Reviews
“Susan Forest is a consummate stylist, and a master of subtle characterization. She draws you in from page one, and doesn’t let go.”
Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of HOMINIDS
Angel of Death
The book is a treat to hold, polished and attractive. From the Giger-esque figures on the front to the simple yet elegant page design, the whole experience of Tesseracts 10 was sheer joy. Individual stories seem to flow from one to the next. Well-chosen words and realistic characters and believable situations (no matter how unreal and unbelievable they may be) make you wonder “what if”, and you carry on their stories, long after you’ve put down the book.”
Jillian Bell, host of Bookchick
Playing Games
‘Playing Games’ by Susan Forest is about a little girl who liked to go on adventures to find the Tooth Fairy and other fantastical creatures. She fully intends to find out where Santa’s elves come from. Her informant tells her that he is an agent in the North Pole and will happily oblige her request. It all seems an innocent game that she plays chasing the Easter Bunny down rabbit warrens and other childish games, but this time it’s no game. This tale follows the Grimm and Dahl method of child storytelling, giving them exactly what they hope for!
Review by Donna Jones of SF Crowsnest
‘Playing Games’ by Susan Forest is a strange tale of two inquisitive girls, one of whom seeks the answer to where Santa’s elves come from. But when she makes it to the North Pole, she finds out too late that she doesn’t like the answer. This is a weird one. Cute, clever, but weird. A dark little adult fable disguised as a kid’s story.
Review by James Palmer of the Tangent Short Fiction Review
Paid In Full
“Paid in Full” by Susan Forest tells of two um…bug farmers on another world, and the giant gnats which, depending on their kind (Dark/good or White/bad), lay eggs which are nourished by the aphids and then sold, or are the rogue and deadly variety which appear at dark and kill everything they can in their feeding frenzy. One of the farmers has hit hard times and asks a favor of the other, who is forever repaying the former for a long ago debt. But now the debt has been repaid in full, and the first farmer is still extremely ungrateful (his friend has just saved his life). The story is a lesson in learning when to let go of a debt repaid when one learns that one is being taken advantage of. The gnat/aphid symbiosis, and how the eventual product is processed for profit is entertaining, as is the scene of the night terror a swarm of the deadly, blood-sucking White gnats wreaks on the terrified farmers.
This one was fun. It did not take me long to get an image of this world in my mind. The descriptions were great and I really liked the usage of common terms to describe otherworldly things. Gnats are pesky critters on any world I guess. And so are humans; Susan Forest gives us characters that we can all identify with. For me this made it easy to suspend reality and immerse myself in her tale.
Immunity
An author new to Asimovs. Forest sets up a moral dilemma, probably of the type which as a mother and elementary-school principal she will have come across, and which many of us as parents will have faced : to what extent do your stand on your ethical/moral principles when it comes to your children’s welfare? Whilst for most of us it’s a case of “do we stay in this neighbourhood and send our children to the local school, or move house to get them into a ‘better’ school” (we did the former and it appears to have worked out OK!). In this story the dilemma is a much greater one, as dwindling supplies of serum which can combat a lethal virus has to be rationed to the very young and very weak, and the person dispensing the serum funds that her daughter has contracted the virus but is above the age limit for getting the serum.
Trine makes the decision, which can subsequently be rationalised on the basis that when a new supply of serum arrived there was still other serum left after the dose she gave to her daughter, but Trine cannot take this as comfort.
The main criticism for me is that the story does little than sets up the ethical conundrum, and show its resoluation. It’s perfectly fine in the way it does that, but a more established writer would have added length and depth to the story to give it greater weight (as Bacigalupi above).
In the thought-provoking “Immunity” by Susan Forest, Trine has a dilemma. She can inoculate her suffering baby girl against the plague, or she can use the serum to ensure the health of one of her colony’s members, which she, as a medical admin, is responsible for. Forest’s clean, stark style drops you right into the setting of Trine’s colony, where drama seems all the starker because of the isolated setting. “Immunity” reminded me favorably of the late, lamented TV show, Firefly, in which denizens of an intergalactic frontier confront moral choices with no easy answers.
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