135 pages
Published 2025
Read February 28
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Disgraced Return of the Kap’s Needle is a novella brief enough (just 73 pages) that it’s packaged with two of Bernardo’s short stories to round out a modest volume. The novella is solid enough, a rumination on corruption and capitalism (but I repeat myself) on a failed colony ship mission to the planet Kapteyn d. As is so often the case with novellas, the pacing can be choppy; some breathing room would have benefitted the story.
“A Lifeline of Silk” (originally published in 2023) is a tale of an abusive relationship told from the perspective of a robotic “autodoc” aboard an interstellar sampling expedition. Sentient machines are the sci-fi of a bygone era, especially now that rapacious capitalists have destroyed the cachet of “Artificial Intelligence,” but Bernardo finds a fresh story to tell here. Quite good.
“Callis Praedictionem” (originally published in 2021) is another space medicine story, this time centering on a fungus that gives its sufferers visions of the future — but only if they’re killed on purpose. It’s all very Weird Tales, a contemporary update of the mad scientist archetype. Interesting enough, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other two stories.
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