Update. April 2022. A rant. Why has the title of the story been changed to a publication it was removed from? "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter" by Isabel Fall is not a really important story, but what happened to Isabel Fall is. All the shit she suffered online, the Twitter campaigns etc, that made her check into a mental institution, for writing it, all the accusations of transphobia, that she was a right-wing, anti-trans reactionary is an important story.What is wrong with reading

Alright frickers sit the frick down. Momma's gonna tell you some things. First off, the harassment that Isabel Fall has gotten for this from our own community is shameful. Secondly, this is a damn good story. It's beautiful in it's horror and takes a joke that has been used against us and inverted it to the point where this is our own. This, is some damn good science fiction and if I were making an anthology of trans authors I would include this story. In fact, I might set up an anthology of tra...

For various reasons, I'm not rating or reviewing this short story which caused a lot of controversy when it was first published on Clarksworld a little over a year ago and was later requested to be pulled from the magazine by the author. The title alone is not something I would want to appear on other people's feed, but the story is a necessary read for me, although not one I'd recommend unless you're really interested. If you can get past the title, it's worth a read. So I'm only marking this b...

"The Ancestral Temple in a Box" on my list of the Best Short SFF of January 2020: https://1000yearplan.com/2020/02/01/t...

A little too talky/explainy for my tastes, but with some brilliant moments.No one who bitched about this story and nearly ruined the author's life read a word further than the title.

Trans writer chews up and spits out recurring transphobic dad joke as a fabulously angry slice of military SF, threaded through with a fascinating notion of weaponised gender that I don't 100% buy, but which I genuinely struggle to see how any good faith reader could interpret as malicious essentialism. Story is nonetheless laid into by elements of the extremely online in a classic leftist circular firing squad. Author, understandably upset, withdraws story. This is why we can't have nice things...

Rating for three stories:Naomi Kritzer's Monster (novelette rec from nerds of a feather): ****A strong story, immersive since the first sentence. I kinda wish it's a liiitle bit longer.Chen Qiufan's The Ancestral Temple in a Box: ***Thought provoking though a more subtlety of its message would do the magic. It made google Teochew woodcarving, though. And of course Isabel Fall's infamous I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter, which I read last year. **The title sure is very catchy though I

Favorite stories: "Monster" by Naomi Kritzer and "The Last to Die" by Rita Chang-Eppig

I missed the controversy because I miss everything. I have no problem understanding why people were offended by the title, that is after all, always the problem with reclamation: it's hard to know which side something is on. I find it harder to imagine that *after* reading the story anyone would think it transphobic. Not everyone is going to love anything, of course, but I thought it was effective as hell. And yes, if they could find a way, the US military would happily weaponize gender in this

Read for Kritzer's story, "Monster." http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz...A story about a nerd kid and the boy who became her friend. It ranges back and forth in time from the 80s to an unknown future (potentially now), ending in China. Thoughtful, but somehow it lacked the punch I expected from a Kritzer piece, and despite the big questions she is wrestling with, she never really shares her feelings on it.

What a talented writer, and what an incredible idea for a short story. Too bad we live in stupid times.

This is a really good short story and it's such a shame that the author was harassed to the point of having it withdrawn from Clarkesworld. The story examines themes of gender, war, identity, and how in a dystopia anything that can be exploited, will be (in this case, gender by the military for tactical uses). Well-written and thought-provoking, and no, not transphobic. I hope Isabel Fall keeps writing, and does not let the vitriol flung her way by the purity police discourage her.

Reviews are for “The AI That Looked at the Sun” (4.5 stars), “Monster” (3.5 stars) and “Helicopter Story” (removed from the issue).——————————The AI That Looked at the Sun by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko - 4.5/5 “It all started with the solar flare.” I loved this story, plain and simple. It does what it says on the tin — it tells us a story of a brand-new AI that woke up and realized that its life purpose was to look at the sun. It’s an AI on the solar off large monitoring station, after all.

Rating and review solely for Naomi Kritzer's "Monster", which is terrific. There's this nerdy girl in high school, she meets a nerdy boy and his friends. He loans her his copy of NEUROMANCER! How cool is that? After she goes to college, they lose touch, and she pretty much forgets him, until the FBI comes to call.... Past that, just read the story, OK? Hard SF, bioengineering style. Easy 5 stars, and should be on the award ballots. http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kritz...11,000 words = long nove...

Review only for Monster by Naomi KritzerReview only for two three of the stories in this issue.(this review is beginning to look like a New Year’s resolution)Monster by Naomi Kritzer(crime / sci-fi 🧫 read January 29, 2021) No one at the Guiyang airport speaks English. This story had me at the first sentence. Which is probably Covid-induced. And kinda ironic now that I think about it.Never mind.It’s the story of a woman in search of an old high school friend. A friend that she hasn’t seen for t...

Thought-provoking but also fun in several ways.[Edit: when I read this, I had no idea it was about to start a firestorm that resulted in the story being pulled. There is, apparently, a subtext in the story that went undetected by me.][Edit 2: Goodreads now shows my review under a magazine I've never read, but this was originally posted under a short story that now apparently no longer exists. Weird.]

Thank you Petra for bringing this to our attention.To quote directly from Petra's review: "I've rated it 3 star because it's quite well-written and even though it's outside my genre, quite enjoyable."It is available on the Internet Archive and you can read it, as I did, here https://archive.is/oXDEt .Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story “I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter” drew the ire of the internet. For those interested enough to follow up on this appalling story of "the cancel culture" at wor...

I obviously checked this out because of the drama surrounding it, but got so much more than I ever could have expected. I adore this, the writing is equal parts poetry and a punch in the face, it's wry and self-aware, but has the sort of weight something like this needs. Even with the technical terminology being a bit dense for me personally, I think it's a perfect choice. It's such a fucking badass way to reclaim and destroy the transphobic language that inspired it.I understand why this is con...

This review is for “Monster” by Naomi Kritzer. A well developed and compelling story about friendship, morality, and playing god. I’ll be looking for more by this author.

"We are propelled by disaster. We are moving swiftly."