Recent Review Roundup

Reviews of my recent stories include:

Tangent Online's Victoria Silverwolf reviewing Aurealis #157, February 2023

Set in India in the near future, “Autonomous” by Lyle Hopwood features a young man employed by a call center. He works his way up from collecting overdue bills to taking remote control of automated cars when their artificial intelligences cannot deal with unusual situations. Along the way, he becomes bitter and cynical. [...]

It powerfully demonstrates how the multinational nature of [call center] work causes [workers] to lose their native culture. The speculative technology in the story is highly plausible, and also serves as an effective metaphor for how the protagonist feels he is losing control of his life.

 SF Revu reviewing Interzone 290-291-Double Issue, 26 June 2021

"Pace Car" by Lyle Hopwood

When Alisa was three years old, Gates came down from the sky all over Earth. You could step through one and be transported to another part of Earth. But they would only transport organic matter. They transmitted fields for miles around that disintegrated inorganic matter. The resultant chaos had reduced the population of the Earth by five and a half billion people.  [...]
Finely written bittersweet tale.

Short story announcement: Lokitoo in the anthology Union by Dragon Soul Press

“How can you regard them with such equanimity, sister? Soldiers who fired on civilians?”

“They quelled a riot. They ended the looting.”

“But what kind of commander fires on a crowd from orbit? There were police on the ground. That was a demonstration of force, pure and simple.”

“If that is true, it didn’t work, because I am not afraid, and you are defiant. The clique who orders these things knows the emperor protects his citizens. It won’t happen again.”

He rubbed his chin, unwilling to argue with me. “It won’t. No one will forget the day the Intercalary Destroyer Sentry fired on its own people."

 

A Lyle Hopwood romance tale is now available in the excellent Dragon Soul Press anthology Union. This link can be used to order ebooks or paperbacks at Amazon and elsewhere. 

In this science fiction anthology, love has no limits across space and time. From Artificial Intelligence, aliens, and intergalactic royalty. From headstrong characters fighting the status quo to those struggling to keep afloat in a tumultuous world. One way or another, their love will survive.

Featuring stories by Frank Sawielijew, Kevin A. Davis, Wris Kaye, David W. Landrum, E.B. Hunter, Lyle Hopwood, Amanda Barrett, Katie Kent, T.C. Mill, and Barend Nieuwstraten III.

Graphic sexual content is included within this anthology.