Black Gate

I recently posted a few reviews of stories from the Asimov’s Readers’ Award finalists for 2024 (that’s for the awards given in 2025), but I must be an eccentric reader, because my favorites usually diverge quite noticeably from the finalists.

So without further ado, here are some other 2024 stories from Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine that I liked.

“Death Benefits,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

From Asimov’s SF, November/December 2024

My choice in the novella category was a new tale by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Most of the story is told from the viewpoint of a “people verifier,” a sort of private investigator who is hired by the loved ones of presumably deceased or displaced individuals against the backdrop of an interplanetary war.

…

Read More Read More

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October 1983. Cover by Thomas Kidd

“Downtown,” a short story by Thomas M. Disch

First published in F&SF, October 1983
Read the story in the original magazine here

A waitress notices a very strange customer: a woman who orders the same pancakes and wears the same pantsuit every day. She never gets to know the enigmatic customer, until one day, the stranger appears to collapse and die in her booth. The waitress flees from the restaurant, not wanting to deal with the situation. She enters a department store, where she is summoned to two staff-only upper floors, where she discovers a strange alternate world. The woman in the green pantsuit is there, alive and much younger and more communicative. The story takes place against a backdrop of urban decay and declining business activity in midtown St. Paul, and presents an eerily surreal, but still compellingly readable riddle.

Rating **** (Excellent)

…

Read More Read More

Asimov’s Science Fiction, January/February and November/December 2024.
Cover art by Maurizio Manzieri and John Sumrow

Here’s a look at a few of the finalists for the 2024 Asimov’s Readers Award, voted on by readers and given to the most popular stories from Asimov’s Science Fiction the previous year. (Read each of the stories at the Asimov’s website by clicking on the titles below.)

“Wildest Skies,” a Novella by Sean Monaghan

From Asimov’s Science Fiction, November-December 2024

The title suggests a much wilder adventure than the somewhat cozy, but satisfying, one we get. Ed Linklater is the sole survivor of a missile strike that destroys his ship while surveying the planet Dashell IV. He is able to land safely on the Earth-like planet and is eventually befriended by a ten-eyed alien he calls Casper.

After living with Casper’s tribe for some time, he is led to a strange complex of stone structures, where he meets Barnaby, a fellow human who has survived another crash, sixteen years earlier. Barnaby’s only companion is Erica, who is immobilized and partly merged with an AI.

…

Read More Read More