Review - Mr. Templar

Four new stories and four new poems are offered in the current online issue of Aberrant Dreams, updated mid-April. My favorite was the opening piece. Here's my review at The Fix which covers the whole issue.

“Mr. Templar” by Jason Sizemore tops the table of contents and is a good, old-fashioned robot tale, with an alien twist. Humanity has fled, all biological life has since died out, and in this endless post-holocaust nuclear winter, androids roam the planet in search of energy to maintain their existence. When they chance upon each other in the desert wasteland, it’s usually a fight to the finish, with the loser’s power source as the reward. So it’s with skepticism and grave reservation that Mr. Templar, one of the last remaining androids on Earth, agrees to assist a dying robot who claims that humans—with fuel—have returned from space to save them and are orbiting the planet even now. Are Mr. Templar’s misgivings with or without merit? The author does a fairly good job introducing characters, planting clues, and creating a little suspense in this sci-fi mystery, but the resolution lacked the punch I was looking for. The conclusion was probably a bigger letdown for Mr. Templar, however, who had his hopes pinned to that promise of reuniting with his human masters.

Science Fiction (PGish)
About 5500 words
My Rating: 7 of 10
Read it over lunch.