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Ronnie Bottoms kills Lorraine Fell and stuffs her body under some rocks in Central Park, which is also where a mysterious all-powerful alien box is. Lorraine talks the box into letting her convince Ronnie to bring her back to life. She has to possess Ma Lin, a former South Vietnam soldier who took care of enemies of the state, because he sits next to Ronnie. Ronnie then returns to Central Park, digs up Lorraine's body, and by the power of the Silver Box, brings Lorraine back to life. They spend the night in a hotel where Lorraine tries to fuck her murderer (and would be rapist) but he can't get it up. Then they are jailed because Lorraine has been missing and they used her credit card. After a bit of being roughed up by the cops, a lawyer hired by the Silver Box springs Lorraine and Ronnie.

And at this point they are all transported somewhere else in the galaxy where Ronnie (yes Ronnie the wanna be rapist) explains that Ma Lin now contains a molecule of an intergalactic race called the Laz and the Silver Box, tells Lorraine and Ronnie their quest is to save earth from the Laz molecule.

Yes. That is the story so far. I'm sure there's a reason why all of this is set up this way, but I am not willing to read through to the end to find out because it sure as hell won't be worth it.

DNF at 22%

Construction-Paper Moon by Michael J. DeLuca

A comet knocks the moon out of Earth's orbit, and a decade or two later affects a father's relationship with his daughter who is too young to remember the moon.

Impracticable Dreams by Jason S. Ridler

A comic's best material comes from purging into a bottomless hat, but he's so empty now he may not be able to get enough material in time to hit the big-time with an agent who is to be in his audience tomorrow.

Colonized by Scott H. Andrews

What if the Chinese colonized America and Anglos were the immigrants who didn't fit in with the majority?

The Recurrence of Orpheus by Erin Hoffman

Whoosh. This went so far over my head I don't know what it is.

Welcome to Foreign Lands by Justin Howe

A man journeys to the land on the inside of Earth's crust and participates in a societal ritual that brings him to feel at home inside, rather than on the surface world.

Not a bad little chapbook of stories, even if I didn't get the one at all. The Homeless Moon chapbook PDF is available free from the authors' web site, and is Creative Commons licensed.

Charles, a robot valet, unexpectedly murders his employer. He then sets out on a journey to Diagnostics to find out why he did it, and starts a heroes journey of sorts. Through seven episodes, mostly accompanied by the Wonk, who he meets at Diagnostics, he journeys through a societal landscape where humans are mostly dead or scrabbling to survive.

So what happened? The Wonk wants it to be that robots have obtained self-awareness. Charles just wants to be a valet for a human, but is complex enough to act unhappily at some of his opportunities. Even though he claims to be incapable of unhappiness.

I found myself really liking Charles, but that may be my internal tendency toward the satisfaction of ticking off tasks on a task list, which is what a lot of Charles' internal monologue is about. The overall story is good, but it is overly long (7 episodes in Charles' quest) and I just wanted to get on with it in a few places.