Alembical 3: A Distillation of Three Novellas

Dorrance and Schoen offer three visions of the future in this earnest celebration of the novella form. Matthew S. Rotundo’s “From Earth I Have Arisen,” set in a depopulated America struggling to recover from catastrophic plague, forces its protagonist to consider what price he will pay to bring a semblance of the old world back. Kam Oi Lee’s “Star-Reacher,” set in a brighter, more distant future, explores unexpected romances on a socially stratified frontier planet. John P. Murphy pays homage to Rex Stout in “Claudius Rex,” a tale of an AI’s quest for justice after its creator is slain. There’s no unifying theme beyond an appreciation for short novels of hard SF. Though largely conventional in their individual approaches, the three authors have produced distinct visions, solid but not memorable. (May)