Reviews and Comments

A fascinating historical fantasy that mashes together the characters from Peter Pan and Sherlock Holmes. It retells J. M. Barrie's story of Peter Pan from the perspective of the mother, Mary Darling, and gives a modern interpretation to the tale involving slavery, the denigration of native people, the restricted lives of women in the Victorian era, and the rougher side of actually living in Neverland with a Boy that Never Grows Up.

It starts on the night Peter Pan takes her three children to Neverland, and Mary Darling is determined to go there and get her children back. Mary Darling is the niece of John Watson, so he and his companion Sherlock Holmes gets involved in the investigation into the children's kidnapping (as told to the rest of London).

In the first part of the story, we follow Mary Darling as she prepares for the journey, and Holmes' investigation into how the children were kidnapped. We learn more about the background of Mary Darling and the people she knows, and see the first 'collisions' between the magical world of Peter Pan and the logical world of Sherlock Holmes.

The second part of the story covers the separate journeys of Mary Darling, and Holmes and Watson, to where Neverland can be found. As it turns out, Mary made her own journey to Neverland with Peter when she was young, so she is not unprepared to face Peter to get her children back. Watson, meanwhile, has brief encounters with fairies and mermaids and is unsure how to explain such phenomenon to Holmes.

The final third part of the story would involve, of course, Captain Hook, who has a bad relationship with Peter (due to his hand) but who also knows Mary. They would all collide over the rescue of Mary's three children. But what could have been a violent encounter is defused by the timely arrival of the dog, Nana, who is also the children's nanny. As for Holmes, he is left wandering in a case where fairies are real can make people fly, but that can never be part of his logical deductions.

A tale with light touches of magic and a re-imagining of well known fictional characters, now told with modern sensibilities.

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.

A good issue of Clarkesworld, with interesting stories by Ng Yi-Sheng, Claire Jia-Wen, A. T. Greenblatt, Matthew Marcus and Rita Chang-Eppig.

• "Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng: an entertaining story based on characters and story from a local popular Singapore play, this one has a high-flying son of a matriarchal star ship giving it all up to be with his lover, who runs a horse stable. He solution to getting out from the system is rather long term.

• "If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen: a digital double of the dead son of a mother is delivered to her. What she learns from the double, made up of all the public information on his son, some of which she was not aware of, would make her re-look the reasons for her son's death.

• "In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt: a writer travels to a former environmental colony to learn more about the person who used to run it. Along the way, his opinions about her change the more he learns about her.

• "The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall: on a world with seven pyramids, repurposed by its current inhabitants, one person works to prepare the way for its next inhabitants and another pyramid.

• "Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus: an ecologist travels to a place where a special kind of tree grows that can help with their environmental problems. He sets out to try to convince the local people there not to cut down the trees; but what he discovers instead is a way of living that may be more helpful to the world in the end.

• "The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken: far, far, in the future, when humanity has evolved into many different species and the sun is becoming a red giant, one species of humanity makes a special request to the people watching over what is left of the earth. They have an audacious plan to save their themselves, but it would require a balancing of the needs of the many.

• "The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig: a downloaded person inhabiting a body returns to an island. This causes a sensation as she was the first person to be downloaded and her fans wonder what she want to do there. After much speculation, the answer has to do with memories and what happens when we start to lose them.

• "Outlier" by R.L. Meza: in a strange lab, where people have been 'transformed' into arachnids, one person is more aware of what is happening to her. Now she wants to escape but to do that, she may have to take advantage of one lab person whom she might consider a friend.

A fascinating book about life on an alien planet and the conflicts between it and the totalitarian human government (the Mandate) that runs the prison colony on the planet known as Kiln. The narrator of the story is Arton Daghdev, a dissident ecologist captured and sent there to help with research on the alien life. He also learns about the discovery of ruins that hints that a civilisation once flourished on Kiln, and speculations about who they might be.

As for the Mandate, it wants to make sure that all findings on Kiln match its world-view on how the universe works (basically, everything works according to the way the Mandate says it does), so Arton has an interest in finding out how life on Kiln is different and how to use it against the Mandate: for he is still a dissident in a prison camp.

The first third of the story gives an introduction to the camp and bit and pieces of Kiln life, whose biology turns out to be quite weird, but just similar enough to Earth life that it attempts to 'interface' to humans: Arton sees the results of such 'hybrids' and it is not pretty. And that doesn't stop him from joining a prison revolt that goes wrong.

As punishment, he is sent out to help collect Kiln life and find more remnants of the alien civilisation, which gives the reader a closer look at how life on Kiln works. Another disaster befalls Arton, forcing him to trek back to the prison camp. And it is during this trek that things about how Kiln life works, start to join up about and make sense to him. And it may not just help him overthrow the world view of the Mandate, but also possibly free the prisoners of the camp and answer the riddle about how civilisation rose and fell many times on Kiln.

Set in the world of the author's "Six Crimson Cranes" series, this is a prequel that tells the story of the early life of the stepmother in the series. Channari, the elder of two sisters, was left in the jungle by her father as an offering to a witch to keep her mother alive after giving birth to her younger sister, Vanna. But it backfired, for the witch wanted the younger sister. Instead, Channari returned, but with a scaly snake-like face that forever marked her and isolated her from her community, with only her younger sister as a friend. And she swore she would keep her younger sister safe, for she knows the witch will come for Vanna, for the witch desires the inner light from her younger sister's heart.

Years past and as Vanna grows up, her glowing inner light brings fame and royalty from surrounding islands asking for her hand. Channari gets separated from Vanna during a selection ceremony and fights to return to her side. In this, she is aided by her childhood snake friend and a half-dragon, half-demon fighter whom she has to trust. But the witch has also come; and during the final confrontation, trust and betrayal would turn Channari into the person she would be in the "Six Crimson Cranes" series.

A story of the powerful bond between two sisters who would not be separated despite the ugliness of one and the magical heart of the other.

The second book (or part) of the Six Crimson Cranes series, this one has Shiori facing a series of challenges as she sets out to do what she promised her stepmother at the end of the first book: return the dragon's pearl she holds back to its owner. But standing in her way are a Sea Dragon King who wants the pearl, a Daemon King who wants the pearl and her blood, and parts of her kingdom who don't like magic and only want her reduced to ashes.

While the first book developed the character of Shiori, as she struggled with her task to free herself and her brothers from a curse, this one is more action-packed with Shiori facing task after task with not much room for her relationship with her father (the Emperor), her brothers or with the prince who is her betrothed. We do get to see more of the world and the role that magic and demons play in it. One of the things that Shiori has to struggle with is whether her kingdom should continue to do without magic (and demons), or to restore the balance but on her own terms.

The ending is both expected and unexpected, with divine intervention playing a role. But on its terms, it is perhaps a proper ending to the story, leaving the characters to deal with their world on their own terms, instead of continuing with the way things were.