It's another packed month at Clarkesworld with six original stories, including a rather charming novelette in translation. And it's another month that is entirely science fiction, with a splash of science-fantasy thrown in for flavor. These are tales that show visions of the future, conflicts playing out for the soul of humanity and for the fate of planets. Many of the stories take their focus off of Earth to show what humanity is capable of, the way that it can move from place to place, leaving a trail of destruction behind it. There's hope, though, too, and the stories also show the power that humanity can hold to create and to change and to love. So yeah, review time!
For this special anniversary issue of Clarkesworld, it seems like there's a single question being asked. Namely, what can you trust? What can you know? It's a fundamental question that cuts to the nature of human experience and perception. Can we be sure of our surroundings? What happens when we know that something isn't real, despite not really being able to tell it with our senses? And what if we just think we know what is real, and the rabbit hole goes deeper still? It's a delightful way to frame a number of excellent speculative stories, mostly all science fiction but still good, still hitting, still interesting complications of what we take for granted and how we perceive and reach for some trace of the real in a sea of uncertainty. So yeah, to the reviews!
