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A fast, enjoyable read with a few gut punches hidden throughout. Not so much about the moon turning into cheese as how lots of different people react to the moon turning into cheese.

Some of the vignettes are funny, some are touching, and some stand out more than others. Some people only show up once and others come back repeatedly. The feuding cheese shops that have gotten a lot more attention since the change. The pop-science author whose book on fantastic takes on the moon came out at exactly the right time. The astronauts whose mission is scrapped take it better than the billionaire rocket mogul whose company is building their rockets and spacecraft.

The most impactful stories, though, are a set of vignettes around the 3/4 mark involving a long-divorced couple staring down mortality, and an extended chapter on a writer who has spent her entire adult life trying to get her first novel just right before shopping it around.

OK, there's one with a more literal impact, but you know what I mean.

(Cross-posted from my website.)

A better than average issue of Interzone, with interesting stories by Kate Orman, Alexandra Grunberg and Yukimi Ogawa.

• "I Object" by Kate Orman: an android 'play-thing' of a princess wonders what would happen to it when the princess dies. By tradition, males of the household are buried with the princess. Only, it isn't a he, and may have other ideas about what to do at the end when the princess comes for it.

• "How Heroes are Made" by Alexandra Grunberg: heroes walk out of the gates of a city, hoping to make it pass the horrors that surround it. One especially well trained hero makes the journey, but what happens to her would start the making of a true hero.

• "Nyobo" by Yukimi Ogawa: a 'monster' is created to be a companion of a boy who would grow up to be a magician, able to trap curses which is 'fed' to the monster for disposal. But the magician's latest job is his biggest and he is not sure what to do with it, for a war comes with the curse.

• "Cordiális Through the Eyes of My Mind" by Carlos Norcia: a rather contemporary story about a reporter with embedded recording devices gathering reports and interviews from people tortured by a dictatorial government in a South American country. Then she gets the chance to listen to the history of one sexually abused person who rose up and is leading a revolution.

• "Breach" by E F McAdam: a sentient AI system infiltrates a security system. Its task is to erase the security program and take over the system, but the AI finds itself 'liking' the security program instead.

• "What I Owe" by Rachael Cupp: a story about what a person owns after a future apocalypse has happened.

• "No Shelter Beneath the Searchlights" by Steve Toase: a girl and her mother live next to a mined security barrier, aware that they are under constant scrutiny. Then a security breach gives the girl a chance for freedom, but what she will find is freedom of another kind.

• "Interlopers" by Tamsin Showbrook: a short short story of an attempt to build a house that is being interrupted by the former pottery site that use to be on the land.

• "Vanitas" by R.L. Summerling: a woman unable to leave the house watches in vain as her garden roses are cut by a man. Both may not be who they seem to be.

• "The Toy" by Seán Padraic Birnie: a girl finds herself on an unknown train station, and while wandering around in a town, realises she may not really exist.

• "Out of Orders" by Bogdan Domakha: humanity is dying, and a robot needs to know what to do.

As if you couldn't tell from the title, this book really leans on 1) Latin, 2) Catholic lore. If you're a Sunday School alum or comparative religion nerd, you might get a kick out of it from those alone.

I have no history with the church, so it felt alien and sci-fi to me, but I recognize that the faith in the book is based on one in our real world. So if you're not down for some Abrahamic philosophy fanfic, then you might find large tracts of this book dull.

For my part, while the author might appear to editorialize for some morals that I find wrong, I get a real sense of humility from the writing. A kind open curiosity and questioning of deeply held beliefs, that is refreshing. There are some great conversations in this book, and the Christians are not always put on the "right side" of them.

Also: 100% this was a precursor for certain post-apocalyptic aesthetics, like in the Wasteland and Fallout video games. One hundred percent.