Snowflake by Nick Wolven (Asimov’s SF, January-February 2022) opens with Nikki, the narrator of the story, getting woken up to deal with her friend Coco, a rock star who is prone to having messy emotional and psychological meltdowns. Nikki finds Coco on the toilet floor in her hotel room surrounded by other members of her entourage. Dr Ali, Coco’s personal physician, also attends, and deals with her until the paramedics come.
Later on in the story—after Coco has returned from rehab and has had another meltdown in rehearsal (Coco is insistent about touring again)—we get past the rock star glitter and background information about Nikki and Coco’s tough childhoods and arrive at the science fictional part of the story. Here, Dr Ali’s drugs are replaced by a mood altering device that appears to spirit away Coco’s problematic feelings:
The gauge wasn’t much to look at. Just a palm-sized lump of off-white rubber, a screen inset in a round pink frame. Not the kind of techcessory you’d be flashing at a club. The kind you’d keep at home in a drawer, hidden away with the depression pills and condoms.
“That’s more or less what it’s for, isn’t it?” Bobby took the thing and did what Donal had done, poking buttons, aiming it at his face, even touching an end to his forehead. “Sort of an all-purpose dimmer switch?”
“All right, guys.” Samira grabbed the device from Bobby. “Let’s not forget what we’re here for, okay?” She went across the room, holding the gauge up like a torch, giving a make-believe bow as she handed it over. “Coco?”
And slapped it down, palm to palm. You could see right away the effect it had. Her fingers closed. The device began to glow, pulsing pink, a coal in her fist. She looked at the screen. Lights, camera, activation. I could hear the sound of it throbbing on her palm.
“How’s it work?” I said. You just—?”
You press this—?”
I stood on one side, Samira on the other. Pointing over her shoulders, making suggestions. She powered it up. Her fingers turning yellow at the tips as she squeezed. The pulsing got stronger. The pink color deepened, rose to red, red to crimson, until the gauge glowed like an orb of lava, shooting beams of light through her hands. She looked up.
“Feel anything?” I said.
“Eh.”
But she did look changed, eyes wider, pupils dark, the lines of stress smoothed out of her cheeks. p. 25-26
There is some equally flabby handwavium about how the gauge works, and Dr Ali later directly compares it to trepanning (drilling holes in someone’s head to let the bad spirits out)—something that leads to an argument between him and Nikki.
The rest of the story sees Coco become increasingly dependent on the device and also become more and more zombie-like, something that noticeably affects her performance onstage. During this period there is a suggestion from Bobby the promoter that holograms should replace her live act , but this idea is killed by Coco, and they end up deciding on a scheme which will see Tim the tech guy record Coco’s bad feelings from the device so she can experience them later (in a safe place after the tour). What actually happens (spoiler) is that Coco continues to deteriorate and, eventually, overdoses and kills herself. Bobby and Tim then reveal they have been using the captured data to refine the hologram, and it is substituted for Coco at a concert that is about to take place. In the final scene Nikki sees the hologram of Coco on stage—looking and performing like she used to—and takes her place in the band.
I found it hard to care about the stereotypical characters in this piece, their personal problems, turf battles, or the clichéd arc of the story (this is essentially a mainstream tale about an emotionally disturbed rock star who later overdoses and dies, e.g. Morrison, Joplin, Winehouse, etc.). Readers of Pop Star! magazine may enjoy this kind of thing, but I found it superficial and tedious.
* (Mediocre). 24,800 words.