Tor.com Short Fiction November-December 2020 by Elizabeth Bear

There’s a great cast in the story besides Jens, though she’s managed to keep most of them at arm’s length. She wears an exoskeleton that helps her regulate it, but the truth is going to hurt more than that. Llyn was born with a condition that leaves her always in pain. Then things start falling apart on the station, and Jens has to race to uncover not only who is responsible, but what they have against the hospital station whose mission is the only thing she actually believes in. She’s a doctor (dammit) but she’s also ex-military and single-minded in her devotion to Core General, which she trusts more than any of the people who have let her down in her life.

Though it starts as another small plucky crew adventure on the ambulance ship, it soon moves to a mystery on a space station, as they return to Core General and Llyn gets tasked to dig into the string of sabotages that have plagued the station and crippled communications while she was exploring the derelict. Different characters, different challenges–though occasional cameo by characters from the previous book. Machine returns us to the universe of Ancestral Night, but it’s not a direct sequel.

Last year Elizabeth Bear started a new series set in the White Space universe. Especially not on two ships, at the same time.” – Machine by Elizabeth Bear There’s rarely a creepy, echoing silence and a dearth of anybody to rescue. There will nearly always be people screaming, if there is any atmosphere for them to scream into. There are often fires, or blown vessels, or explosions, or terrible collisions to deal with. Most heavy rescue situations are extremely straightforward. “There was so much about this situation that wasn’t quite right. Boarding ships full of sick or injured people/aliens is what she does for a living, but… That ship is silent as a tomb as well.ĭr. The distress call had come from another ship, one full of methane-breathers that shouldn’t have had any interest in docking with an oxygen environment. When the Core General ambulance ship, I Race To Seek the Living, arrives at the centuries-old STL colony ship Big Rock Candy Mountain, they find the crew of thousands in cryo, weird Tinkertoy bots everywhere, and a golden fembot named Hellen Alloy watching over them. Machine: A White Space Novel Book 2 of 2: White Space | by Elizabeth Bear | Oct 6, 2020, | Gallery / Saga Press

Tor.com Short Fiction November-December 2020 by Elizabeth Bear