The March 2017 issue of Clarkesworld, issue #126, comes packed with tales of apocalypses. Here’s Charles Payseur from Quick Sip Reviews.

Clarkesworld Magazine for March [contains] five original stories including a great novelette in translation… these pieces are concerned with new forms of intelligence and with the end of the world. Or maybe just with the end of certain aspects of it. But at least two of the stories are more specifically apocalyptic, and many besides are about doubt and depression, anxiety and seclusion. These stories show people closing themselves off from the rest of the world — out of fear or hurt — and then having to decide whether to open up again. It’s a wonderful issue…

“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu (11,932 words)

This is a wrenching and beautiful story about despair and about loneliness. About machines and machine intelligence and people in need of a voice and presence. The story breaks itself between two storylines, between parts that involve Alan Turing, which are semi-historical and reveal a man desperate for connections but deeply worried about make thing, and parts that involve a young woman who is using machines as part of therapy to help her through depression and anxiety. The parts with Turing reveal his situation as a gay man in a world where being gay was a crime, where every conversation he had might lead him to ruin. To embarrassment and worse. To what did ultimately happen to him… It’s an amazing story that is deep and lyrical even as it captures something of a biographical tone.

Find Charles’ complete review here.

The March issue of Clarkesworld contains original fiction from Robert Reed, J.B. Park, Nomi Kritzer, Octavia Cade, and Xis Jia, plus reprints by Ian R. MacLeod and Alexander Jablokov.

The cover, “Jungle Deep,” is by Sergei Sarichev.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“Two Ways of Living” by Robert Reed
“Real Ghosts” by J.B. Park
“Waiting Out the End of the World in Patty’s Place Cafe” by Nomi Kritzer
“Crown of Thorns” by Octavia Cade
“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xis Jia, translated by Ken Liu
“The Discovered Country” by Ian R. MacLeod (from Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2013)
“At the Cross-Time Jaunter’s Ball” by Alexander Jablokov (from Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, August 1987)

The non-fiction is:

SF Short Fiction Markets in China: An Overview of 2016 — Feng Zhang
Howling at the Lunar Landscape: A Conversation with Ian McDonald — Chris Urie
Another Word: Reading For Pleasure — Cat Rambo
Editor’s Desk: Recognizing 2016 — Neil Clarke

And this month’s podcasts:

“Two Ways of Living” by Robert Reed
“Real Ghosts” by J.B. Park
“Waiting Out the End of the World in Patty’s Place Cafe” by Nomi Kritzer
“Crown of Thorns” by Octavia Cade
“Goodnight, Melancholy” by Xis Jia, translated by Ken Liu
“The Discovered Country” by Ian R. MacLeod
“At the Cross-Time Jaunter’s Ball” by Alexander Jablokov

See the complete issue here.

Clarkesworld is edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, and published by Wyrm Publishing. The contents are available for free online; individual issues can be purchased for $3.99, and monthly subscriptions are $2.99/month. A 6-month sub is $17.94, and the annual price is $35.88. Learn more and order individual issues at the magazine’s website.

We last covered Clarkesworld with Issue 125.

Our March Magazine Rack is here. See all of our recent fantasy magazine coverage here.