(SF) Mabie wins the lottery and decides to use the money to rescue her family from poverty on planet Hardcase by moving to a different planet. (4,278 words; Time: 14m)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average
Showing posts with label Emily Devenport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emily Devenport. Show all posts
Friday, August 12, 2016
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Postcards from Monster Island, by Emily Devenport
Clarkesworld Magazine, April 2015; 7,112 words
Rating: 2, Not recommended
Rating: 2, Not recommended
Giant monsters invade a US city, but a group of eccentric neighbors stick around anyway.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: The lighthearted descriptions of the different monsters are a delight to read.
Con: Even for a piece not meant to be taken seriously, the events and dialogue make suspension of disbelief difficult or impossible. The president's e-mail to Bernadette is a particular low point.
Con: Even for a piece not meant to be taken seriously, the events and dialogue make suspension of disbelief difficult or impossible. The president's e-mail to Bernadette is a particular low point.
Saturday, September 5, 2015
The Servant, by Emily Devenport
Clarkesworld Magazine, August 2015; 15,034 words
Rating: 1, Needs improvement Recommended By: io9
Rating: 1, Needs improvement Recommended By: io9
A servant girl on a generation ship plots to overthrow the evil and corrupt rulers.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
The concept is an interesting one, but the execution falls flat. First, as Lois Tilton observes, the good guys are so good and the bad guys are so evil that the whole thing is hard to take seriously. The Executives don't seem to have good reasons for killing each other--it's just something they do. The heroine's naive faith in the Medusa unit is also hard to credit. In the final confrontation with Baylor, I expected him to warn her that there was a serious reason to disable the Medusas--that there was some real threat--but, nope, nothing there.
She has implants meant to control her, but it's never made clear why they limited her sight and hearing--she rarely seems to have trouble doing either one. It's also impossible to believe that the cyber security on the ship is so bad that an untrained child can wreak havoc and yet never be detected.
The storytelling itself is awkward. The first-person narrator routinely tells us what other characters were thinking. The dialog is unnatural and there are even some "as you know, Bob" moments.
She has implants meant to control her, but it's never made clear why they limited her sight and hearing--she rarely seems to have trouble doing either one. It's also impossible to believe that the cyber security on the ship is so bad that an untrained child can wreak havoc and yet never be detected.
The storytelling itself is awkward. The first-person narrator routinely tells us what other characters were thinking. The dialog is unnatural and there are even some "as you know, Bob" moments.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)