Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 225, June 2025 by Neil Clarke


"Emily of Emerald Starship" by Ng Yi-Sheng -- (5*) -- Ah, this one hit hard. The scope is beautiful, the family and the love, tragic. Near perfect everything.


"If an Algorithm Can Cast a Shadow" by Claire Jia-Wen -- (4*) -- Super dark story about a digital shadow brought back by his mom, and the effects it had on her and the rest of the family. I mean, sure, grief is one thing, but this reads more like a psychological horror story designed to induce depression in the reader, too. Yikes.


"In the Shells of Broken Things" by A. T. Greenblatt -- (4*) -- A chilling look at the failure of post-ecological collapse domes for human habitation... and the obituaries of their failure.


"The Eighth Pyramid" by Louis Inglis Hall -- (5*) -- Haunting far-future glimpse of humanity, or post-humanity, and how things might always and forever be the same--no matter how strange.

"Faces of the Antipode" by Matthew Marcus -- (3*) -- I was kinda bouncing off of this at first, but I'm glad I stuck through it. The inversion of expectations was pretty good. The final question and its answer, however, remained unsatisfying. Still, cool ideas.

"The Last Lunar New Year" by Derek Künsken -- (4*) -- The story is sedate and hopeful, while the imagination of far-flung humanity is rich. I personally think it would be a GREAT opening to a full novel. I so want to know what happens after!

"The Last to Survive" by Rita Chang-Eppig -- (3*) -- I honestly want to like this more than I did, it being a cross section of SFnal senescence in neo-humanity, but the fictional lives just read like low-brow popular idiocy. Maybe that's the point... but it all just leaves me sad.

"Outlier" by R.L. Meza -- (5*) -- Fantastically gruesome. Don't we all want to know what it's like to be a mad scientist's monster? :)


Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my SF (Very hard SF, mind you), I'm open to requests.

Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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