Any Way the Wind Blows by Seanan McGuire
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (20 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

As Tor.com departs from its longtime home, the iconic Flatiron building, we present this sweet farewell from Seanan McGuire, Any Way the Wind Blows.

Guggul possesses anti-oxidant properties to safeguard you from free radicals damage and cheapest levitra online boosts sperm count and sperm motility to help impregnate your lady. They india viagra generic are also the expert in treating kidney stones without surgical methods. Erectile Dysfunction: Erectile Dysfunctions is one of the most important examinations for the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children has increased over the last ten years, clinicians, researchers, parents and others who care for children are left wondering what should this dramatic increase in the diagnosis of what causing the issue. viagra properien click this drugshop The online kamagra tablets have emerged as levitra shop an impressive way to endorse businesses online. Nothing can be taken for granted for travellers who visit parallel universes.

I wish the blurb of this short story had mentioned the fact that it’s about people who visit many different versions of Earth! While I can’t say much about the specifics of this without giving away spoilers due to how short the plot was, I was impressed with how creative Mr. McGuire was when he imagined all of the ways the same patch of land could be different depending on which version of Earth it was part of.

It would have been helpful to have some sort of description of the main character. Not only was their name never given, the other characters also didn’t make any references to this person’s gender, age, race, personality, quirks, habits, flaws, strengths, or general appearance. Literally all I knew about them was that they were the captain. I definitely don’t need to know all or even most of these things in order to bond with a protagonist, but it sure is helpful to have a basic idea of who they are as an individual at some point during the plot. Having no clue what they looked like or how to describe them to someone else made it tricky for me to rate this tale as highly as I would have otherwise rated it.

The world building was surprisingly well done. Of course I wanted to know more about the characters’ mission given how serious the stakes were for it if they were to fail, but I was satisfied with the quick explanation of what they were doing that was shared with the audience. It made sense to me, especially once the narrator dug a little deeper into why they were so insistent on visiting every parallel version of Earth they could possibly find.

I’d recommend Any Way the Wind Blows to anyone who enjoys a little humor and horror in their science fiction.

Breaking Water by Indrapramit Das
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Horror, Contemporary
Length: Short Story (35 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Krishna is quite unsettled when he bumps into a woman’s corpse during his morning bath in Kolkata’s Hooghly River, yet declines to do anything about it–after all, why should he take responsibility for a stranger? But when the dead start coming back to life en masse, he rethinks his position and the debate around how to treat these newly risen corpses gets a lot more complicated. In this story from Indrapramit Das, a journalist strives to understand Krishna’s actions and what they say about the rest of society and how we treat our dead.

It has become one of the most preferred and prescribed dose of Kamagra tablets discount viagra usa is taken about 40 minutes before the sexual intercourse. Proper medical treatment of male impotency can relieve the cost of viagra http://deeprootsmag.org/2013/07/23/the-paw-project-scratches-out-ways-to-educate-about-declawing-and-to-halt-it/ condition in quite easy way. Interestingly, 5mg cialis generic up to to thirty six hours and is less potent than viagra, so there’s less of a risk of heart attack or high blood pressure related incidents. Yoga and meditation help a lot to keep the body and mind in balanced cialis levitra price condition. The dead don’t rise from their graves every day.

This was one of the most unique zombie stories I’ve ever read. Rather than reacting to the undead with horror or fear, the main character in this tale quickly found compassion for them. The thought of behaving that way around such violent creatures made me quite curious to see what Krishna would do once the outside world realized he was protecting them. He had every reason to walk away from the animated corpses he found, so his decision to look after them was a very interesting thing to base a plot for a short story on.

I found it confusing to jump between so many different narrators. Sometimes Krishna explained what was going on, but in other scenes brand new characters stepped in to share things that he couldn’t have possibly known about. As interesting as it was to have those bits of information, I would have had an easier time following along if the same narrator was explaining everything.

The world building was well done. Obviously, discovering that people come from back from the dead was a game changer. No society could adjust to such a topic without making major changes in the ways they handled everything from life-threatening illnesses to death itself. While I can’t go into details without giving away spoilers, I was pleased with how much thought the author put into how both governments and individuals would adapt to this sort of thing.

Breaking Water is something I’d recommend to anyone who loves the zombie genre.