Bick's Reviews on Tangent Online

My review of Analog - Mar/Apr 2023 is now up on Tangent Online.

Quite a mixed bag, this month, with the magazine showing an increasing propensity to showcase work that is very short, or barely SF; possibly as less high quality SF is being submitted? The best stories were the two novelettes The House on Infinity Street by Allen M. Steele (good) and Immune Response by Robert R. Chase (excellent) and the short story The Problem with Bargain Bodies by Sarina Dorie.

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I also failed to mention my reviews of Strange Horizons and Lightspeed for Feb 2023 can be found on the Tangent site here and here, respectively. The best story in the Feb Lightspeed was His Guns Could Not Protect Him by Sam J. Miller

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Victoria Silverwolf said:
Sounds like a mostly decent issue.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it wasn't bad Victoria, but is wasn't especially to my taste either. I think the quality of writing and ideas was higher than it often is in Lightspeed, but... while I could recognise that, I didn't personally enjoy all that much of it. Lots of LGBTQ stuff that bored me - I'm getting a little tired of three stories out of every four in these magazines being about gay or trans characters (not that there's anything wrong with that, as Seinfeld would say).

Anyway, I was uncharacteristically charitable in my reviews here and there perhaps. I think a sizeable section of the Lightspeed audience will like this issue a lot more than me, so I kinda had that in the back of my mind. My only 'rec' for Dave was the flash piece by Harris, incidentally.
 
My review of Tor.com - Jun 2023 is now up on Tangent Online.

Three stories - and all worth reading - which is an unusual but very welcome occurrence. These are The Star-Bear by Michael Swanwick, After the Animal Flesh Beings by Brian Evenson and Ceffo by Jonathan Carroll.

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My Review of Analog - Jul/Aug 2023 is now up on Tangent Online.

Quite a mixed bag, and not the best issue, perhaps. I liked and recommended The World in a Ramen Cup by Jayde Holmes, Gin and Rummy by Eneasz Brodski and Skin Job by Gregor Hartmann as being the best stories.

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A very thorough job.

The Greg Egan sounds typical for that author. "Nearly incomprehensible essay on advanced mathematics disguised as fiction" would be common for him. A shame, really, because when he actually tells a story he can be extremely good.
 
That’s interesting Victoria, thanks - I didn’t know that was typical for Egan (I’ve not read much of his, as it’s rarely appealed), but that’s good to know.
 
My review of Tor.com - Sept 2023 is now up on Tangent Online.

Three good stories again - all recommended reading. I especially liked The Tale of Clancy the Scrivener by Ramsey Shehadeh. Tor.com seems to be on a bit of a roll lately, with content that exceeds most recent magazines in quality (imho).

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My review of Analog - Nov/Dec 2023 is now up on Tangent Online.

There were some good stories here, especially the novella Flying CARPET by Rajnar Vajra and the short stories Wasted Potential by David Lee Zweifler The Disease Collector by Tom Jolly (excellent - do seek it out), The Far Dark by Gregory Benford, An Infestation of Blue by Wendy N. Wagner and Family Business by Andrew Dana Hudson & Corey J. White.

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