Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 208

An average issue, with interesting stories by Zohar Jacobs and Yang Wanqing.

• "Scalp" by H.H. Pak: a young janitor does his job in a facility where people infected with an extreme addiction are sedated and put into virtual worlds to recover.

• "The Flowers That We Intend To Share" by Rajeev Prasad: robots that take care of modified plants in a greenhouse began to develop awareness. The two sons of the parents who own the greenhouse are determined that the robots can explore the world, against the wishes of the parents.

• "The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin" by Zohar Jacobs: set in an alternate world where the Soviet Union has a base on Enceladus, the story centres about the base commander who discovers that religion is becoming popular as the base, which is against Soviet principles. His attempts to stamp out it occur when a major discovery is made, prompting new explorers to come from the Earth. But the new people bring news of changes on Earth, leading the commander to consider a new path for the base and for himself.

• "Kardashev's Palimpsest" by David Goodman: in the far, far, future, a Seeker recreates his earlier self to explore his beginning on Earth and his relation with a long-lost companion that, perhaps, is not lost forever.

• "The Peregrine Falcon Flies West" by Yang Wanqing, translated by Jay Zhang: a girl makes a trip to the west of China, on a fanciful desire to follow a falcon. But events in this warming world make a change when unknown aliens turn up and turn the climate around, but maybe not for the better in the long term for humanity. The girl, and her interest in birds and their intelligence, may be what is needed to break through and communicate with the aliens.

• "Why Don't We Just Kill the Kid In the Omelas Hole" by Isabel J. Kim: an unsettling story of a community people are happy and healthy, except for one child who must suffer in a hole. Then, the child is murdered, and disasters occurs until another child can be found who can suffer on behalf of the community. Conflicts break out between those who say the child must suffer and those who think the community are moral monsters for doing it.

• "The Beam Eidolon" by Ryan Marie Ketterer: a conscious planetary entity's peaceful existence is shattered when four people arrive to dig up its earth, cut up its forests and eat its creatures. Now the entity just wants to take revenge for its suffering.

• "Lonely Ghosts" by Meghan Feldman: a robotic planetary surveyor keeps asking an unseen entity exploring on a nearby moon whether it is along on the planet, for it is seeing the ghosts of its trainers, and now even doubts the existence of the other explorer.