Science fiction reviews 2021

The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird

Christina Sweeney-Bairds The End of Men offers the threat of a gender-specific disease. Only men get it, and its 90% fatal, way worse than Covid-19. The question is, what would the social effects be? A lot of retraining for women, really serious quarantining for baby boys, and a complete power shift politically. Food for uncomfortable thought.

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AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan

What really continues to worry (and inspire) writers of science fiction, however, is the ever-expanding digital world. In AI 2041, Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan offer Ten Visions for Our Future, all of them mixedkeener pricing, yes, but also more control, less freedom, and individually targeted, hard-to-counter autonomous weapons or Slaughterbots.

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Rabbits by Terry Miles

Terry Miless Rabbits imagines a world taken over by a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG)totally addictive, potentially rewarding, insanely dangerousperhaps were in it already?

The Minders by John Marrs

John Marrss The Minders suggests that maybe its hackers who will get control of the new tech first. In which case no databank will be secureunless you embed it all, DNA-coded, in human brains, thus creating a new category of minders. Fine, but who will mind the minders? What kind of security clearance will they need to have?

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The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman

At least these problems dont show up in fantasy. Christopher Buehlmans The Blacktongue Thief gives us a Dungeons and Dragons-influenced image of a rogue, a young thief trying to earn a living in a great and harsh metropolis. Kinch has one score against him already, which is what got him his tattoo, but hes kept afloat by his companions, Galva the raven knight and Bully Boy the alley cat, who supply the magic and the street smarts respectively.

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Goblin by Josh Malerman

Urban fantasy is the action-scene right now, but its not the only scene. Josh Malermans Goblin is set in small-town America, safest place in the worldonly dont go into the North Woods, steer clear of the Goblin Police and keep away from the morgue, the zoo and the slaughterhouse. Dont ask questions, and dont think about leaving. The grue sneaks up on you, just like Lovecraft.

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Pearl by Josh Malerman

Mr. Malermans Pearl is set on a farm in Michigan. Ever thought what a farm looks like to a pig? Pretty much like a death-camp. But what if a piglet not only sees but understands what the farmer has done to his momma? And can talk to people, in their heads? Orwells Animal Farm just didnt go far enough. There the pigs turned into farmers, but herewell, pigs will eat pretty much anything and leave no traces.

The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu

On the edge between sci-fi and fantasy is T.L. Huchus The Library of the Dead, set in a run-down, near-future independent Scotland, where the mandatory greeting is God save the king, the mandatory response is Long may he reign, theres no law, and the police take bribes.

So far, so sci-fi, but Scotland is also haunted. Mr. Huchus heroine, Ropa, is a ghost-talker, which enables her to soothe angry ghosts and pass on messages from worried ones. She only takes collect calls, however. Nothing is passed on from the dead unless the living pay for the service.

Her skill to start with is no more than gutter-witching, but she lives in Edinburgh, once the home of the Enlightenment. Its only reasonable that there should be a nest of knowledge there, and it is in fact a library, entered through the mausoleum of David Hume, philosopher and economist. If reason could be applied to both morals and money, as Hume showed, surely it must also have led to advances in magic?

So Ropa learns, and she needs to, because the Edinburgh streets have gotten more dangerous. Ropa is commissioned by one of her dead clients to find a missing boy, and soon shes involved with sinister figures like the Midnight Milkman and a house which is more than haunted. She cruises the EveryThere, where souls get stuck, she deals with the old ghouls and the voykor who guard the dead against the living, and she does it with no more than a dagger, a slingshot and the Authority which gives her standing in the worlds of the dead. Shes a new kind of occult investigator. Ghostbusters on minimum wage.