Simon Petrie

80,000 Totally Secure Passwords That No Hacker Would Ever Guess by Simon Petrie is the most recent (unthemed) collection of his short stories. It's mostly reprints from various venues (including some from the authors previous two collections, which felt a bit odd, but perhaps isn't given that I think they're currently out of print) and story lengths range from flash fiction up to short novella.

My favourite stories in this collection were generally the longer, meatier ones. I quite liked "All the Colours of the Tomato", which is about semi-intelligent alien fauna and painting and radiation. But my favourite story was probably "The Thirty-First Element" which was a weird hard SF story that quite appealed to me. Short reviews of these and all the other stories are below, as usual. I have generally omitted reviews for flash stories (also as per usual), since these are difficult to properly review.

I did not reread all the stories in this collection that I had previously read. I have indicated the titles of stories I did read in bold below, but have also included the mini-reviews I wrote of the other stories the first time I read them. These aren't bolded and are instead italicised.

Overall, I recommend this collection to science fiction readers who are looking for a mix of series and silly stories. Fans of Petrie's work will find much to enjoy here, even if they've read the previous collections of his work (as I had). Some of the flash stories are groan-worthy shaggy dog stories, but if you can make it past that, there's much to enjoy here.

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Product Warning — A very amusing introduction/warning about an explosive anti-piracy measure.

Introduction by Über-Professor Arrrrarrrgghl Schlurmpftxpftpfl — mildly amusing, but a bit wordy.

Jack Makes a Sale — Flash, which I may have read before...

All the Colours of the Tomato — An interesting premise and a long story to explore it. I had to read it over a few sittings but then, once some questions were answered in interesting ways, it felt like it ended a little abruptly. Still an interesting read, though.

Working Girl — Flash

The Fridge Whisperer — Hilarious. Writer attempts to write (what seems to be The Hitchhiker's a Guide to the Galaxy) while his fridge gains sentience and wreaks havoc. Awesome.

Running Lizard — A haunting story about a series of gruesome murders, a forensic psychologist who is also a were-creature, and her brother.

You Said ‘Two of Each’, Right? — Biblically amusing flash

The Speed of Heavy — An amusing space cargo caper involving an exchange student, some crickets and some bats. I lol'd.

Talking with Taniwha — A lovely and thoughtful hard SF story about learning to communicate with very alien aliens. I love the depth of world building and consideration that went into this one.

Half The Man - amusing flash

Tremble, Quivering Mortals, At My Resplendent Tentacularity — Another amusing flash, shaggy-dog stories though they are

The Assault Goes Ever On — Weird flash.

Dark Rendezvous — A space explorer comes across a derelict ship drifting in a favourable direction for rendezvous. Where did it come from? Ominous. I particularly liked the attention to dust particle detail in the nebulous setting of the story.

Podcast — Inadvertently stranded in an escape pod, trailing the main shop through hyperspace. Limited supplies and a broken hyperspace switch with only the pod's AI for company. A very enjoyable story. One of my favourites so far [in Difficult Second Album].

Must’ve Been While You Were Kissing Me — Zombie speed-dating noir shaggy dog story.

The Day of the Carrot — An amusing tale of giant vegetables. I liked the choices of authors for the interspersed pseudo quotes.

Latency — A really solid hard SF story. A research team on another planet studying it's only life form. Solid science, interesting concepts played with.

At the Dark Matter Zoo — an amusing poem.

Suckers for Love — Alien mating romance. An ultimately disconcerting story. Squidlike.

The Thirty-First Element — An excellent story that put me in mind of classic hard SF. Not because it was, shall we say, scientifically plausible, but because it took an idea and ran with it to an extreme conclusion. In space. It was interesting and contained some mystery (although the ending did not come as a surprise) and some light horror elements.

Against the Flow — A short nonsensical story with an eye-rolling shaggy-dog ending.

Reverse-Phase Astronomy as a Predictive Tool for Observational Astronomy — A very amusing story written in the format of a scientific article.

DragonBlog — The story of a dragon-slayer told in blog style. Amusing.

Niche — Flash. Lots of moths.

November 31st is World Peace Day — One of the longest stories in this collection, this one follows a woman who gets kidnapped by time travellers after a failed job interview. The kid appears haphazardly plan to hold the world to ransom using their time machine, but they didn’t count on our protagonist being smarter than them. An entertaining read written in a lighthearted style.

Mole of Stars — short flash. Probably better if you know what a mole is (it’s a chemical term meaning 6.02 x 1023 particles), but even so, a poignant end.

4 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.… (más)

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3082624.html

It's a collection of short stories, most of them very brief indeed, with a bit of a tendency to go for last-minute twists or punchlines (à la Asimov, but a little better, which is not difficult). There are several about near-future detective Gorxdon Mammon investigating various murders. The two that stick in my mind are "Running Lizard", which takes the unpromising concept of were-dinosaurs in the present day and carries it off very well, and the non-sfnal "Scratched" about a little girl, her brother and a mouse. I will keep an eye out for more of Petrie's work.… (más)

Wide Brown Land by Simon Petrie is a collection of stories set on Titan. I've previously read and reviewed Matters Relating to the Identification of the Body, which is a novella set in (and on) the same world, and a few short stories, such as those appearing in Difficult Second Album, "CREVjack" and "Fixing a Hole" (which also appear in Wide Brown Land). Most of the stories in Wide Brown Land are reprints from various venues, but four —‘Erebor’, ‘Goldilock’, ‘Phlashback’, and ‘Placenta’ — are published for the first time in this collection.

The stories in this collection, while having a very consistent setting, have a variety of different themes and premises. There are stories of survival, peer pressure and criminal activity. Some of the characters are trying to get by, or to make the best of a bad situation, or to solve their problems before time runs out. My favourites — which shouldn't surprise anyone — were those stories where the characters had to solve some sort of technical problem, possibly with life-or-death stakes. The final story in the collection "Placenta" was a most memorable example of one of these.

As well as more sciencey stories (for lack of a better word), there were also several tense and action-based stories. Some of these involved "pharmhands", mostly as antagonists. After several stories with pharmhands as a more nebulous threat, I was very interested to learn more about who they actually were in "Phlashback". Another very tense, but not strictly action-packed, story was "Hatchway". It was a memorable story about the very real dangers of teenage peer pressure when living in a hostile environment.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read with a good variety of stories in a meticulously realised setting. They're hard science fiction but most of the stories are character-driven to varying degrees. As usual, comments on each individual story are included below. I highly recommend this collection to fans of science fiction, especially those intrigued by human life on Titan, the most-hydrocarbon-soaked of Saturn's moons.

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“Storm in a T-Suit” was an interesting story. A storm on Titan, a rescue mission, a tragic backstory and a crazy theory, all made for a thoughtful and engaging read.

“Hatchway” is a story about peer pressure as well as the pressure of Titan’s atmosphere, with chilling elements for both the protagonist and the reader.

“Broadwing” is about a crash landing and a long wait for rescue. It felt like a scene-setting piece to give us a good feel for Titan and a bit of background on flight and the landscape.

“Emptying Roesler” is about an inspector, a man in an abandoned building (yes, on Titan) and illegal activities. I feel like we’re only getting hints of what the “pharmhands” are really up to (in this story and in “Hatchway”) and I want to know more. Also, this story ended abruptly, albeit in a logical place. I would not have minded finding out what happened next to the characters.

“CREVjack” — previously read. I came back to reread it after I started “Goldilock”, however, since that story felt like a sequel and I couldn’t remember the specifics of this earlier one. The ending remains emotionally difficult to read.

“Lakeside” revisits the protagonist of “Broadwing”, an adult now and dealing with different life issues. After spotting something strange from his plane, he has a bit of a run in with some criminals.

“Erebor” seems to be about it the protagonist of Matters Arising... a look at her earlier life and a mildly unlucky climbing expedition.

“Goldilock” is a direct sequel to “CREVjack”, picking up moments after that story left off. It continues in a similarly tense and action-packed vein with another very dramatic ending.

“Fixing a Hole” — previously read.

“Phlashback” is a third story in the “CREVjack” and “Goldilock” sequence, this time picking up shortly after the previous story left off and shifting point of view characters (again). Finally we get to learn more about pharmhands and their place in the scheme of things on Titan. Another tense story.

“Placenta” is about a pregnant woman who suddenly finds herself in a life- and baby-threatening situation and must do a bit of sciencey problem-solving to survive. It also gives us a snapshot of an abandoned part of Titan, which strongly reminded me of an Abandoned Photography blog I’ve followed.

4.5 / 5 stars

You can read more of my reviews on my blog.… (más)