SF from everywhere

 kw: book reviews, story reviews, science fiction, international science fiction, anthologies

I made a gap in my posting when the prior book I reviewed contained more than 400 pages, and was worthy of slower reading and pondering. I find that the current book is even larger, pushing 600 pages: The Best of World SF, Volume 1 edited by Lavie Tidhar. I decided to review the stories a few at a time. Two stories to start:

"Immersion" by Aliette de Bodard. The title encompasses the primary technical idea: "immersers", which employ two technologies. Firstly, facing the wearer/user, an enhanced-reality/translator/adviser. The plot dynamic revolves around the problem of leaning too heavily on the device. Secondly, facing the world without, an avatar, not explained but apparently a kind of hologram that surrounds the wearer. Others who pay attention can in part see the wearer within the avatar, but in one case (the first-person protagonist), the avatar is multi-layered. The third-person protagonist must actually touch the person to determine if someone is "in there". To say more would be to spoil much. The undercurrent is that of cultural domination by "Galactics", who are portrayed as white and tall, whilst others are smaller and darker: a metaphor for "The White Man's Burden" as embodied in the British Empire's attitude toward nearly everyone else. Ms de Bodard lived in Vietnam for a time, so southeast Asian culture infuses her work, much to the better, I might add.

(Image by Brian Versteeg, found at The Plaid Zebra)

"Debtless" by Chen Quifan, translated by Blake Stone-Banks. The milieu is asteroid mining, but the miners are in perpetual debt, even born to debt. This reflects the "company store" worker-enslavement activities of early rapacious industrialism, but on steroids. The source of perpetual debt, an updated idea of original sin, is found to be a technology of immortality. The human relationships among the miners impel the protagonist to discover what is behind the oppressive system.

These stories, and the other 24 in the volume, are all written "elsewhere", or what we chauvinistic Americans would call "international". That alone makes them worth reading. The skilled writing and the fresh ideas, freshly presented, make them worth absorbing.