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Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

Clarkesworld Magazine, #32, May 2009

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ August 8, 2009

Clarkesworld Magazine has delivered its most dream-like issue with its May offering. Its two stories eschew conventional narrative strategies in favor of world-building, setting and poetic experimentation. Neither completely succeeds in my view, but they’re both rewarding and challenging reads, and more memorable than many other stories out there.
The fact that Clarkesworld continues to find [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #31, April 2009

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ May 15, 2009

Clarkesworld Magazine has been nominated for a Hugo award in the category of “Best Semiprozine,” a fact prominently displayed on the website.
Is that a reasonable proposition?
Does it merit your Hugo vote?
Yes, and—well, read the stories and decide for yourself—but read more than just a single issue, as the style and themes vary wildly from month [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #30, March 2009

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ March 29, 2009

The third issue of Clarkesworld Magazine this year brings us two well-crafted and thought-provoking stories, as well as a couple of diverting, though slightly underwhelming, non-fiction entries.
Ekaterina Sedia is in fine form in “Herding Vegetable Sheep,” a first-person account by 68-year-old cloud-herder Anita about her strained relationship with her daughter, Petra, and the disappearance of [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #29, February 2009

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ February 6, 2009

Clarkesworld Magazine continues to deliver the goods with its second installment of the year. Issue #29, February 2009, contains two helpings of speculative wonder, and though the nonfiction pieces aren’t as stellar as in other recent issues, they’re still well written and informative, and we have three of them.
“The Second Gift Given” by Ken Scholes [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #28, January 2009

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ January 15, 2009

The start of 2009 sees Clarkesworld Magazine in excellent shape. Issue #28, January 2009, contains one of the best nonfiction pieces published by the magazine and two memorable fiction offerings.
“Celadon” by Desirina Boskovich tackles, with only surface simplicity, two of my favorite themes in SF, post-colonialism and transcendence, through the exploration of a daughter-mother bond. [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #27, December 2008

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ January 2, 2009

As Neil Clarke comments in one of the nonfiction pieces in issue #27, December 2008, of Clarkesworld Magazine, “this is the last issue to feature fiction picked by editor Nick Mamatas.” It is an interesting, somewhat whimsical, “cutesy” issue which Mamatas ends on. The three fiction pieces (as opposed to the normal two) continue the [...]

When Diplomacy Fails, edited by Mike Resnick and Eric Flint

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ December 9, 2008

At the end of the informative “Preface” of When Diplomacy Fails: An Anthology of Military Science Fiction, in which Eric Flint and Mike Resnick trace the historical development and popularity of the genre of military SF—providing numerous interesting examples along the way—the reader is advised to “Read, enjoy—and think.” How well do the eight stories [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #26, November 2008

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ November 12, 2008

I concluded my review of last month’s issue by observing that Clarkesworld Magazine seemed to have “shifted away from more boundary-pushing work, with less emphasis on technique and more on conventional story.” The trend continues, at least partway, in issue #26, November 2008.
Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn bring us “Idle Roomer,” which feels like [...]

Eclipse Two: New Science Fiction and Fantasy, edited by Jonathan Strahan

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ November 1, 2008

Jonathan Strahan’s introduction does a good job of setting the right expectations for Eclipse Two, quite different in flavor from the first volume in the series. How so? “I deliberately nudged this Eclipse installment towards science fiction,” he explains, “dropping some of the balance that had characterized Eclipse One.” This leads to less variety in [...]

Clarkesworld Magazine, #25, October 2008

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ October 14, 2008

Issue #25, October 2008 of Clarkesworld Magazine kicks off with Jim C. Hines’s “Gift of the Kites.” If not exactly a stellar take-off, it does achieve altitude pretty quickly. At the story’s start, Jesse, twelve years old, is flying a Superman kite with his stepfather, Kentaro, when another kite darkens the sky and changes Jesse’s [...]

Killers, edited by Colin Harvey

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ September 1, 2008

Killers are fun. Why not? Well, all right, someone does tend to get hurt, so maybe not fun—but certainly interesting. After all, a story about someone who kills or is in jeopardy of being killed (or both, as is often the case), presents an extreme example of a theme that inevitably draws us in: change. [...]

The Turing Test by Chris Beckett

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ July 30, 2008

The Turning Test, a collection of fourteen stories by Chris Beckett, provides entertaining journeys into interstellar space and the distant past, excursions into the nature of AI, VR, and human identity, and even musings on alien art and theology. These stories were all originally published in Interzone and Asimov’s, and though there are no direct [...]

Down to a Sunless Sea by Mathias B. Freese

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ July 7, 2008

Down to a Sunless Sea, a collection of fifteen well-crafted stories, should appeal to genre readers, at least a certain segment of them. Mathias B. Freese constructs mostly situational depictions of character, and his skill with this character development is considerable. With fewer words than most writers, he is able to convey depth and subtlety [...]

Ideomancer, June 2008, Vol 7, Issue 2

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ June 25, 2008

Marsha Sisolak, the publisher of Ideomancer, comments on the website that “this month, our theme seems to be dead people. Or if not quite dead, not quite your typical zombie, either.” Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the June 2008 issue of this imaginative magazine is alive and well, offering three [...]

Lone Star Stories, #27, June 2008

By Alvaro Zinos-Amaro ⋅ June 15, 2008

Issue #27 of Lone Star Stories presents a by-now-standard sextet: from the three stories, one is particularly strong, and all three poems are highly recommended. The magazine typically offers challenging stories in a speculative vein, in various narrative styles and tones which make it—fortunately—hard to categorize; this issue is no exception. I have come to [...]

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