Told from multiple points of view, this story features a war against an enemy that's never really explained.

 

Or if it is, I must have missed it. While the writing at times was really beautiful and intriguing my problem with it was mostly that I felt like I was missing a lot. Exactly what was going on for example. The many, many different characters that are brought into the story don't make it any easier.

 

Don't get me wrong, I like it when stories don't spell everything out for you and there's something left to the imagination, but I do like to have some kind of knowledge about what the story is about. The fact that the enemy, the Greys, are never named or explained didn't help either.

 

It had great potential, but for me it fell a bit short on the execution.

 

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team. To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.

Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 75 - Neil Cl... Your Final Apocalypse: Sandra McDonald. Apocalypse meets slice-of-life. An AI and a visiting non-physical alien entity briefly look at the last moments of a student's life before the beginning of an apocalyptic event. There seems to be some parallel here with the experience of a reader of a short story, briefly taking these important moments of a different person into our minds, and then just as easily letting it pass out. Readable, but ultimately left me unmoved, much like the Casual Visitor.The Wisdom of Ants: Thoraiya Dyer. Post-apocalypse story of a girl whose people have returned to a totemic tribal culture. The apocalypse appears to have been caused by a number of things, including 'wire-minds' (cybernetic people?) and metal-eating ants. The tribe's existence is difficult and dangerous and relies on a critical trade with nearby 'island people' who have retained more tech, but that trade comes under threat. Very interesting, compelling story. I'm not altogether sure _why_ the ants eat metal (what use is it to them?), and wondered if those bacteria doses would be liable to make people very sick, but thought the resolution of the story very neat.Sweet Subtleties: Lisa L Hannett. Story about a kind of living statue/cake. Very visual/poetical style of prose. Wasn't overly moved by this, other than occasionally being repelled.The Corpse of the Future: Jane C Loudon's The Mummy! and Victorian Science Fiction: S J Chambers. Essay about a book written as a retort against Frankenstein.A Thousand Words You can Heart All at Once: An Interview with Todd Lockwood: Nayad A Monroe. Interview with an artist.Another Word: The Echo Chamber: Daniel Abraham. Discussion of changing technology and how it is altering the "authorative voice" which existed before the internet.

Katharine is a judge for the Aurealis Awards. This review is the personal opinion of Katharine herself, and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of any judging panel, the judging coordinator or the Aurealis Awards management team. To be safe, I won't be recording my review here until after the AA are over.Bluegrass Symphony is a collection of shorts by Lisa Hannett, an eclectic mix of horror, fantasy, magic realism and twists on known fairy tales. There are a dozen short stories on offer and shall be available from August 2011 onwards, printed by Ticonderoga Publications.As you can guess from the name, the tales are set in the American South, but there’s a twist on most of them that makes them different – special. Magic is shown in ways we may not expect in such a realistic backdrop, often with a twist at the end. We see shape shifters, chickens who can see the future, spirit soothers and truth telling tattoos.Read the rest of the review: http://sentientonline.net/?p=2740