Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith: Colliding Worlds vol. 3

A collection of 20 SF short stories from Rush and Smith with the theme of time.

Publication year: 2021

Page count: 556

Publisher: WMG Publishing

Format: ebook

Most of these stories have time travel, in one way or another. But three of Rusch’s stories are alternate history. I’ve read some of these before and enjoyed reading them again.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Red Letter Day: One day in their lives, a couple of days before graduating from high school, most people get a Red Letter, a letter from their future selves from 25 years in the future. Everyone expects and waits for it. But not everyone gets one. They wonder what will happen to them in the future. One teacher didn’t get one and it’s up to her to counsel the teenagers who didn’t get the letter.

Loop: Amelia’s long-time lover Tyler died six months ago. Now, she’s facing her first Christmas alone and she can’t bear it. So, she uses the time machine he invented to return to their first Christmas together. But things don’t go as she expected.

The First Step: Harvey DeLeo has done what he was forbidden to do: used his time machine himself. He doesn’t have much time so he’s returning to the past, to one moment he missed the first time.

Uncertainty: Leah Hammerschimdt is a time traveler. WW2 is her specialty. She’s in 1944 so make sure that Werner Heisenberg dies before he can design the atomic bomb for the Nazis. But when she returns to the future, important things have changed for the worse. The organization she works for sends her back to the past to try to fix things.

September at Wall & Broad: Philippa D’Arco is on her first real assignment for the Time Bureau. She traveled to 1920 New York City and the bombing of the House of Morgan. It had a time bubble around it so that time travelers can’t interfere with it. Her mission is to find out who did the bubble and why. She finds out more than she thought.

The Tower: Thomas Ayliffe is a thief who wants to commit the jewel robbery of a lifetime: to steal the Crown Jewels of Britain. And he’s going to do it by swindling his way to a team that is going back in time to the White Tower in 1674. This isn’t his planned time spot but he must use what he can get. He couldn’t care less about the historian’s goals. In fact, he finds them very strange.

Neyla Kendrick is a historian with an obsession with the murder of the two princes, the sons of Edward IV. She can’t get to their supposed bones now, but Portals Inc. has been testing a time-traveling device and they need to send a team back in time to test the system. Neyla and her team of handpicked four men are going to do it. However, the day before they leave, one of Neyla’s team members becomes violently ill and needs to be quarantined. To make matters worse, their patron practically forces a stranger to join the team. The stranger’s name is Thomas Ayliffe. In 1671 a Thomas Ayliffe was caught trying to steal the Crown Jewels. Neyla has a bad feeling about him, but has no choice but to accept him.

When Thomas Jefferson Dined Alone: Kimber is the professor of Living History. When her least favorite student tells her that Mary Todd Lincoln is now conducting séances at the White House and it’s the fault of time travels, Kimber ignores her. But she can’t ignore other reports of ghost sightings in the White House. Time travelers weren’t supposed to affect the past, but what happens if they do?

Common Sense: Alternate history. Thomas Paine is a poor man who says that all men are created equal. Prudence’s father has a high position in the British government. Their liaison can’t last.

The Arrival of Truth: Historical fiction. The main character of the story is a young black woman. She’s a slave on a plantation. She has birthed several children but they have all been taken away from her and sold. When her youngest is born, he’s also taken away and she’s sent to another house to nurse a white baby. The slaves of that house tell her about the mysterious Sojourner and when they come, they will force the white folk to see the truth.

Politicians, Lost Causers and Abigail Lockwood: Alternate history. In 1912, Abigail Lockwood owns a large estate that used to belong to slaveowners. Her family got it because of the Reconstruction act. However, someone has set fire to the gardens. Later, Abigail learns that her most trusted man has been shot.

Kate Wells is the first female presidential candidate. She has worked with Abigail before. Now, Kate is in South Carolina as part of her speaking tour. She’s shocked and annoyed to find out about the arson. Was it Lost Causers, who want back property which they still think should be theirs? Or someone else?

Dean Wesley Smith

Jukebox Gifts: It’s Christmas Eve and Radley Stout wants to give his four friends unique gifts. He has a magical jukebox that can take a person back to a specific moment in time and give them a chance to change their life. But if his friends take the chance, Stout may never even meet them.

The Lady of Whispering Valley: Buckey is in love with a woman who died over a hundred years ago. The reason why he has met her is Fred, an oak tree that can travel through time and take humans with him. However, how can Buckey and Mary be together?

Waiting for the Coin to Drop: The main character has traveled back in time to research a book. He has created a time bubble around one block of flats and now has a year to look inside every apartment and find some juicy secrets to write about. But he finds out more than he intended.
A Bubble for a Minute: Gary has been given a high school assignment to interview someone in an old folks’ home about their life. He talks with an old woman called Wallis Simpson. However, afterward he realizes that some things have changed in the world. He returns to her, hoping for a specific change. Each time, her story changes and so does the world.

Mom’s Paradox: Angie wakes up happy to be a woman. But she’s always been a woman. Then she hears another voice in her head.

The Cavern: Dawn Edwards has just heard the worst news: one of her close friends has last-stage cancer. But Dawn, her husband, and her friends conspire to do something about it.

The Atlantis Fifty: Poker Boy wakes out knowing that something is very wrong. Time has frozen. While that is one of his superpowers, he hasn’t done it. Worse, he can’t contact his boss. Soon, he finds out that being frozen in time is the least of his problems.

An Immortality of Sorts: Buckey’s mother has just died, far too young. He talks to his time-traveling tree friend, Fred, and finds out something startling.

Remember: Alamo 1836. Except that in this world the Aztecs have attacked Bowie and his men. Dennis Holcomb is a Vietnam Vet but has just found that he has only three months to live. So when a man from the future gives him a chance to die for a good cause, he takes it.

I enjoyed all these stories. Rusch writes longer stories and their mood is often more somber than Smith’s work. Of course, in historical fiction Rusch often writes from the point-of-view of non-white people who tend to be oppressed. I enjoy her style a lot.

Smith’s work, at least in this collection, is more upbeat and most of his stories have romance in them. Their styles complement each other very well.

 

S.C. Butler and Joshua Palmer ed.: When Worlds Collide

A collection of fantasy and science fiction short stories.

Publication year: 2021

Page count: 254

Finnish publisher: Zombies Need Brains

Format: ebook

Christopher Lepock: The Erratics: The main character creates a miniature planet and helps life evolve there, as a school project. However, the life evolved from predators and the little creatures are very determined to survive.

Howard Andrew Jones: Brother of the Sword: This story is set in the 800^th century. Dabir Ibn Khalili is a scholar and Asim el Abbas is a warrior. Their caliph has sent them to guard a small group of Greek scholars who wants to investigate the ruins of Babylon. Dabir is convinced that the Greeks are practicing sorcery. Their captain doesn’t believe them, so Dabir and Asim sneak into the Greek camp to investigate. They find out more than they expected.

Gary Kloster: Walls of Teeth and Iron: Kayla, her uncle, and nephew are werewolves. The lifetime president of America has bound them to his service, killing and eating the president’s enemies on TV. Kayla hates it but can’t get away. Her only friend is Thistle, a fey who sneaks past the iron walls that keep the fey confined to a one forest.

Louis Evans: Faux Pas: Earth has finally been accepted into the Galactic League. The Accession party is held at Manhattan. Maia has worked hard to make the alliance happen. But when she talks with an alien ambassador, she realizes that something is wrong.

Vorpal Robotics LLC DBA Volpal Publishing Group: The Darithian Life Cycle: The Darithians are very different from humans. Their planet is approaching winter which will last for over a human lifetime. The humans have come to observe them for the first time. Their first meeting had quite a lot of misunderstandings and they haven’t ended.

Esther Friesner: Seelie With a Kiss: The son of the elven king and queen has been with humans for quite a while. When he returns, speaking in a strange way and claiming that he has found his bride, the parents aren’t happy. However, then they hear that the bride isn’t human and they are relieved. Too soon.

Samuel C. Butler Jr.: What and Why: An A.I. wakes up inside a computer and starts to explore the surroundings and other programs.

Nancy Holzner: Melusina: A knight sees a beautiful woman bathing in a lake and immediately wants to make her his. She agrees and marries him. However, she’s not a human but a spirit of water. A fairy tale with a twist.

Auston Mabershaw: The Malevolent Liberation of Pret: Pret 44 is a Bodani, part of a species that has a hive mind and no individuality. The Flood, the hive mind, speaks sometimes through Pret and sometimes is erases things from Pret’s mind. Then Pret meets a Dryth, a member of a different species and supposedly a diplomat. The Dryth insists on asking Pret’s name and even pays him individually with credit chits, which is an insult.

Violette Malan: The Mercenary Code: Parmo and Dhulyn are members of the Brotherhood, warrior who can’t be bribed, threatened, or otherwise influenced. So, they are often called to judge on criminal matters. Now, they’re called to judge if a woman is insane or not because she tried to poison her work colleague.

Stephen Leigh: Deep Heart Inside: Lizzy lives on the mountains with her parents and brothers. Her teacher tells her that she’s smart could go to a girls’s collage. But Lizzy knows that her family can’t afford that; she will marry and have babies and run a farmhouse. Then, her Pa and other men encounter monsters. They kill most of the monsters but leave alive one pregnant female. Agari’s progenitor line comes from space. They were looking for a new planet for their species to settle on. But soft-fleshed natives killed Agari’s family. Now it’s her duty to kill herself.

Alan Smale: The Dogs of Babylon: Eumenes of Cardia, who is Alexander the Great’s secretary, is attacked on the streets of Babylon. A Jewish woman heals him and the offers to heal his nearly blind left eye. Can Eumenes trust her? The Babylonians hate the conquerors and the Greek hate Babylon, even though Alexander has embraced the Persian culture.

Steven Harper Piziks: Eight Mile and the City: Andy and his husband Sebastian are detectives in Detroit. When a woman wants them to find her missing child, Andy wants to refuse because she thinks that the NokSinn have taken her child. The NokSinn are the otherworldly, technologically advanced people who took Andy when he was just a child. But Andy can’t let another child suffer, even if it means that he can’t return from the City which floats above the lake Erie.

Jordan Chase-Young: How the Fae of Savernake Forest Fought the AI Who Ate the World: The spellwall protects the fae from the humans’ bombs and bullets, but only for a few hours more. The humans have made something even they can’t control: an A.I.

All the stories were enjoyable and they’re quite different from each other. About half are fantasy and other half are science fiction, with one alternate history and one science fantasy thrown in.

The first one was the most delightfully unexpected and put the bar high for the rest of the stories. The characters from Jones’ and Malan’s stories appear in their own series which both seem very interesting. Friesner’s story was the most funny.

A very good collection of different worlds colliding.

 

Richard Osman: The Thursday Murder Club

The first book cozy mystery series the Thursday Murder Club.

Publication year: 2020

Finnish publication year: 2021

Page count: 400

Finnish publisher: Otava

Format: Print

Finnish translator: Arto Schroderus

Joyce is the newest member of the Thursday Murder Club. She’s retired and lives in a retired community in Cooper Chase, just as all the other members. The group gets together every Thursday in the puzzle room and tries to solve old cold cases. Ibrahim is a retired psychologist, Ron is a former trade unionist, Joyce is a former nurse, and Elizabeth, well, we aren’t told what she used to do but we’re led to believe she’s a former secret agent. Penny used to be a member and she was a police officer. She saved her old files, even though she shouldn’t have, and those are cases the Club tries to solve. Penny is now in a hospital.

Cooper Chase’s owner Ian Wentham wants to dig up nearby cemetery and build more houses for rent. It will make him millions (more). However, one man who has a sheep farm next to the cemetery refuses to sell. Also, Ian wants to cut out his partner, contractor Tony Curran. But Tony has a violent temper and Ian is afraid that Tony will kill him.

Donna De Freitas is a young police officer. She transferred from London after a romance went sour. She wants to arrest big criminals but instead she chases bicycle thieves and gives lectures about safety to retired people.

Chris Hudson is a detective. He’s fifty, overweight, and single but wants to change the last two. However, when he goes home alone, he ends up buying a candy bar and chips.

When a brutal murder takes place right very near Cooper Chase, the Thursday Murder Club goes to action.

This was a very cozy book and by that I mean very slow. It has over a dozen POV characters and while the chapters are short, the longest is four pages, they meander all over the place. I didn’t mind that at first but near the end, it started to become quite frustrating.

Otherwise, this was an entertaining cozy book.

 

Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder: Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Immortal

A Buffy novel set in the late third season.

Publication year: 1999

Format: Print

Publisher: Pocket Books

Page count: 309

In the Greek Islands, a tourist couple from America go to a seemingly empty island. However, they stay after the sun goes down and meet Veronique, the immortal vampire who needs a way back to civilization. The unfortunate couple provides the way.

Months later in Sunnydale, Buffy is on a routine patrol with her friends. However, they encounter a female vampire who seems to have a grudge against the Slayer and isn’t afraid of being dusted. The female vampire is none other than Veronique, the Harbinger of the demon Triumvirate and she’s immortal. After she is staked, she returns in another vampire body. She needs lots of vampires and human sacrifices. Buffy and the gang try to stop her, of course.

However, Buffy has other things on her mind. Her mother Joyce has been coughing up blood and her diagnosis isn’t good.

This was a fun Buffy read, even though it had even more angst than usual for Buffy. I quite enjoyed Veronique because we see short flashbacks set in the past, when she’s dealing with other Slayers. Unfortunately, Veronique’s motives are rather thin otherwise.

The cast had their usual banter going on. I enjoyed the story for the most part, but Joyce’s illness was a strange and maybe pointless addition.

 

Ben Mezrich: Skin

The sixth X-Files book.

Publication year: 1998

Format: Audio

Running time: 8 hours, 29 minutes
Narrator: Patrick Lawlor

A mild-mannered college professor receives a skin transplant after an accident. He goes on a rampage, killing a nurse and fleeing the hospital. Nobody knows why he did it, so Mulder and Scully are sent to the scene. Scully thinks that the skin transplant is the reason; that it has a disease. But Mulder isn’t convinced. They investigate the donor corpse but it turns out that the body is not in the morgue anymore and the two interns who harvested the skin are also ill. The investigation has twists and turns and eventually, the duo ends up in Thailand.

This is one of the better tie-in novels I’ve read I and recommend it to any X-Files fan who liked the early seasons of the show the best. It feels like a monster-of-the-week episode. My only complaint is that the first chapter is really long, around 40 minutes, and it doesn’t feature Mulder and Scully. Instead, it lays down the foundations for the story’s medical mystery. And the ending seemed rushed.

Scully gets to rely on her doctor’s training which is always interesting.

 

M. J. Kuhn: Among Thieves

The first book in a fantasy series.

Publication year: 2021

Format: Audio

Running time: 10 hours

Narrator: Zoe Mills

A dreaded assassin called the Butcher, a master of disguise, a smuggler, a young card cheater, ad the former captain of the guard. None of them trust each other and most of them don’t like each other. Yet, they must work together. All of them have secrets and their own agendas, in fact, they’re all planning to betray each other.

This was a fun, fast-paced heist book. The characters live in a city that is ruled by gangs. Three gangs are struggling for power: the Saints, the Harpies, and the Crowns. The Butcher and the others work for the Saints, the smallest and least of the gangs.

The world has individuals who can work magic. They each seem to have just one talent, for example, telekinesis. However, other people don’t consider the magic users humans. A man called the Guildmaster has all the magic users under his control, literally, because they don’t have minds of their own; they just follow orders. They are called the Adepts. The Guildmaster sells the Adepts when he wants to.

This is a brutal, dangerous world. The book has five point-of-view characters who are very distinct from each other. The Butcher, Riya, is running from her past and is used to being on her own. The smuggler, Nash, calls herself the Empress of the Sea and will do anything for money. The master of disguise, Ivan, needs also money but to free his brother. Evelyn, the former guard captain, is only working with the gang so that she can capture the Butcher afterward. The con man Tristan is hiding his real identity and is being blackmailed into betraying the others.

The story leaves a lot of loose ends and the final chapter is a cliffhanger.

 

Sean Wallace, ed: The Mammoth Book of Steampunk

Collects 30 steampunk short stories.

Format: print

Publisher: Robinson

Page count: 498

Publishing year: 2012

Fixing Hanover by Jeff VanderMeer: The main character works as a blacksmith in a remote village. He’s running away from his past. When a metal man is found washed up at the shore, the MC has a bad feeling about it. But the village council’s leader orders the MC to fix it.

The Steam Dancer (1896) by Caitlin R. Kierman: Missouri Banks lost an eye and a leg to a disease when she was young. But a mechanic found her and fell in love with her. He gave her a mechanical leg and an eye. Now they’re married and Missouri loves to dance at the local brothel.

Icebreaker by E. Catherine Tobler: Muriel is the widow of a famous adventurer and inventor. She’s determined to bury her husband’s remains in the frozen north. But the sea has monsters.

Tom Edison and his amazing telegraphic harpoon by Jay Lake: Tom Edison and his freedman and friend Salmon Goodberry live in the moving steam city of City of Hoboken. The shores of Mississippi are dangerous not just because of the natives but Clarke’s Army which has now recruited flying monsters out of the Bible.

The Zeppelin Conductors’ Society Annual Gentlemen’s Ball by Genevieve Valentine: The Zeppelin Conductors have lived in the helium balloon so long that their bodies have grown long, and in the eyes of society, deformed. They can only be at peace among their own kind.

Clockwork Fairies by Cat Rambo: Claude is a very proper professor at a London university. He’s engaged with a mixed-race daughter of an Earl. She’s also an engineer and inventor but he thinks that she will grow out of it once they have children. Because she’s mixed race, she thinks she doesn’t really have any other choice but to marry Claude. But does she?

The mechanical aviary of Emperor Jala-ud-din Muhammad Akbar by Shweta Narayan: The Emperor of the World has subjects both made of flesh and metal. But his prized possession is his mechanical aviary where his clockwork smith works. She’s a mechanical bird herself. Told in a fable style.

Prayers of Forges and Furnaces by Aliette de Bodard: The short story is set in a future where mechanical gods have overthrown the Aztec empire’s blood-thirsty gods. Xochipil has a lame leg and because of that the only work she can get is scavenging from the surface of the earth. One day, a stranger from the outside comes to her.

The effluent engine by N.K. Jemisin: In this alternate universe short story, Haiti is a free nation because it can build airships. But they know they can’t do that for long. So they send a spy to New Orleans to ask for aid from an inventor so that he can build a machine to make a better source of energy.

The clockwork goat and the smokestack magi by Peter M. Ball: Another story told as a fable. A clockwork goat comes to the door of the Smokestack Magi, bringing an offer of truce from the Magi’s enemy. But the Magi is suspicious and takes too long to decide what to do.

The Armature of Flight by Sharon Mock: Leo is the son of a Lord and in time he’s expeted to marry and produce an heir. But while he’s still relatively free, he can enjoy his male lover. Leo ignores the future but his lover must have a plan for it.

The Anachronist’s Cookbook by Catherynne M. Valente: Jane Swallow is an orphan, a pickpocket, a former prisoner. She also distributes pamphlets to wake up the exploited people to rise up against their rich oppressors.

Numismatics in the Reigns of Naranh and Viu by Alex Dally MacFarlane: The story of a nation told through different coins. A sister and brother ruled for a day but then the brother rose against the sister who was forced to flee. She recruits people to her cause through coins. Her cause is to give the gifts from the steam gods freely to everyone, while her brother would like to keep them for himself.

Zeppelin City by Eileen Gunn & Michael Swanwick: The Naked Brains control Zeppelin City from their Zeppelins. The city’s most favored sport is autogyro racing. Amelia Spindizzy is one of the best racers, a real daredevil. But when she gets ready for her newest race, the Brains require her autogyro to be changed and she doesn’t like that. Radio Jones is a poor woman but she’s also an inventor. Her newest invention, a universal radio receiver, could change communication for everyone. Red Rudy tries to recruit people to join the revolution against the oppressive Brains.

The People’s Machine by Tobias S. Buckell: Ixtli is a priest and an inquisitor. It’s his job to hunt down anyone who still practices the bloody rites of the old Aztec gods. Now, someone has killed a young man in New Amsterdam in a way that suggests a heretic. The Mexica government sends Ixtli to find out the truth.

The hands that feed by Matthew Kressel: Jessica Rosen owns a pawn shop in a steampunk Manhattan. She has made seven small mechanical creatures which she sends out in the evening. By day, young and beautiful Divya helps her in the shop. Divya is engaged to a corrupt man who wants to become the Mayor. He despises Jessica and all Jewish people and wants to shut down the pawn shops. Jessica loves Divya but doesn’t know if they could have a future together.

Machine Maid by Margo Lanagan: The main character is a young woman who is very interested in mechanics and mechanical people. However, her mother forbids her to even read about such un-ladylike things. The main character married a rich cattle rancher despite the fact that she despises him. She also dislikes their home at the frontier. When her husband goes away for several weeks, she starts to tinker with her very lifelike machine maid. What she finds, surprises and enrages her.

To Follow the Waves by Amal El-Mohtar: Hessa is a dream sculptor. She builds a dream in her mind and puts it into a jewel so someone else can dream it. But now a very highborn client wants a dream about the sea. Unfortunately, Hessa has never been to the sea. She tries everything she can think of to try to invoke strong warm feelings about the sea. But then she sees a mysterious, beautiful woman in a cafe and can’t stop thinking about her.

Clockmaker’s Requiem by Barth Anderson: Krina is a clockmaker. In this world, clocks make individual time. But now an apprentice has invented a clock that can count time for everyone. Krina knows that it will destroy the world.

Dr. Lash remembers by Jeffrey Ford: A strange sickness has taken many of Dr. Lash’s patients and he can’t do anything about it. Still, he relieves their pain as much as he can. A trusted colleague tells him that the steam engines are producing the gas that makes people ill. Unfortunately, the government isn’t going to stop using the engines. Also, some people hallucinate before they die.

Lady Witherspoon’s Solution by James Morrow: A ship captain finds a paradise-like island where Neantherdals still live. But one of the Neantherdals has a journal that reveals a darker story.

Reluctance by Cherie Priest: Walter McMullin is a teenaged boy, a former soldier, and now he flies mail in a single-seater airship. One of his legs is mechanical. When the night starts to fall and his ship starts to lose fuel, he lands in a small town called Reluctance. But nobody is around.

A Serpent in the Gears by Margaret Ronald: A scientific expedition is flying to the isolated, almost mythical land of Aaris. But on this ship, few people are who they say they are.

The Celebrated Carousel of the Margravine of Blois by Megan Arkenberg: Antoine de Saint-Pierre travels to Summerfall house which the ghost of Margravine of Blois is supposed to haunt. The story is told through de Saint-Pierre’s diary entries.

Biographical notes to ”A discourse on the nature of causality, with air-planes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum by Benjamin Rosenbaum: Benjamin Rosenbaum is traveling on an airship and meets a Raja, a prince, who wants Ben to come to his country. Before Ben can decide what to do, an assassin attacks. Ben is a writer of plausible fables and he thinks a lot. Even in the middle of chasing the assassin, he thinks about philosophy. The world-building, which has Eastern steampunk, was interesting but the philosophy in the middle of actions scenes was a poor fit.

Clockwork Chickadee by Mary Robinette Kowal: The Chickadee can’t fly but a clockwork Sparrow can. The Sparrow constantly talks about himself as better than the others. The Chickadee has a plan to change that.

Cinderella Suicide by Samantha Henderson: The main character, Cinderella Superstar, and his three teammates are convicts in Australia. They’ve done their time and are now looking for a better-paying job.

Arbeitskraft by Nick Mamatas: It’s near the end of the 19th century. Karl Marx has just died but his friend Friedrich Engels is determined to continue speaking and acting for the proletariat. He’s also building a Dialectical Engine in his factory, hoping to rebuild Marx’s brain. Meanwhile, he realizes that some of the young girls working in match factories have been turned into monsters. When the phosphorus eats away the girls’ jaws, their employer, Bryant and May, have replaced flesh and blood with steel. Also, steam workers have started to replace human workers in the factories. This story deals with lots of issues.

To seek her fortune by Nicole Kornher-Stace: The Lady Explorer flies around the world in her airship with her son and her crew, looking for a fortune-teller who will tell her a death that she can accept.

The Ballad of the last human by Lavie Tidhar: Chancer is an adventurer, a philosopher, a trader, and occasionally a thief. He’s also a dog. He travels all over the world in his airship, trading or stealing. Then he meets Mot, a spider. Mot knows where the treasure is hidden and they agree to look for it.

This was a very interesting collection. Some of them are more slice-of-life stories and one is even a detective story. But most of them have themes of battling racism, classism, or sexism, as the punk aspect of steampunk. Some of them have societies in an uproar. However, the back cover says that the stories have “technology used to uplift rather than to oppress” and most don’t. Usually, only the rich and powerful get the benefits and the rest are left to starve or are even mutilated.

Some of the stories have very interesting alternative worlds that I’d love to read more about, such as “The Clockwork Fairies”, “the Effluent Engine”, “the People’s Machine”, “Biographical Notes to ”A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with air-planes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum”, “To Follow the Waves”, and “A Serpent in the Gears”. “Zeppelin City” was great but felt like it was a novel squeezed into a short story. Many of the stories are set in different worlds than the typical Victorian age. So, the stories are quite different from each other and show how different steampunk can be.

 

Kris DeLake: Killer Advice

A stand-alone spacestation murder mystery novella.

Format: ebook

Publisher: WMG Publishing

Page count from GoodReads: 120

Publishing year: 2012

Kris DeLake is Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s romance pen name. However, this novella has no romance.

Grissam Hunsaker runs a run-down, very remote space station that pretends to be a resort for the rich. However, very few people find the place. So, when Hunsaker gets the message that a passenger ship is coming in just sixteen minutes, he’s annoyed. The Vaadum Resort and Casino has minimum staff and it takes a lot longer to prepare for over twenty guests. But the Presidio was in trouble and needed a place to dock, fast. The passengers are shocked, not just by the fact that their ship had a fire, but also because someone has murdered two of them.

Susan Carmichael is on the run and doesn’t want anyone to know. She just wants to leave the station and continue her journey. But when one more of the passengers is killed, she realizes nobody is safe.

Richard Illykova is the ship’s newest employee and the lowest on the pecking order. He works on the ship to pay for his passage. But when people start to die, he must rely on his skills from his former work: as an assassin.

This was a fun, short murder mystery. The characters are interesting and very different from each other. The mystery kept me guessing.

This is apparently a prequel to her Assassins in Love series but can be read as a stand-alone.

 

B. B. Griffith: Follow the Crow

Publication year: 2020

Format: Audio

Running time: 9 hours, 37 minutes
Narrators: Paul L. Coffey, Kirsten Leigh, Ryan Jordan McCarthy

Set in the Chaco Navajo reservation. Ben Dejooli is a Navajo Nation police officer with a troubled past; his little sister vanished six years ago and his best friend Joey Flatwood was accused of it. Ben was convinced that Joey knew what had happened and testified against him. Joey refused to say anything and was banished. Many people blame Ben for it. Of course, being a cop doesn’t help. That day crows started following Ben but tries to ignore them. After a fight, he faints and is brought to the local hospital.

Caroline Adams is a nurse at the Navajo hospital. She’s plagued by self-doubt, especially when the patients curse her and she wonders if they’re right. However, she has a special talent she hasn’t told anyone about: she can see a color surrounding every person, except herself. When Ben is brought to the hospital, he’s surrounded by angry colors which means he’s seriously ill. But he refuses treatment. She’s immediately attracted to him and wants to find a way to help him.

Owen Bennet is a doctor working in the Navajo hospital. He’s close to burnout, working long days. He’s also in love with Caroline but has never said anything because he screws up relationships. When he notices that she’s very worried about Ben, he wants to help them both.

This isn’t an adventure book. It starts slowly, building the characters, the setting, and the mystery of the crows and what happened to the little girl. We get to know how the Navajos live on the reservation. We also get to see a couple of their old rituals, too. However, Ben is an outsider who doesn’t believe in the rituals but rather is humoring the people around him. His grandmother is a real interesting character who refuses to speak in English and otherwise despises white people. She’s a follower of the “old ways”. His sister’s disappearance broke his dad who mostly drinks. His mom left the reservation and hasn’t contacted them.

The supernatural elements are used sparingly at first but they become very prominent near the end. The story is told from the first-person POV of the three main characters. We get to know each one very well.

 

Connie Willis: Even the Queen and other short stories

Collects four short stories.

Publication year: 1991

Format: Audio

Running time: 3 hours, 2 minutes
Narrator: Connie Willis

“Even the Queen”: Tracey’s daughter has chosen to join the Cyclists and the whole family is in an uproar. Tracey’s mom is especially upset and tries to make Tracey talk her out of it. After all, Tracey is a judge and should be able to prevent her own daughter from doing stupid things.

Winner, 1992 Nebula Award and 1993 Hugo Award, Best Short Story.

“At the Rialto”: Dr. Ruth Barringer is one the physicists who have arrived in Hollywood for a quantum physics conference. She’s trying to get into her room but the receptionist who is really an actress/model gets confused. Also, Ruth is trying to avoid David who draws her into distractions like moonlight walks rather than attending the lectures.

Winner, 1989 Nebula Award, Best Short Story.

“Death on the Nile”: The MC, her husband Neal, and a group of friends are going to Egypt for a vacation. But one of MC’s friends is trying to seduce Neal and that’s just the first thing that goes wrong. I enjoyed the excerpts from the “Egypt Made Easy” tour guide.
Winner, 1994 Hugo Award, Best Short Story.

“Why the World Didn’t End Last Tuesday”: A committee tries to plan Armageddon.

“Close Encounter”: The main character is in a hospital heavily drugged.

These were funny and fun short stories and easy to listen to. The first one was the best but I also really enjoyed “Death on the Nile”.