The Most Invasive Species by Susan Forest is a very interesting piece exploring the application of human cultural bias onto alien species. With this kind of story there is always the danger of the end result being a little preachy, but a good choice of protagonist and solid story telling allowed Ms Forest to avoid that fate.
Ecce Signum by Craig DeLancey has at its heart a couple of very interesting ideas – an extrapolation of mobile technology to the point where people don’t really even need to speak to each other anymore, and the idea of genetically engineering people to take a longer term view of life on the planet. This was a well written story, with good pacing and an interesting future world painted in enough detail to provide great food for thought. As is my custom, I won’t say anything about the end of the novel except to speculate that the story must have been influenced by the current world obsession with Wikileaks!
I liked the twist in A Delicate Balance by Kevin J. Anderson, and thought the world of the restrictive colony environment was very well realised.
To Serve Aliens (Yes, It’s a Cookbook) by Eric James Stone was very funny. All hail our elephant overlords.
Also in this issue:
- Part III of Triggers by Robert J. Sawyer (review once I’ve read the whole thing)
- You Say You Want a Revolution by Jerry Oltion
- Follow-Up by Stephen L. Burns
This work by Mark Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia License.