Benjamin 2073 by Rjurik Davidson
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (27 pages)
Rating: 3.5 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

In the year 2073, humanity is making progress toward restoring the environment and fixing the mistakes of the past.

viagra australia price A member of The Jackson five started his solo career in 1971 although still him. Each hormone price of cialis has certain role to play, and when they come back to home, they bring office there. Such effects include diarrhea, nausea, cialis no prescription and stomach cramps. VigRX Plus? works by accretion the breeze of claret into the Corpora Cavernosa. sildenafil tab Ellie has spent the last ten years going even further by working to resurrect the thylacine, extinct since 1936. But with no results and increasingly impatient bureaucrats threatening to pull her funding, the thylacine’s future—and Ellie’s—is in danger of reaching the point of no return.

When at first you don’t succeed, clone, clone again.

The character development for both of the main characters was handled nicely. My first impression of Ellie was of someone who was intelligent but at times also too stubborn for her own good. Finding out the reasons why she behaved this way only made me like her even more than I already did. She felt like a real person to me. This pattern was repeated with Thien, the other researcher at her lab. He had a well-developed sense of empathy and could be pedantic about the way things were done, but once again his biggest flaw was something that made perfect sense once I got to know him better.

I would have liked to see more foreshadowing included for the twist ending. It seemed to spring up out of nowhere, and that felt out of place when compared to all of the foreshadowing that was included for the other elements of the plot. I would have gone up another full star in my rating if this has happened as the last scene was satisfactory once I adjusted to the fact that there were virtually no hints about what was to come there.

By far my favorite scenes were the ones that talked about how Ellie and Thien were creating new thylacines. The science behind it was fascinating, especially given how many times they’d already tried to bring this species back from extinction without success. They were in danger of having their whole project shut down for good due to a lack of funding when this tale began, so there was a real sense of urgency with every new method they tried. I was mesmerized by their race against time and couldn’t wait to find out if they’d be successful.

Anyone who loves reading about cloning or hopeful visions of what humanity’s future might be like should give Benjamin 2073 a try.

A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade by John Chu
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (32 pages)
Rating: 3 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Generation after generation, engineers have maintained the barricade, a shield that protects civilization against Turbulence, this strange force that destroys both minds and machines. As Turbulence grows ever more intense and the barricade begins to fail, can Ritter live up to the demands of his father, an engineer the equal of any hero in the Five Great Classical Novels, as they struggle to prevent this civilization from falling like every civilization has before it?

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Ritter was a likeable protagonist. His chosen profession wasn’t something that necessarily came easily to him. He had the magical abilities to fix the barrier that protected his people from the things that wanted to destroy them, but he wasn’t naturally good at these tasks like his father was. The conflict between his father’s regimented style and his more relaxed one provided plenty of fodder for plot development. It also made me sympathize with Ritter when it felt like he’d never be as good at his work as his father was.

As fascinated as I was by this universe, I had trouble figuring out how it all worked. I knew that engineers in this world could create and fix things using their minds, but I struggled to understand how they did this or what they were fighting against. The Turbulence was talked about regularly, but it was never really explained in anything other than few loose metaphors. That made it tricky at times to determine what was going on with the characters.

The pacing was strong. At times, this felt like the first chapter in a novel instead of a short story because there was so much going on in the plot! I liked the fact that the characters leapt from one scene to the next while they attempted to fix the next problem that sprung up. This definitely did make for an exciting read.

I’d recommend A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Proposed Trade-Offs for the Overhaul of the Barricade to fans of engineering, libraries, or hard science fiction.