![]() ![]() Gabriel Murray gives us “ Appointment in Vienna“, which is beautifully written. And what about the “aunt” who claims to be a friend of her mother’s checking in on her in real life? This is a classic story of navigating a dystopia three minutes into the future. Even though she’s allowed video phone calls now, she can’t be sure if she’s talking to a person or a digital reconstruction. The narrator is interacting with an online entity she (mostly) believes to be her mother, who was taken to some kind of reeducation camp. ![]() ![]() In “ Such Thoughts are Unproductive” by Rebecca Campbell, our nascent no-privacy reality is ramped up to 11. This story syncs a list-style structure with character portraits and worldbuilding in a particularly smooth and masterful way, with a great balance between hopefulness and melancholy. However, the quintet plays on a generation starship, and it turns out that their original mission didn’t go as planned. It is exactly what the title implies – there’s a jazz quintet that forms, led by Mikaela, and the story consists of notes on the songs they play. My favorite story in December’s Clarkesworld was “ Annotated Setlist of the Mikaela Cole Jazz Quintet” by Catherine George. As always, I wish I could have read more, but there were plenty of strong stories to leave me feeling good about the year and optimistic for the one ahead. In this month’s column I finally bid adieu to 2019 for good. ![]()
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