall rating will be 3 stars.
“Scalp” by H.H. Pak - janitors walk among people in tanks, who are living virtual lives. I think it’s supposed to be poignant, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. 2.5 stars.
“The Flowers That We Intend To Share” by Rajeev Prasad - the end of childhood, sentient mechs, flowers that drug you and creepy families. I liked the feel of this story. 3.9 stars.
“The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin” by Zohar Jacobs - an alternative history of sorts, with Soviet colonies on Saturn’s moons. It’s written as old school Soviet sci-fi, but it is subversive, of course. 3.8 stars.
“Kardashev’s Palimpsest” by David Goodman - of post humanity and love spanning millennia. I liked it! 4 stars.
“The Peregrine Falcon Flies West” by Yang Wanqing - This one is a nice mix of combating climate change, aliens, birds and bird-watching, and people refusing to conform. A cool story. 4 stars.
(It’s nice to see more Chinese sci-fi in Clarkesworld! Even when I don’t like a story, it’s still interesting to read something different from my “usual” sci-fi diet.)
“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim - a very vicious and brilliant dialogue with Le Guin’s famous short story. 4.5 stars.
“The Beam Eidolon” by Ryan Marie Ketterer - a story featuring a living planet and stupid humans. I’ve read similar stuff before. 3 stars.
“Lonely Ghosts” by Meghan Feldman - abandoned machine intelligences are trying to be less lonely. Nothing special, 3 stars. -
Trying very hard to catch up with my 2024 Clarkesworld issues. This was honestly a really good one!
Standouts for me were
- 'The Enceladus South Pole Base Named After V.I. Lenin' by Zohar Jacobs (always love some Slavic sci-fi and I am especially a big fan of the word cosmonaut)
- 'Kardashev's Palimpsest' by David Goodman (big fan of the fated lovers who meet in every lifetime trope)
- 'Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole' by Isabel J. Kim (you need to know about the original story by Ursula K Le Guin to really enjoy it, but regardless a great read) -
Just the Kim story
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STANDOUTS:
Lonely Ghosts by Meghan Feldman — I love it when a short story destroys me. Hauntingly beautiful writing + buddy robots and feelings.
The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin by Zohar Jacobs — LOVED THIS. Beautifully atmospheric + I adore scifi that delves into the messy sociological side of Space Pioneer Science Communities. Faith and belief and looking for a cause. Great prose. Extremely up my alley
Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole by Isabel J Kim — Ok this was a banger. Kim gets it!!! For real!! The only valid way to write about Omelas.
(my arbitrary 4 stars rating mostly applies to these stories. The rest wasn't Bad, but forgettable overall)
Everything else:
Kardashev's Palimpsest by David Goodman — I'll bet someone out there loves this to bits. Love through realities, or something like it! Unfortunately it's aggressively not my thing.
Scalp by H.H. Pak — This hits. Solid read overall.
The Beam Eidolon by Ryan Marie Ketterer — This is mid at best. Cool POV premise, but everything else is meh.
The Flowers That We Intend To Share by Rajeev Prasad — Not Good verging on Bad. The characters are unbelievably flat and I couldn't even make it to the end without skimming.
The Peregrine Falcon Flies West by Yang Wanqing — Wasn't life changing or anything, but I enjoyed it.
