Three Stories from this issue made my list of the best short SFF for August 2018: https://1000yearplan.com/2018/09/01/t...Very few authors have the skill to break the fourth wall, at least without coming off as pompous or extravagant. Kij Johnson has the skill to skirt that line, and she does so in “The Privilege of the Happy Ending”, in which a young girl named Ada and her talking hen, Blanche, are forced to go on the run from a horde of terrifying bird-like lizard creatures known as wastoures,...

Individual rating for Hao Jingfang's "The Loneliest Ward" : medical treatment that function like social media and the people (patients) who need validation could get addicted. Not bad, but I read better stories from the author.

Review for The Privilege of a Happy Ending by Akon Johnson. Not bad, but written in a depressing way. 3, kind of sad, stars.

This issue had 7 seven stories (5 original, 1 reprint, 1 novel excerpt) and 3 nonfiction pieces plus the editorial.My favorite was Kij Johnson's "The Privilege of the Happy Ending" which just won a World Fantasy Award for Best Novella (it's really a long novelette, but WFAs use a different word count threshold). The narrator breaks the fourth wall periodically, but at its heart is the story of a girl and her chicken trying to survive in a medieval world.I also really enjoyed R.S.A. Garcia's "The...

The Veilonaut's Dream - Henry Szabranski ***The Anchorite Wakes - RSA Garcia ****Kingfisher - Robert Reed ****The Privilege Of The Happy Ending - Kij Johnson ****The Loneliest Ward - Hao Jingfang, trans. Ken Liu ***Yukui! - James Patrick Kelly ***Othermother - Rich Larson ****

Review is (for now) solely for "The Privilege of the Happy Ending" by Kij Johnson, a novelette/novella. It's a very sharp and bloody medieval fantasy, about now-extinct predatory saurians, the wastoures, that periodically devastate the countryside. Think army-ants the size of St. Bernards. The story follows Ada, a six year old girl, and her old hen (as in chicken) Blanche, as they try to avoid the wastoures. Blanche turns out to have hidden depths. Plus dry metafictional interjections by the aut...

Best issue of Clarkesworld I’ve ever read!The Anchorite Waits by R.S.A. Garcia ★★★★★ Sister Nadine watches over the secrets of her small town from her anchorage at St. Nicholas. The scope of this grew and grew. It was beautiful. Yukui! by James Patrick Kelly ★★★★½“Sprite bit back a scream as the room fell away.” Masterfully, tightly, emotionally written, JPK illustrates the fear of change, the step to freedom.The Veilnaut’s Dream by Henry Szabranski ★★★★☆ A tear in space, a doorway, holds passi...

A very eerie short story with haunting imagery that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Definitely recommend this to anyone who likes darker sci-fi with a slight mystical feel.

I know all my reviews of Clarkesworld sound the same, but come on: An e-magazine, of good quality speculative fiction, put into your email, every month, for three lousy bucks. For real, what do you want? This is worth doing, you ought to be doing it...

This issue's stories didn't really work as well for me as the last few issues have.Thoughts per story:The veilonaut's dream: explorers at a spatial discontinuity explore it for money. Partially a tale of exploitative labor and partly a tale of the stages of grief.The Anchorite Wakes: There are little hints here and there that something odd is going on. It is all revealed in the last few pages and it’s quite an incredible world hidden from us until that point. Very neat story and ending.Kingfishe...

Kingfisher by Robert Reed is incredible.Yukui by James Patrick Kelly is very good and worth the read.I love Kij Johnson but her story here didn't do it for me. It's beautifully written but it was way too long and the concept and story couldn't hold my interest over that many pages. If you're a fan then perhaps check it out. If not your time would be better spent checking out her other work.The rest of the stories didn't work for me.

This is nothing like I would normally read, but was a good story overall. The plot was solid and I really enjoyed the idea of this world and following this small helpless girl through such a dark world. I feel I may be personally merging it with the current events in our own world and that's why the plot stuck with me more than I would expect. I do wish there was a longer build to the climax and longer resolution. But, given how the story almost mocks writing, I feel the structure and rushed end...

I cannot get this short out of my head. First of all, I love the writing - the pacing was beautiful, the dialogue was great, the description lovely. And I really really want to this to be turned in a novel, so I can know what happened next!Merged review:The best collection of stories so far, liked them all!

A very mixed bag.The Veilonaut’s Dream by Henry Szabranski 3.5/5Sad story of a troup of scientists studying an another dimension searching for the remnants of their old friends.The Anchorite Waits by R.S.A. Garcia 2.5/5A story that starts off as a fantasy tale but that end up being science fiction based. The writing was quite nice but overall, it left me underwhelmed.The Privilege of the Happy Ending by Kij Johnson 5/5Definitely the gem of the issue, it's not my first Kij Johnson story but so fa...

So far read these 2:~ The Loneliest Ward by Hao Jingfang - 2* meh. I don't read for moral lessons. I guess it pre-dates the social media explosion. In this future, people are comatose and being cared for by others while they have electrodes attached to their head giving them positive "vibes". Something or other. I guess it's supposed to be like what we get when someone likes our reviews or photos etc... In this story we see nurses caring for people who rather live that way than the "real" way.~

I'm reading my way through the Clarkesworld stories included in the Hugo Voter Packet for 2019, as Neil Clarke is a finalist for Best Editor, Short Form. This issue includes the stories 'The Anchorite Wakes' by R.S.A Garcia, and 'The Privilege of the Happy Ending' by Kij Johnson, which are the basis for my rating.

Don’t know if it’s because the kindle app has suddenly decided everything needs to be dual-column making it difficult to get into a flow, or just that the stories weren’t to my liking this time but I just couldn’t complete a single one. They all seemed to,drone on repetitively.. It’s a shame kindle for iPad doesn’t show,you how far through an individual story you are like it,does,with book,chapters. maybe I was nearly finished with,some,of them?

Issue #143 is an outstanding issue of Clarkesworld, without a single bad story or essay (at least in my opinion). My favorite story was Kij Johnson's "The Privilege of the Happy Ending," though it was very difficult to single out a favorite with writers like Robert Reed and James Patrick Kelly also featured in this issue.

This is only a review of Kij Johnson's “The Privilege of the Happy Ending”.Besides the obvious and good thematisation of "evil is in the eye of the beholder", Johnson elevates this seemingly fantasy tale into a treaty of the power of the author with some serious metatext considerations. Wonderful and I personally am very happy this got a Locus award.

The Anchorite Wakes - ***Kingfisher -The Privilege of the Happy Ending - The Loneliest Ward - ***Yukui - ****Othermother - ****