Excellent, brisk, nicely paced short cyberpunk story! Maybe cyberpunk isn't the right word, but it's neatly put together adventure which slowly teases out the details of it's post-human protagonist caught in a situation where she has to take a chance to save a child who she comes across while scavenging in abandoned buildings. I'd like to see more of the same from Bellet! [Hat tip to the recent Worldcon events to point me in her direction - something good that came of that mess. A plus - the story was a free Kindle download!] ( )

Post-apocalyptic Russia with cyborgs. ( )

Of Bone and Steel and Whiskers

“The programs in her control panel remembered her training, even if she fought to forget.”

Ryska is scavenging in an industrial area in the outskirts of Tynda when she unwittingly stumbles into the middle of a botched kidnapping for ransom. The target – a young boy named Toma, son of the famed “Railway Demon” – reminds her of the boys she couldn’t save back at the Lab: Misha. Luka. Gregr. Her brothers and friends. Though it goes against her survival instinct, Ryska vows to help Toma escape his captors (and if his father rewards her with a fat bag of cash, all the better). Luckily, she has something that her sighted pursuers do not: high-tech sensory whiskers that allow her to see in the dark, and specialized combat training from her childhood in the Lab.

A short thriller/science fiction/dystopian story, “Of Bone and Steel and Other Soft Materials” feels like a little novelette in a larger series, meant to provide some backstory for or additional insight into a much-loved character. As I read, I yearned to learn more about Ryska and her time in the Lab, or to find out what she did with her reward money; sadly, “Of Bone and Steel” is all there is. Still, it’s a fun little read, overall well-written and fast-paced.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2014/07/05/of-bone-and-steel-and-other-soft-materials-... ( )