Proof by Induction, by José Pablo Iriarte

Uncanny Magazine, May 2021, 

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/proof-by-induction/

Paulie Gifford, a mathematician going for tenure at his university, the same university where his father was a Professor Emeritus until his death just before the start of this story. Paulie and his father had been collaborating on a proof of a mathematical theorem--and on top of losing his father, Paulie has just lost his research partner.

But, in this world, at an unspecified point in our future, there is a technology called Coda; it records a dying person's brain in the moments of death. The recording is interactive, and "knows" everything the deceased knew at the time of death. It can't form new memories, but family members can "enter" the Coda, talk to this recording of the deceased, and ask such mundane and important questions as, "Do you have an insurance policy?"

Penric's Demon (World of the Five Gods #1.5), by Lois McMaster Bujold

Kindle Edition, July 2015

Young Lord Pnric is on his way to his betrothal in Greenwell when, five miles out of town, he encounters a party of travelers. Learned Ruchia, a divine of the fifth god, the Bastard, en route to a house of that order, has suddenly fallen ill. In fact, she has had a heart attack, and is dying. One of her party has ridden off to get help from the town. Penric feels a need to help, even if the only help he can give her is to hold her hand as she dies.

She says she's accepting his help.

And suddenly everything changes.

Ruchia was a sorceress, and the demon she has carried for many years now needs a new home. It, or she, leaps to Penric.

His life is forever changed.

Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson (author), Mary Robinette Kowal (narrator), Will Damron (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, May 2015

On a lovely early summer evening, some fast-moving object slams into the moon and shatters it into seven major pieces, and an unknowable number of smaller ones. At first, there's surprise, fascination, and the longterm anticipation of Earth eventually having rings. But when the big pieces start crashing into each other and breaking up, it becomes clear the future is much grimmer.

This is going to be a meteor storm to make life on Earth extinct. There are only a few years available to construct a solution that will preserve enough human life to to terraform and recolonize Earth--in a few thousand years, when the "hard rain" of the meteor storm and its aftermath are over.

The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth #1), by N.K. Jemisin (author), Robin Miles (narrator)

Hachette Audio, August 2015

Our story begins with the fall of civilization.

Our story begins with a woman who has just found her murdered son's body.

This is a world with a long history of civilizations that fall, when the arrival of a "fifth season," a years-long winter triggered by earthquakes and volcanoes, lasts long enough that larger political systems can't outlast it.

This is also a world with a body of traditional knowledge, the Stone Lore, that is passed down even through the fall of civilizations and the rise of new ones, because it's about how to survive these unpredictable "fifth seasons.." And it's about the orogenes, the people who have the power to move or still the earth, to cause or prevent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

King's Crusade (Seventeen #2), by A.D. Starrling (author), Michael Bower (narrator)

AD Starrling, November 2015

Two races of immortals living among humans. Secret wars. Millennia-long plots and conspiracies. Lots of fighting.

Normally, I hate this stuff.

So why do I love this book?

It's smart. The characters are complex, and have conflicting interests. They're intelligent, and don't do stupid things because the plot needs it, but they legitimately don't always know what they're doing.

Also, it's fun.

A Borrowed Man, by Gene Wolfe (author), Kevin T. Collins (narrator)

Audible Studios, October 2015

E.A. Smithe is a reclone--a clone of, in his case, a dead mystery writer, with the writer's recorded personality and memories uploaded to him. He's not a legal person, but a piece of property, specifically the property of a local library. He lives on a "shelf"--a three-walled room--at the library, and patrons can consult or borrow him.

Which is what Colette Coldbrook does.

She's trying to find the secret she believes must be hidden in the book her brother found in their father's safe--Murder on Mars by (the original) E.A. Smithe. Her father had gone from midlevel executive to widely respected financial genius--but where his original capital came from remains mysterious. Now he's dead, and her brother was murdered, apparently for the book, and Colette wants to find answers.

Castle Hangnail, by Ursula Vernon (author), Tara Sands (narrator)

Tantor Audio, April 2015

When letters were dispatched to available wicked witches, wizards, sorcerers, mad scientists, vampires, and beast lords announcing an opening for a a new Master of the Castle at Castle Hangnail, the resident staff did not expect a twelve-year-old girl. Molly has one of the invitation letters, though, and insists she is a genuine wicked witch, and the minions don't want Castle Hangnail to get decommissioned for lack of a master by the Board of Magic, so...

When Molly starts making good progress on the required tasks to be confirmed as the new master, even the most skeptical of the minions, Major Domo, starts to become hopeful.

Bandersnatch: C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings, by Diana Pavlac Glyer (author), James A. Owen (illustrator)

Kent State University/Black Squirrel Books, ISBN 9781606352762, November 2015

As a teenager, Diana Pavlac Glyer became fascinated by the Inklings, and how this group of accomplished writers may have influenced each other's work. Unfortunately, she found a great deal about the Inklings generally and as individuals, and almost nothing about how the Inklings may have engaged in mutual criticism and collaboration. Reading every published work about the group and its members brought her no closer, and at last she plunged into the primary sources--the letters, journals, and other papers left behind by the Inklings.

Few writing groups become famous, and the Inklings are among the most famous. Aside from writing and residence in or around Oxford, the Inklings were a diverse group, of varied professions, backgrounds, and interests. As Glyer lays it out, this very diversity is one of the reasons for their success: They each had something to learn and something to teach; they challenged each other, and reacted to challenges from the others; they had sparked new ideas and new directions from encounters with new ideas and perspectives.

This Gulf of Time and Stars (Reunification #1), by Julie E. Czerneda (author), Allyson Johnson (narrator)

Audible Studios, November 2015

This is the first book of a trilogy, but that trilogy is the third trilogy in a larger series. Despite that, while it's a bit confusing at first, enough backstory is salted in along the way that even coming to it cold I was able to catch up and enjoy the story.

We begin with a very dark scene, with individuals of some power and status within the various races of the Trade Pact meeting in secret. They're there to plot the destruction of the Clan, a race newly invited to join the Trade Pact. The Clan are a mysterious race, who can pass for human and live in secret among humans--and can "port" themselves and objects from one place to another. They can also control the minds of others, and erase memories. Terrifying, right?

Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Baen Books, February 2016

It's three years after the death of Aral Vorkosigan, and Cordelia, having spent those years grieving and serving solo as the Vicereine of Sergyar is starting to work out plans for the next stage in her life. Those plans include eggs and sperm she and Aral had frozen many years ago, when they did not yet know that Miles would be damaged in utero in ways that would make the existence of any other sons a threat to him.

But Cordelia always wanted a large family, the many children she could never have had on Beta Colony. Now, Miles is in his forties, the unquestioned Count Vorkosigan, and if she has only daughters, by Barrayaran law they will be only hers. And Aral's will made it unambiguously clear and certain that disposal of both sets of gametes, his sperm and her eggs, was entirely hers.

The Tell, by David Brin

Published in Future Visions:Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft, edited by Elizabeth Bear, Melchior Media, November 2015

Our narrator is a Las Vegas stage magician with a sideline in identifying fakes, frauds, and the self-deceived making seemingly major scientific "breakthroughs." He's good at it, and enjoys it, and when Sophie Van Took,a regular contact, asks him for help with a related but different job, he says yes.

The immediate goal is finding out if a particular casino has made a major breakthrough in prediction of events or if they've only made an incremental improvement. Predicting the future (whether politics, weather, economic developments, or human behavior) has been a major interest as long as we've been human, and has been getting increasingly scientific and technological in the last century or so.

Devoted in Death (In Death #41), by J. D. Robb (author), Susan Ericksen (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, September 2015

Dallas is back from a warm, sunny vacation, in the frigid, wet cold after the New Year. And very early on her first morning back, she's called to the scene of a dumped body.

Dorian Cooper was a cellist with the symphony orchestra, popular, respected, and well-liked. There's no apparent reason for anyone to kill him--but someone has. And not just killed; Cooper was tortured over the course of two days before he died. It's not long before Dallas and Peabody realize they're on the trail of a potential serial killer--or a pair of them.

Looking for Gordo, by Robert J. Sawyer

Published in Future Visions:Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft, edited by Elizabeth Bear, Melchior Media, November 2015

It's 2030, and a long-anticipated event has finally come to pass: We have confirmed contact from an intelligent alien species. It wasn't recognized immediately; its discovery had to wait for the resources to search the stored data from years of recording everything picked up by the SETI radiotelescope arrays. But when that happened, they found that intelligent beings 47 Ursae Majoris had sent, not just a contact signal, but the Reticulum--the entirety of their equivalent of the World Wide Web.

From that, Emily Chiu has developed an AI representing an individual of the Ursae majoris species. And now, a mock trial is being held to publicly debate the question of whether humanity should respond in kind, or whether it's simply too dangerous to confirm our existence. Maybe the reason it's taken so long to find intelligent life is because intelligent species that announce themselves get invaded! The AI avatar of one of the aliens that Emily Chiu has created is an important witness in the "trial."

This is a slight but interesting and fun story. Definitely worth the few minutes of your time needed to read it.

Interim Errantry (Young Wizards 9.3, 9.5, 9.7), by Diane Duane

Errantry Press, October 2015

This is a collection of three shorter Young Wizards stories.

Not On My Patch is a Halloween novella. It's a fun holiday for the wizards, because it's one of the few occasions on which they can be relatively open with their magic--and this year, it's Tom and Carl's turn to host the "haunted house" that rotates among the local senior wizards. At the start of the story, Nita is reluctant to cut into the pumpkin that is supposed to be the Callahan family's jack o'lantern, but she finally does what any wizard would do: asks it. Jackie has an entirely different perspective on life and death than animal life, and is happy to be a jack o'lantern. Nita's wizard friends are a little amused when they realize she's named it, slightly concerned when she refers to Jackie as "he," and of course it's inevitable that Jackie will become a key factor in resisting a sneak attack by the Lone Power, who tries to make Halloween really scary again. This was a lot of fun.

The Invisible Library (The Invisible Library #1), by Genevieve Cogman (author), Susan Duerden (narrator)

Audible Studios, April 2015

Irene is a staff librarian of the Invisible Library, and when we meet her, she's just completing a mission--the retrieval, or more bluntly theft, of a unique manuscript on magic from a magic-dominant alternate reality. She winds up having to face down gargoyles and hellhounds to escape with her prize, but escape she does, back the Library.

And her reward is to immediately be sent on another urgent mission, to retrieve a  unique edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales from a world where both magic and technology work, and which is also contaminated by Chaos. The Chaos contamination means that this alternate world is quarantined and normally off-limits to the librarians. This is a dangerous assignment.

A Cop's Eye, by Blue Delliquanti (author, illustrator), Michele Rosenthal (illustrator)

Published in Future Visions:Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft, edited by Elizabeth Bear, Melchior Media, November 2015

Worknesh Kedir is a Minneapolis cop. Her partner is Municipal Eye V-16, a.k.a. "Vic," an AI able to access online data as needed for their investigations. Their current assignment is finding teenage runaway Lucy Vang, as a blizzard bears down on Minneapolis.

They quickly discover that her father is oppressive, intolerant, and is actively interfering in Lucy's school work, even trying to keep her home. She's exceptionally good with computers and programming, and he resents that. Her mother wants Lucy to be safe--but actually thinks she might be better off elsewhere.

Worknesh and Vic not only have to find Lucy; they have to find a safe solution for her.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, by Natasha Pulley (author), Thomas Judd (narrator)

Audible Studios for Bloomsbury, July 2015

Nathaniel Steepleton--Thaniel, to his friends--is a telegrapher in the British Home Office in the 1880s. He's very good at it, but he was a talented pianist, before his brother-in-law died and left him responsible for the support of his sister and two nephews. Supporting a sister and nephews in Scotland requires a reliable income, so he's sold the piano, become a telegraphy clerk, and is living a much quieter, more circumscribed life, so he can send half his salary to his sister.

Then one day in May he comes home to find that his flat has apparently been burgled--except that nothing is missing. In fact, a watch has been left--a very good watch. The maker's paper inside indicates it was made by a Mr. Mori of Filigree Street. It's strange and unaccountable, but beyond talking to his friend Dolly Williams at Scotland Yard, there's not much else to be done. And it's a good watch. Besides, the far more interesting information is that Irish nationalists have announced that government buildings will be blown up in November--six months off.

Bryony and Roses, by T Kingfisher (author), Justine Eyere (narrator)

Tantor Audio, ISBN 9781494566609, October 2015

This is a new adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, and it's an excellent one.

Bryony and her sisters, Holly and Iris, grew up as the daughters of a wealthy merchant--the wealthiest merchant in the land, he made sure everyone knew. After the death of their mother, though, their father grew more and more reckless in his investments, wand finally, when Bryony was fourteen, lost everything. Now the girls are living in a little cottage none of his creditors wanted, in the out-of-the-way village of Lostfarthing. Their father has died, taking one last risk that didn't pay off.

It's been three years, and the girls are eking out a living. Bryony has become a skilled and dedicated gardener. This dedication leads her to visit a neighboring village to get seeds from some particularly hardy rutabagas, and on the way home she is caught in a dangerous snowstorm. When she finds a manor house that shouldn't be there, she has little choice. Despite a rational fear of magic, she and her pony will die if she doesn't take refuge there. She doesn't meet the Beast until the net morning, when she attempts to leave with the beautiful, perfect rose that was on the table for her meals there.

Riding With the Duke, by Jack McDevitt

Published in Future Visions:Original Science Fiction Inspired by Microsoft, edited by Elizabeth Bear, Melchior Media, November 2015

Walter Peacock loved physics with a passion, but didn't go beyond his master's because  he concluded he just wasn't smart enough. Then he spent some time more less drifting, bringing in money to live on by driving a cab.

And then he meets Diana Carter.

She's smart, she's attractive, and she is, unaccountably in Walter's mind, interested in him. They start dating, and on his birthday, she gives him a gift--a Quark-box, the latest techie toy. It connects to your tv and lets you substitute yourself for one of the actors in whatever you're watching. Over the next few dates, they watch movies and tv shows, substituting themselves for various leads and iconic character actors. Walter especially enjoys taking on the comic roles--Robin Williams in some of his comedies, Seinfeld in Seinfeld. How much more successful could he be if he could master humor in real life!

Weighing Shadows, by Lisa Goldstein (author), Natasha Soudek (narrator)

Audible Studios, November 2015 (original publication October 2015)

Ann Decker is a young woman with no family, no friends, and no real prospects. An orphan raised in foster care, she didn't make it to college, but she's very good with computers, and has a job in a computer repair shop. She avoids attention as much as possible.

So she's not happy when she notices a woman following her, and is even less pleased when the woman comes into the shop and asks for her by name.

Ann is about to be recruited into Transformations Inc., a company using time travel to attempt to change history to ensure that resources, and human civilization, last beyond the 2370s. Or at least, that's what they say.