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The third book of the Ballad of Halo Jones, this one initially finds her down and out. Out of funds and options, she is now stuck on a nowhere planet and drinking to forget her sorrows. But change would come when the opportunity for a job comes along.

But the job offer would actually be enlistment (via the shipmate she met in the previous book) into the military conflict between Earth and the worlds of the Tarantula Nebula. She gets basic training and is assigned to patrol duty. She then gets to see first hand the conflict that is happening and wonders whether it is worth it.

When she gets sent to the planet Moab, a heavy gravity world that plays havoc with time, she begins to question the futility of war but gets involved in a relationship with the general in charge of the war. When the war winds down, questions begin to be asked about the general's methods, especially one that Halo discovers, to her horror, that she was involved with on the cruise ship in the previous book. At the end, she makes a decision about her relationship with the general and decides to make her own path in the galaxy again.

A book that is darker than the previous two, this one shows a Halo that now world-weary and disappointed with her life. Whatever happens to her from now on is not yet known as future planned episodes of Halo Jones' story were not written, but if there were, they would surely explore yet more fascinating aspects of her life.

The second book in the Ballad of Halo Jones, this one looks at Halo Jones' adventures about a space liner as it makes its one-year journey towards a planned rendezvous with one of her friends.

The stories range from the curious, like her ability to talk to the ship's navigator (which happens to be a dolphin), her job as a waitress, being held hostage by people considered as terrorist by Earth, meeting one of the richest men on the ship and so on.

But it is the stories about her relationships with her fellow shipmates that stand out. One is a larger than life character who constantly struggles to find a machine that can take her on in arm wresting. The other is an unusual person who is constantly ignored by everybody else due to him / her (we're never sure of the gender) efforts to fit it.

Both of them would play key parts in the story when Halo discovers the awful truth about the tragedy that happened in the first book that lead her to go travelling on the ship. Another key part of the story (although not revealed in this book) is her discovery of who is actually staying in a private suite and how her actions now would have repercussions in the future.

When she finally gets to the rendezvous point, she also learns the truth about her friend who was supposed to be there. Now alone, Halo will have to consider her future options.

In this book, Halo Jones is portrayed as a more mature person, who discovers freedom and joy but also sadness and betrayal, just like the rest of us. We'll have to see how she will deal with her life in the next book.

The first book that collects the initial stories in the Ballad of Halo Jones. It starts off by throwing readers straight into the world inhabited by Halo Jones with little introduction, which may confuse readers at first until they get their heads around the slang and mannerisms and way of dressing of the people of The Hoop, the place where the story takes place.

Into this world steps Halo Jones, a down-and-out inhabitant of The Hoop who lives with her friends and a robot dog that belongs to a friend. Halo lives out her life, yearning to get away from the Hoop and hoping that one of her friends, who is a member of a band, may also have a chance to live a life away from The Hoop.

Then, disaster strikes when they run out of food and have to make a 'terrible' shopping trip to get new supplies. Their best plans go awry, and they have to brave a journey outside The Hoop (one of Halo's friends has severe agoraphobia, or fear of open places). But they survive the shopping expedition.

But they return to discover that tragedy struck while they were away. Now, with their lives turned upside down, Halo decides that enough is enough and leaves The Hoop by joining a space liner that is leaving.

Unlike many other comics and graphic novels, Halo Jones is 'just' an ordinary person without special abilities or superpowers, trying to live the life she wants while surviving in a world that does not really care for people like her. An interesting start to the Halo Jones stories.

A better than average issue, with interesting stories by Marie Vibbert, Bo Balder, Brenda W. Clough and Davian Aw.

• "Cheaper to Replace" by Marie Vibbert: an old robot is in need of repairs. And one graduate student, who has developed a fondness for the robot, is desperate to keep it after the university administration wants to get rid of it. Her last hope may be a professor who has a liking for old cars and, perhaps, an understanding for why she wants to keep the robot around.

• "Death and Redemption, Somewhere Near Tuba City" by Lou J Berger: in the future, a woman hunts down the last of the AI cars still roaming the country. But their rivalry turns into grudging accommodation at the end when their encounter does not go well for either of them.

• "Estivation Troubles" by Bo Balder: an interesting story of a couple who pay a visit to their home world, where its inhabitants are separated into people who are active in either summer or winter and aestivate in the other season. But the short visit turns into a crisis when one of them makes a choice the other doesn't agree with, but is finally resolved with a change of heart in the other partner.

• "Clio's Scroll" by Brenda W. Clough: an interesting story involving Dante Alighieri, who picks up an unusual alien acquaintance that requires his help to find a place to stay safe.

• "Tigers for Sale" by Risa Wolf: a space station has the ability to send ships to other universes. But it requires a human on board to decide who gets to travel. At the beginning of the story, the station encounters strange memory lapses and 'nightmares' about its real purpose. But after one encounter with a ship, its human companion gives it an unexpected command that would change the nature of the station, perhaps for the better.

• "Timelock" by Davian Aw: a man is 'trapped' in a timelock, a bubble of frozen time, by a group of party goers. When he goes to ask them to unlock the bubble, so he could go to work, he unexpectedly goes on a journey deep into the world, and deep into the depths of time, while hardly using any time at all.

• "What Remains, the Echoes of a Flute Song" by Alexandra Seidel: on an unknown world, a person wanders about the remains of places, playing a flute as a means of communication. One day, the flautist rescues a talking traveller, who appears to know more about the world, and now despairs at the condition of it. The flautist tries to make them happier, but it might not work.

• "The Orchard of Tomorrow" by Kelsea Yu: in a future where food and knowledge is being hoarded by the elite, one person makes a choice that has some similarities (and differences) to that done in the story of the Monkey King and the Peaches of Immortality.

A better than average anthology of SFF by writers from China. The editor and translator, Ken Liu, is careful to say that the anthology is not meant to represent the best SFF from China, but to showcase some stories and give readers a taste of the kind of SFF being written in China. The anthology ends with some eassys by the writers on some aspects of Chinese SF.

• “The Year of the Rat” by Chen Qiufan: without jobs, university graduates have to go for the only work available: the Rodent-Control Force, troops tasked with the job of killing genetically engineered rats meant for the market in the West that had escaped. As they try to meet their quota of rats (to be reassigned to other jobs), it is gradually revealed that the rats are not all they seem to be, and neither are the people catching them.

• “The Fish of Lijian” by Chen Qiufan: an up-and-coming employee is suddenly told to take time off from work for rehabilitation. Now in Lijiang, he meets a nurse who leads his rehabilitation and it is gradually revealed why rehabilitation is necessary due to the way work has now messed up workers sense of time due to workloads.

• “The Flower of Shazui” by Chen Qiufan: a person hiding in Shenzen meets an attractive prostitute who asks him to help repair some organic film applied to her body. As he gets to know her more after the meeting, we learn the reason why he is hiding in Shenzen and also what troubles the prostitute, and he decides to help her. But the results would turn out not to be as expected.

• “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” by Xia Jia: on a street filled with ghosts inhabiting various animated bodies (as a tourist attraction), a boy grows up under the care of a ghost lady. The street has fallen on hard times with few, if any tourist, walking it. And one day, a calamity hits the street and the boy's attempts to save it might not be successful.

• “Tongtong’s Summer” by Xia Jia: a robot, which turns out to be remotely controlled, comes into the household to take care of the grandfather, who is grumpy that he now cannot walk and socialise. But an attempt to get a more competitive Chinese Chess player for the grandfather would set off a revolution in remote robotic care.

• “Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse” by Xia jia: a mechanical dragon-horse (body of a horse, head of a dragon) comes to life in a future where humans have gone. As it explores its new world, it meets a bat who becomes its friend and leads it on to a new life. The author's note at the end gives links to the real life dragon-horse gifted from France to China on which the story is based.

• “The City of Silence” by Ma Boyong: in a future where only authorized web links can be accessed and only certain 'safe' words may be used in conversations that are constantly listened to by the authorities, a man decides to sign up to use a BBS (bulletin board system). But a secret message encoded into the permission forms returned to him would lead him to join a secret society that would block the listening authorities for a brief time while they indulged their secret desires for conversation and companionship. But it would all come to an end and the man must decide on whether to take the next step in a world that is now becoming silent; for while everybody is listening, nobody would dare to say a word.

• “Invisible Planets” by Hao Jingfang: a series of brief stories about fantastial world as told by one person to another, leading to a brief meeting of minds.

• “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang: in a future where Beijing as been physically divided to two halves (for the elite and the rest), with one half 'folded' into the earth and dormant while the other is active, a man is asked to pass on a message from one side to the other, from a man to a woman. The journey would reveal the story of how Beijing came to be the way it is.

• “Call Girl” by Tang Fei: a story that initially starts out giving the impression of a school girl who may have trysts with strangers turns into an altogether fantastical tale when the "Call Girl" turns out to have to ability to call strange things into existence to fulfil the expectations of her clients.

• “Grave of the Fireflies” by Cheng Jingbo: a story of a journey in the far future to a castle that may hold the future (or past) of a girl and a universe where the stars are going out.

• “The Circle” by Liu Cixin: a conquering king believes that the secret of eternal life may lie in the digits that make up Pi, and commands his adviser to calculate it for him. The answer to generating the digits would be a computing machine made up of his soldiers acting as the logic gates of a huge computing machine. But in the end, the king's hubris would lead to his downfall.

• “Taking Care of God” by Liu Cixin: an ancient civilization who claims to have created all life on earth suddenly appears, and ask humanity to take care of the last remaining members of the civilization, whose ships are now failing. As first, it goes well, but those taking care of ailing and forgetful elders may know, conflicts between generations will occur, and it all breaks down. But not before the gods pass on a message to mankind about their possible future.

By Alan Grant and Arthur Ranson, "Mazeworld" is an interesting story with an anti-hero protagonist, Adam Cadman. In our world, he has been sentenced to hang. But something strange happens during the hanging: he is transported to Mazeworld where, unable to remove his hanging hood, he is hailed as the returned 'Hooded Man' who will free the oppressed people from the masters of Mazeworld. Mazeworld itself is a set of mazes, set on a plateau which rises out of a sea of mysterious mists or clouds.

Unable to believe what is happening to him at first, Cadman's first instincts is to flee and hide, but events happen to make him change his mind and help the rebels.

Told in three parts, the first part starts with his hanging and first appearance in Mazeworld. It ends with the overthrow of one of the masters of Mazeworld and his reappearance in our world when his hanging is aborted.

Cadman is then transported to a medical facility, where an attempt to understand what is happening to him (by probing his brain) transports him back to Mazeworld when he once again is involved with the rebels and faces a new threat: the Dark Man who has supernatural powers granted to him by an 'angel' he has imprisoned. In our world, the brain probe makes doctors realize that his mind has gone to another world and he is worthy of further examination.

Returned to our world, Cadman is now in a corporate testing facility, who hopes to make use of the world he has revealed. But here, Cadman (transported back to Mazeworld) faces his greatest test: to navigate the maze at the heart of Mazeworld in an attempt to save it from an invasion of devilish creatures. But it may end in failure, for evil is at the heart of the maze, and it wants to use Cadman to invade our world.

A fascinating, dark, fantasy story, with artwork that is full of details that, sometimes obscures what is happening, this is a story with an ending that shows Cadman saving the world, but with many little tragedies along the way.

"Age of the Wolf" is a three-part werewolf story by Alec Worley and Jon Davis-Hunt. It is told from the viewpoint of Rowan Morrigan. At the start, most of humanity is transformed into werewolves. Rowan discovers that she is being hunted, for she is part of a prophecy that would see werewolves driving humans extinct unless she can stop it. At the end of the first part, she fulfils (or does she?) the prophecy.

In the second part, years have passed. Humanity still survives (barely) and Rowan leads a band of survivors hoping to find a safe place. But she is opposed by another band of survivalists who sell fellow humans and has a grudge against her. After much tragedy, Rowan escapes with a baby to safety.

In the last part, many years have passed. The werewolves themselves have changed and become intelligent creatures, intent on harnessing magical powers to ensure that humanity is wiped out. But that requires a sacrifice, specifically, the baby (now a woman) rescued by Rowan. Rowan herself is now weaker, but intends to save humanity any way she can, even if it requires sacrificing those that she loves.

This story was apparently based on an ancient Norse prophecy of Ragnarök, in which most of humanity become werewolves. How much it follows and deviates from it is left to the reader as an exercise. The situation features runes and ancient British and Irish forms of magic. The artwork is coloured, dramatic, and somewhat bloody (can't be helped: it's a werewolf story).

An excellent read that immerses the reader in a steampunk and magical alternative world set in the early 20th century, where djinns and other magical creatures exist in Egypt and the rest of the world. This was made possible when a mysterious mystic named al-Jahiz broke the barrier between our world and the magical one. This allowed Egypt to resist European colonization (with the help of djinn) and to become a world power.

Into this world steps Fatma el-Sha’arawi, who works at the Egyptian Ministry of Alchemy, Enchantments and Supernatural Entities. She helped save Egypt (and the world) from being taken over by ancient beings from another world in a previous tale ("A Dead Djinn in Cairo"). In this story, she starts with an investigation into the mysterious deaths of a secret brotherhood group that would lead her to confront a person with immense magical powers who claim to be al-Jahiz, who has returned to lead a revolution against the elite.

With a supporting cast of fascinating characters like her new partner, her secret lover, a man channelling (or becoming?) an ancient Egyptian god, djinns, 'angels' and others personnel from the Ministry, she would confront the person, leading to a climactic battle that would determine the fate of the world. And only she may be able to wield the ultimate item of magical power that can stop that person, and others, from carrying out a plan to dominate the world.

The author hints of magical beings inhabiting other parts of the world, which opens up the possibility of a series of future stories involving Fatma and other characters in other adventures around the world. If true, this is one reader eager to join in their adventures.