Forward

Here’s another set of short stories on Prime Reading, and it’s a bit of a mixed bag:

• Ark - Veronica Roth. A good start with this one, with the setting being scientists cataloguing the Earth’s flora from the Svalbard seed repository to pack onto an ark ship just before the planet is hit by an incoming asteroid.
• Summer Frost - Blake Crouch. A bit of a clunker. An NPC in a video game spontaneously develops artificial intelligence somehow. I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief on this one.
• Emergency Skin - NK Jemisin. An envoy from a colony that escaped from a climate ravaged planet many centuries ago returns to see what has happened in the intervening time and carry out an odd mission. This is a great short story that does not go the way you might expect!
• You Have Arrived at your Destination - Amor Towels. What would happen if you could genetically nudge your unborn child into one of three possible life paths? Which would you choose? Intriguing premise, but the ending of this one goes off the rails.
• The Last Conversation - Paul Tremblay. Someone waking up from a coma, slowly regaining their sight and strength, and talking to a mysterious doctor.
• Randomize - Andy Weir. Yes, that Andy Weir of the Martian fame!