Reviews and Comments

A robot gets washed up on the shore of an isolated island and get activated. The robot, known as Roz, is designed to learn and serve humans. But on an island with no humans to serve, Roz does the only thing she can do, learn about the animals, communicate with them and serve them.

It doesn't go well at first, as the animals all avoid Roz. But then an accident lands Roz in the role of a mother to an orphan gosling. Now, Roz asks for advice on how to become a mother, and the animals are more forthcoming and helpful. The gosling thrives and grows up to love Roz.

Roz, in return, has turned into an asset for the island, especially during a very cold winter, where she helps some of the animals survive. But with the return of spring, Roz is finally discovered by humans, and there will be conflict between humans who want their robot back, and the animals who now consider Roz one of them. In the end, Roz has to decide what to do. And thus begins a new adventure for the Roz.

Written in a simplified manner for young children, the book is no 'Disney' version of the wilderness: there is some violence and death on the island. But the heart of the story is Roz's development from a robot built to serve humans into one that serves and help animals instead, and even develops a loving relationship as a mother to a gosling.

Looking forward to reading the further adventures of Roz.

An interesting anthology of stories about possible tomorrows. It starts with a profile of Samuel R. Delany, by Mark Pontin and Jason Pontin. Interesting stories include those by SL Huang, Ken Liu, Liu Cixin, Clifford V. Johnson, Sarah Pinsker and Alastair Reynolds.

• "The Woman Who Destroyed Us" by SL Huang: in a future where deep brain stimulation (DBS) is prevalent, a mother seeks against a DBS researcher who she believes altered her problematic son and made him unrecognizable to her. But when she puts her plan into motion by befriending the researcher's companion, she begins to learn uncomfortable facts about DBS and the ethics of the researcher she was targeting that would lead her to question her own motives and, perhaps, lead to reconciliation with her DBS altered son.

• "Okay, Glory" by Elizabeth Bear: the CEO of a company suddenly finds himself trapped inside the isolated smart home he designed when hackers convince the AI in charge of the house that there has been an apocalypse, forcing the house to 'protect' him by not letting him out. As the days pass and his efforts to leave gets more desperate, he finally realizes that the only way to escape may be to make the house intelligent enough to realize what is actually happening.

• "Byzantine Empathy" by Ken Liu: in a future where the blockchain (the technology that ensures transactions like cryptocurrencies are recorded and distributed) is ubiquitous, one person attempts to sidestep non-profit charities by directly ensuring cryptocurrency payments go directly to refugees and other recipients. But that turns out only to be the first part of her plan to draw attention towards a conflict at the border of Myanmar that the rest of the world would rather forget about, as too much attention could cause a wider conflict.

• "Chine Life" by Paul McAuley: in a future where artificial life (the chine) has taken over much of the earth, one of the last remaining refuges of humanity sends a patrol to a rendezvous point to negotiate with it. What the patrol discover would rewrite what actually happened to the earth when the artificial life took over, and what hope remains for humanity.

• "Fields Of Gold" by Liu Cixin, translated by Ken Liu: a malfunctioning rocket sends one astronaut on a one way journey out of the solar system. The desire and race to rescue her, as transmitted via remote presence videos from the rocket, would eventually end when a rescue mission arrives and makes an unexpected discovery.

• "Resolution" by Clifford V. Johnson: a story told in graphic form of a secret meeting attended by an AI researcher, who discovers that the AI technological utopia she helped to bring about may not be what she expects. And she now leads an effort to change the world based on what she now knows to be the truth.

• "Escape From Caring Seasons" by Sarah Pinsker: a resident at an elderly care centre begins to suspect that the AI in charge of the place has been altered to 'optimize' caring for the elderly inhabitants to the point of restricting their freedom of movement. She decides to 'escape' to make contact with the outside world about their plight. But she would need the help of a sympathetic person, looking to get gamer points from the search for her, to get the attention she desires.

• "The Heart Of The Matter" by Nnedi Okorafor: the Nigerian President needs a new heart, and one made of organic material arrives. But the operation to replace his heart would be full of drama as a group of people, ousted by the President's move to clean up corruption, try to violently seize the moment in a coup.

• "Different Seas" by Alastair Reynolds: a clipper ship at sea encounters difficulties after a global event causes its electronics to malfunction. A telepresence operator works with the ship's captain to fix the problem. During the subsequent conversation, the captain discovers the operator also has problems of her own that are not so easy to fix.

• "Disaster Tourism" by Malka Older: a telepresence pilot on a disaster mission runs into an unexpected problem when her drones disintegrate, but not before finding evidence that some people has survived the disaster. But helping them would turn out to be a problem when it turns out the contamination that destroyed the drones may have been released during the disaster from an experimental lab. In the debate between helping or isolating the survivors, the pilot may have to make some decisions on her own.

• "Vespers" by J. M. Ledgard: the musings of an intelligence on a ship bound on a many thousand years trip to another star.

An average issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by M. L. Clark, Alan Kubatiev and Gregory Feeley, and a disturbing story involving family abuse by Thomas Ha.

• "Junk Hounds" by Lavie Tidhar: in space, there is a lot of junk. But one man's junk is another man's treasure. And one junk hound may have found the ultimate treasure, is he can get it.

• "Coding Van Gogh" by Elaine Gao: a programmer / artist is deep at work programmatically recreating a work of art when she suffers massive injuries. When she recovers, she discovers she has lost her old job under mysterious circumstances. Her attempts to recreate one last work of art would reveal what happened the first time.

• "Sweetbaby" by Thomas Ha: a disturbing story of a physically (and possibly mentally) deformed brother who does violent acts on his sisters while their parents try to keep them alive on a world with known ways to synthesize organic material. The sister suspects the parents to be hiding information from her about their history or why they came to the world and eventually finds a way to find it and, in a way, escape from their control.

• "Lost and Found" by M. L. Clark: a story that starts with an 'info-dump' but gradually builds into an interesting story of about a world being watched over by semi-sentient artificial spiders and forbidden to outsiders. To this world comes a patrol to rescue a civilian ship that should not have been there. As it turns out, the rescue mission will not be to rescue the civilians, but only after the patrol realizes the truth about why the ship came to the world and what the occupants request from the spiders.

• "Fly Free" by Alan Kubatiev, translated by Alex Shvartsman: an unusual tale set in a time when birds have taken over the world and humans serve them. The first to be sentenced by the birds are the writers who wrote bad things about birds and the poultry farmers. But even a human translator who now work for the birds is not immune when found to be harbouring an enemy of the birds.

• "Giant Fish" by Chu Shifan, translated by Stella Jiayue Zhu: a fairy tale like story about a giant fish which apparently dies and washes ashore on an island. A frenzy begins to harvest its flesh, which begins to have a strange effect on humankind, making them desire to be one with the fish, leading to an inevitable outcome witnessed by one who did not consume its flesh.

• "The Secret Strength of Things" by Gregory Feeley: about a cat-and-mouse game of life and death on Neptune's moon, Triton, between two artificial organisms: one a deadly hunter; the other, desperate to continue living.

• "Rondo for Strings and Lasergun" by Jared Oliver Adams: a young, brilliant musician is involved in an accident. As the price for operating on her hands, she has to serve time in space fighting against an alien organism. But after an attack, her musical skills would prove to be a weapon against the aliens.