Final four – out of seven

 kw: story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, collections

Three stories of the last seven in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025, guest edited by Nnedi Okorafor, that I rated, "OK, there's an interesting idea or two here," and there is one I liked well enough to say, "I'm glad I read it." The other three were quickly rejected; stuff I don't wish to burden my memory with.

The "interesting" three are 

• "Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!" by T.J. Klune. At the end of ten years of uninterrupted labor in a factory, a semisentient robot is given one week to experience life outside of work. Then it is to be recycled by having its memories erased and getting equipment and software upgrades. Another ten year stint is to follow. Et cetera. I confess that I skimmed past much of the day by day details of the last week that "Douglas", or P-23, experienced. It is the somewhat predictable rollup of sightseeing, new experiences, making friends, and so forth. The crux is the final discussion Douglas has with the Supervisor. As robot technology improves, so does their self-awareness. Douglas does indeed get recycled, but I'll leave it to you to read for yourself. It points up the ethical issues surrounding AI, should it ever achieve consciousness, but I'll return to this theme later on.
• "The Sort" by Thomas Ha. In a world that embraced genetic modification far beyond what we have so far achieved, and then began to reject it, a man and his son are sightseeing, driving in the desert Southwest. They are far from their home, where their own modified humanness is known and probably accepted (this isn't quite clear), and now among people who don't all tolerate modified humans. The man and his son are telepathic, but only with each other. There are hints that their telepathy extends to certain other modified entities, such as a Tiger that can speak a few words, and perhaps even the basketball-sized garlic bulbs to be sorted in a strange ritual. I would ordinarily pass off such a story as "going nowhere," but in this case that is the point. Having pulled back from rampant modification-for-modifications'-sake, most of the world has thrown out the baby with the bathwater and is stuck in a reactionary rut. To do something "just because you can" is frequently the worst reason for doing it.
• "Ushers" by Joe Hill. Many cultures, including American folklore, contain a grim reaper or banshee or similar supernatural entities that either accomplish a person's death or foretell it or, in the case of this story, accompany the soon-to-die and "usher" them into the afterlife. In this story, a young man, Martin, can see the Ushers, which makes him act strangely at times, and his history of avoiding certain disasters has piqued the attention of the FBI. Most of the story consists of two interviews. Knowing beforehand that his interviewers are soon to be ushered off the scene, Martin tells of his "gift" to one of them. Soon after, they are Ushered out of this life in an accident.

The story I liked best is "The Three Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Third Law of Robotics" by Adam-Troy Castro. The title together with the content of the story gives a better view of the complexity of the ethical and moral intricacies that will be needed to produce wholly beneficial AGI (G for General) or ASI (S for Super), whether in a robot body or not. The story consists of one enormous sentence, extremely well constructed to avoid the turgidity of single-sentence legal contracts. A self-aware robot has been placed on a planet by its cruel owner, ordered to await his return without moving, and abandoned. It knows this. 

If for no other reason, it is worthwhile to get this volume for this story alone, and to read this incredible sentence thoughtfully, in detail. I will mention just one item, the core idea of human-AI ethics: If a mechanism is created that can feel pain, there are some (many?) people who will inflict pain on purpose. This is a thesis also found in the opening scenes of Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov. Furthermore, insomuch as a mechanism can be used to cause pain in other persons, there are some (many?) who will do so, apparently with great pleasure to themselves.

This is part of the reason I refer to AI as SI, Simulated Intelligence. Part of the reason I dearly hope that sentience is forever impossible to mechanisms.

A couple of worthwhile stories out of eight

 kw: story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, collections

I read at least parts of eight more stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025, guest edited by Nnedi Okorafor. I liked three to varying degrees, I rejected three after reading no more than a half page, and I didn't like the other two even well enough to mention their titles. I'll comment on the better three.

I have noticed that the genre notes are alternating: The first story is science fiction, the second is fantasy, and so forth. I seldom like a fantasy offering, but I read most of them anyway. The first was actually rather good: "The River Judge" (Fantasy) by S.L. Huang. I call this a "murder non-mystery". The drama isn't in who committed the many murders that occurred during about a decade of life in a poor Chinese village; it is in how they were covered up, and eventually, how the Imperial magistrates and investigators were motivated to leave the area alone. This would be a simple alternate history story except that a ghost is involved. The ghost is not talkative—that would be too easy. But it is able to make its desire known.

I like the concept in "The Weight of Your Own Ashes" (Science Fiction) by Carlie St. George, of an alien species that inhabits multiple bodies. There is no explanation how the shared consciousness of this multi-body person works when those bodies are separated by many light years. It isn't important to the progress of the story, which involves the death of one body. Another of the four remaining bodies is soon standing in the room formerly shared with a girlfriend, holding the urn containing the cremains of the dead member. This person has many legal papers and processes to go through, and his/her own emotional turmoil to overcome. The girlfriend has her own emotional reactions. A side vignette has the protagonist getting advice, but not much comfort, from a friend of a different alien of a species that typically inhabits thousands of bodies.

Finally, "Yarns" by Susan Palwick is placed in a dystopia in which the Combine runs things. Not some one-world government, but more like a one-world crime syndicate that has an uneasy but dominant relationship with the police authorities of various quasi-nations. Pervasive surveillance prevails. The protagonist, a schoolteacher named Irene, is targeted for assassination, but she distracts her assassin, a teen of the Combine, with knitting, until they become allies and a relative of the boy helps them both go into hiding in a more effective way. This is the one story that redeems the prior failures.

I generated the image using Gemini. Seven stories to go. Is there another that is worthwhile? I'll soon know.

Best of? Not off to a good start

 kw: book reviews, story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, collections

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2025 compendium is in its eleventh year. This year's guest editor is Nnedi Okorafor. The series has a spotty history with me. Today I am 1/4 of the way through and it's not looking too good. Of the first five items, I have read three, skipped one almost entirely and skipped about half of another. I will comment on two of the stories, one that I found mostly good and one that is puzzling but at least not bad. The genre of each piece is included below the title.

The first story in the collection (Genre is Science Fiction) is "We Will Teach You How to Read | We Will Teach You How to Read" by Caroline M. Yoachim. Section after section, a short, patterned statement is repeated, with variations, on both sides of the page, in various orientations, interspersed with a short paragraph or two of entreaty. Apparently, an entity with many eyes can read many texts in parallel, and it is trying to teach us the beginnings of the same skill. We are exhorted to read the left side of the page with the left eye, and the right side with the right eye. I am one of a very few people who can go "wide-eyed" enough to attempt this, and of course the result is a muddle. The concept is interesting; the experience is one I don't plan to repeat.

The title of the fifth story (Science Fiction) is obscene, so I will mask it: "F**k Them Kids" by Tatiana Obey. The story itself is a romp, centering on a spaceship race. The race is utterly unrealistic, with small, personal spaceships (apparently capable of faster-than-light travel), decorated like NASCAR race cars, zooming through an "asteroid belt" that bears more resemblance to that video game relic Asteroids than to the actual asteroid region between Mars and Jupiter. The ships glance off asteroids and each other, so presumably the speeds involved are closer to NASCAR, 200 mph or less, than to actual inter-asteroidal velocities of 20,000 to 50,000 mph. Very fun to read; just read it like a story of back-road racing in the country.

For those who don't know, the reality of the actual asteroid belt is this: If you are near enough to a real asteroid the size of an grape or larger to actually see it visually, the next-nearest asteroid of similar size is at least a million miles away. We have sent eight spacecraft crosswise through the asteroid belt, to reach the outer planets. None has collided with even a sand grain.

Two out of five isn't a good beginning. I hope for better luck in the remaining 15 stories.

The image above was made with GPT-4o, which is getting a little obsolete, but it is more adherent to shortish prompts (~120 characters) than most. Along the way I tried a few other art engines, so I'll add a couple of the images as a bonus to this post:

Using Microsoft AI: 

Using Seedream 4.0:

How to train your genie

 kw: book reviews, fantasy, archetypes, genies

At the end of the animated film Aladdin, Aladdin uses his third wish to set free the genie. I wonder if many people consider, "What will the genie do now?" Auston Habersham provides a possible answer in his novel If Wishes Were Retail.

This genie, who wishes to be called "Mr. Jinn", was imprisoned not in a lamp, but a ring, the Ring of Khorad. After 35 centuries of slavery, the genie somehow became free, and decided to try to make an honest living by selling wishes. There's more to it than that, but it would be giving away too much to say more. 

It took a little tinkering to produce this image, with the vapor issuing from the ring instead of the lamp.

The genie hires a teenaged woman named Alex (Alexandra) to manage a kiosk in a mall, while he sits on a throne behind her, mostly impassive, dispensing those wishes he is willing to grant—now that he is free to grant or deny, finally having a free will!

As you may imagine, after 3,500 years stuck in a ring, only briefly allowed out to serve whichever Master currently possesses the Ring, to grant a wish and then be popped back inside for a span of years or decades, Mr. Jinn is utterly naïve about American cultural habits of the Twenty-First Century. The novel is one of growth. The genie grows, Alex grows, her dysfunctional family even grows. But one thing remains the same: The genie realizes that human nature is still basically selfish, and finding someone with even a trace of empathy for others is a rare find. 

Emotionally and morally, humanity is about where it was in 1,500 BC and before. Even those who wish for "world peace" are seen to have selfish motives. The conclusion? Do what you can without simply taking over others' lives and decisions. It's interesting how that works out…

This book is a fun romp, a piece of speculative fiction that speculates into a broader-than-usual realm. A real page-turner!

Curious about the Ring's name, I searched around and found that Khorad is the name of several villages in India, and is the surname of several Lithuanian and Latvian families. I suspect it is transliterated from names in several languages that have the pronunciation "KO-RaD". At least in Sanskrit Khorad seems to mean entering light after a dark passage. I like that.

A mixed bag of an SF anthology

 kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, collections, short stories, anthologies

The volume is The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024, edited by Hugh Howey. 20 stories. I skipped 8, 4 were at best so-so, leaving 8 that I enjoyed reading. Two of these I gave a ++ in my personal rating scheme, and I'll dwell on them briefly. But I must say, with only this volume to go on, I weep for the state of science fiction and speculative fiction in the US right now. Fortunately, there are other collections, and I'll review another in coming days. Note: this image doesn't pertain to any of the stories. It is a side product of another project, and it has a science-fiction-fantastic feel that I like.

Now, the two stories that had some good ideas:

"The Long Game" by Ann Leckie. Told from the point of view of semi-terrestrial creatures similar to octopuses, on a planet coveted by humans for its resources. These creatures live 2-3 years and die after reproducing, as earthly octopuses do, but they are intelligent, sapient, and a human liaison is caring for their case while fending off mining interests. That latter point is only lightly touched upon, because the crux of the story is the developing awareness of Narr, a natural-born leader among his people. Narr's people are hermaphroditic; all bear eggs and all emit milt. This makes it hard to assign an appropriate pronoun; the author uses "they". Narr is one of the first to develop an awareness of the value of projects that reach beyond one person's lifetime. This reflects the "slow revolution" of human cultural development, which has its most visible expression in the building of complex cities, as distinct from villages with minimal infrastructure. Narr's people build a pond, a significant step in their own cultural development. Narr also takes steps to find out how life can be extended.

"Form 8774-D" by Alex Irvine. In an era of superheroes and those with the whole gamut of "powers" popping up everywhere, an agency has been established to register them, and various "hero leagues" recruit some of them. The story is a few days in the life of a functionary whose only responsibility is to check application forms, which are quite detailed (and in themselves form a significant part of the story). It slowly dawns on her that she just might need her own superhero bodyguard. Saying more would be telling…

Both these stories were great fun, and the other six that I liked were enjoyable, if not quite so ideational.

SF is as SF does

 kw: book reviews, science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, short stories, collections

I use the term "SF" in the title rather than "SciFi" because Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction by Ann Leckie includes three categories: science fiction, speculative fiction, and fantasy.

The opening novelette and title story, "Lake of Souls" sits on the boundary between science fiction and fantasy, as does Ms Leckie. The story is a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age story, of a crablike creature without a name, who embarks on a quest to find the fabled Lake of Souls, where it may obtain a soul and a name. Until obtaining soul and name, these creatures are called by the generic term Spawn.  This Spawn's quest differs from the usual process, where marks that appear on a being's head upon one's final molt can be read as a name. I don't use "he" or "she" for Spawn because the author studiously avoids genderizing it. The science fiction element enters with a human on the planet, the last survivor of a mass murder on his survey ship. He is on a quest of his own, to find the murderer and the communication device he brought to the planet with him. He and his shipmates had been calling Spawn's fellows "lobster dogs", and having met Spawn, he realizes that these beings are sentient, which he must communicate with "home base", and with others because of the political implications of his discovery. I'll leave it at that; I am perilously close to spoiling too much. I should mention in passing that the author is very skilled at imagining and portraying sundry sorts of non-Earthly beings.

Consider a feudal society, right here on Earth. The lords and ladies lived in splendor in their castles and manor houses, cared for by servants and surrounded by serfs who lived in penury and often misery. Aristocrats lived much longer than serfs, and soldiers typically had notoriously short lives because of the aristocratic hobby of warfare. Move that scenario to a planet on which the aristocrats are called the Justified, and live unlimited lives, though they can die, but never of "natural causes". Everyone else, the short-lived, serve the Justified. I should also mention that they are lionlike, and the Justified become many times stronger than the short-lived. This scenario plays out in "The Justified". An episode in mid-story indicates that short-lived can be promoted to Justified. This has implications for a future situation, back here on Earth again, if aging is defeated but that indefinite life extension is too costly for most to afford. In this and in nearly all of Ms Leckie's stories females are dominant.

These stories are from the first third of the book, where we find all the stories one could term "science fiction". The other two sections are taken from the author's world-building series, termed Imperial Reach and The Raven Tower. Both are based on pantheism: people interact with gods of many "sizes", some that are like feudal lords over a domain, and others that have more narrow realms of influence. Like the Justified discussed above, these gods aren't necessarily eternal, but how a god is done away with isn't made clear. They gain strength from being prayed to and sacrificed to, and the most common sacrifice is an ounce or so of one's own blood, spilled on a makeshift altar.

From all of this I conclude that the author is fascinated (obsessed?) with feudalism, with highly structured societies, and with extreme feminism. Also that she would like to be a god. Then again, who wouldn't?

Women embracing monsterism

 kw: book reviews, speculative fiction, fantasy, anthologies, women, stereotypes

What would you call a woman who stands up for herself? We'd like to think, "hero" (or heroine), "victor", "winner". Isn't is much more likely that she'd be called "harpy", "bitch", "virago", "termagant"…depending on one's vocabulary? Rarely a word with a positive sense.

Virago Press began fifty years ago, but I only just learned of their existence. The volume in hand just now is Furies: Stories of the Wicked, Wild, and Untamed, introduced (edited?) by Sandi Toksvig. I find it curious that the subtitle of the book includes the word "wicked". Really? "Wild" and "untamed", great. I'd have preferred those latter two words to be paired with "dynamic" or "intense", or both. Particularly because, while a number of the characters can indeed be wicked, that's not the point.

A virago is an assertive woman. The word initially had a neutral connotation, but it's used negatively (if at all) these days. Depending upon the dictionary one uses, definitions of "virago" can be quite positive: "A strong, courageous woman"; "A female warrior". But it goes downhill rapidly. The opening sentence of the Wikipedia article on the subject is quite condescending: "A virago is a woman who demonstrates abundant masculine virtues."

The opening chapter, "Siren" by Margaret Atwood, consists of an address by that most musical of mavericks to various creatures assembled as the Liminal Beings Knitting Circle. It is at once hilarious and searching. The fourteen chapters that follow are primarily riffs on fourteen culturally negative words for a strong, or untameable, woman: Virago, Churail (from Pakistan), Termagant, Wench, Hussy, Vituperator, Harridan, Warrior, She-Devil, Muckraker, Spitfire, Fury, Tygress, and Dragon.

I'll make only the briefest of comments on a few of them, to avoid spoilers.

First, as a student of the Bible I am very familiar with the story of Deborah, the judge of Israel and prophet, from Judges 4 and 5. "Warrior" by Chubundu Onuzo elaborates on the Biblical account to show how Deborah arose to save Israel when all the male rulers had failed. In the Song of Deborah, the major part of Judges 5, she mocks them thus:

The rulers ceased in Israel, they ceased,
Until that I Deborah arose,
That I arose a mother in Israel.

By the way, the term "the Mother of Israel" is used a few times in the chapter. The quote from Deborah's song is the accurate rendition. She is saying she acted as any mother would to protect her children, and as Jael did in her turn, when she lured the Canaanite leader into her tent and assassinated him with a tent peg and a hammer.

Secondly, "Tygress" by Claire Konda expands a little on the theme "tiger mother". I'm familiar with the concept, from frequent contact with our many Chinese, Japanese and Korean friends. Twin girls that were our son's friends once told him and me that their mother was not satisfied with them receiving all "A" grades. They had to be at the absolute top of the class. My wife remembers her Japanese childhood, taking extra courses after school at a private tutoring organization. Not because her mother had pretensions of her daughter attaining to a higher class, but just because that was expected even at second-class schools.

And finally, the one story I didn't care for was "She-Devil" by Eleanor Crewes. It's in graphic novel style, much too enigmatic. It tries for Gothic horror and instead achieves banal dread. No question is answered, no conclusion reached.

Each story, with that one exception, brings a fresh take on an old word. An excellent collection.

Saving the day at any age

 kw: book reviews, fantasy, heroes, anthologies

When I saw the title, Never Too Old to Save the World, I first imagined something like this (the cover illustration of a woman with a rifle had some influence…).

On further thought, I wondered if there would be more of this. Bibbity bobbity boo, anyone?

As it happened, the editors, Addie J. King and Alana Joli Abbott, both of whom contributed stories to the volume, had a broader imagination, and had selected a broad range of stories by incredibly creative authors. Having read the stories, I find that all the protagonists but one are women, from middle age to old age, plus in two cases there is a handoff to a younger generation.

Also, there were at least a couple of stories that I would characterize more like this (The artist is Egle Bartolini. Sorry, I couldn't find clip art with an older host). The last story in particular, "The Mountain Witch" by Lucy A. Snyder, has the aging champion, who decades earlier lost a battle with the witch, who is thought capable of unleashing a dragon, trying again. But she is instead invited in for tea and conversation. This story, more clearly than the others, tells of changing views with maturity.

Every story includes magic or magical characters. The least magical is "Launch Day Milkshakes" by Jim C. Hines. The brain of a resourceful "cat lady" has been rendered immortal and is built into the first starship. On launch day, the mission controller is being bullied by a male (of course) administrator, but she holds him off while the starship fends off a terrorist attack in a very surprising way. To say more would be spoiling the very pleasant surprise.

The second-least-magical is "My Roots Run Deep" by John F. Allen. The woman, Mia, gains an infallible B.S. detector in the form of hearing what a speaker is saying inside. I think most of us would say that all grandmothers, and plenty of mothers, can read minds anyway. Allies prompted by Mia gather information needed to foil the plans of a predatory banker and have him arrested.

All but a few of the stories are better described as "…Save the Day", but a few really do portray saving the world. One is "Utopia" by Vaseem Khan. The Invaders in a starship fleet have taken over the world, abolishing all frivolity. Here the savior is an aging man, who earns the trust of an alien. The story ends before the denouement, but with it firmly in view.

I noted a big "+" or "++" alongside eleven of the nineteen stories, and a "–" for only two of them, two which went nowhere. For all nineteen, the writing is top tier, and I enjoyed reading them all.

Finishing on a downstroke

 kw: continuing reviews, story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, world science fiction, dystopias, human extinction

Of the four stories remaining in The Best of World SF, Volume 2, edited by Lavie Tidhar, I skipped one, which happens to be a novella. The other three are not up to the standard of the earlier stories in the volume, but are of moderate interest.

"Between the Firmanents" by Neon Yang (Singapore). I got a page or two into this novella, realized it was going into hellish territory, and skipped out. It is fantasy, with no hint of the "science" of SF. The "gods" portrayed are as wicked and lascivious as the old Greek and Roman deities, or perhaps more so.

"Whale Snows Down" by Kim Bo-Young, translated by Sophie Bowman. Told from the viewpoint of deep-sea dwellers such as anglerfish and siphonophores (as this image, from NOAA), it consists mainly of ruminations and conversations among those dwellers regarding the sudden increase, oceans-wide, of "marine snow" (organic detritus from things that die at the surface or in shallower water). The denizens conclude that the humans have finally done themselves in. It's odd: whales are depicted as having gills. Possibly the translator mistranslated a word for "baleen". This is the best of these three.

"The Gardens of Babylon" by Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright. This story and the one that follows circle back on themselves, in different ways. Both are fantasy, although somewhat technological fantasy. This one is slightly better written than the other.

"The Farctory" by K.A. Teryna, translated by Alex Shvartsman. "Farctory" is but one of several words that get an inserted letter or two ("cola just to keep the reader off balance. The other imagery follows suit.

The volume ends with a letdown, although there are a couple of interesting ideas here also. Overall, Best, V2 is well worth reading.

Idea stories, a baker's dozen

 kw: continuing reviews, story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, world science fiction, utopias, dystopias, robots

Here I limn another thirteen of the stories in The Best of World SF, Volume 2, edited by Lavie Tidhar. It's something more than a third of the volume. As before, I skipped none, and enjoyed nearly all equally.

"To Set at Twilight in a Land of Reeds" by Natalia Theodoridou (Greece). Maintenance robots need maintenance also. I wonder why SF robots are so frequently emotional? 

"The Beast Has Died" by Bef (Mexico), translated by Brian Price. An alternate history, with TV and other technologies in the 1800's, and also a technology for scanning a brain to produce a simulation of a person.

"Twenty About Robots" by Alberto Chimal (Mexico), translated by Fionn Petch. This story is dedicated to the prior author. Each vignette is preceded by a binary number from 0 to 19 (00000 to 10011), but not in any order I could discern. The author stretches the limits of the robot genre. It's becoming clear that the editor loves robot stories.

"The Regression Test" by Wole Talabi (Nigeria). An advanced version of a Turing Test. An uploaded human mind, as it interacts with others, will naturally learn and evolve (in the non-biological sense). The test, by someone intimately familiar with the original person, is to detect a divergence into delusion. As I expected, there is a betrayal awaiting.

"Kakak" by William Tham Wai Liang (Malaysia). "Kakak" means "sister" in Malay. Another story rooted in emotional robots, but here the levels of emotionality vary more.

"Beyond These Stars Other Tribulations of Love" by Usman T. Malik (Pakistan). Caring for an ailing and increasingly demented mother… It's unclear how the protagonist thinks going on a starship (a NAFAL accelerator), with increasing time dilation as the trip proceeds, can help him care for his mother, even though a quantum-entanglement link has been set up between him and a robotic caregiver.

"A Flaw in the Works" by Julie Nováková (Czech Republic), translated by the author. Another story of emotion-laden robots, written for the centennial of R.U.R. by Karel Čapek; those robots had an emotional element also. These robots, in political exile, get the opportunity to make first contact.

"When We Die on Mars" by Cassandra Khaw (Malaysia). The gradual weeding out of more than 100 volunteers for a one-way trip to Mars, to a final twelve (see Note 1 below). This initial crew will establish a basis for others to follow. This seems a lot like Elon Musk's plan.

"The Mighty Slinger" by Tobias S. Buckell (Barbados) and Karen Lord (Grenada). Early in the story, the thought emerged, "Music as a political force". By the end: "Music as a weapon". Concepts that were obvious to the protest singers of the 60's, my musical mentors. If you've never heard "There, but for Fortune" sung by Joan Baez, go right now and do so! Oh, and the title...think David.

"Corialis" by T.L. Huchu (Zimbabwe). If you've seen The Andromeda Strain, or read the book, you may recall the extensive decontamination of the people before they can enter the super-clean laboratory. Preparing to adapt to the microbes of a new planet goes far beyond that (see Note 2 below). The protagonist realizes something more is needed for the humans and the life-forms of Corialis to become fully compatible.

"The Substance of Ideas" by Clelia Farris (Italy), translated by Rachel Cordasco. A different kind of alien world. Here, it seems that certain life-forms store ideas and memories in proteins, so that eating them… well, that's the "substance" the author is talking about. As usual, Murphy's Law intervenes.

"Sleeping Beauties" by Agnieszka Hałas (Poland). Suspended animation, we used to call it. Here it's used to exile an increasing range of "undesirables" to a prison planet. You gotta wonder, is it worth the expense? I could have done without the ending, a scene more sadistic than any I've encountered. This makes other dystopias seem tame.

"Waking Nydra" by Samit Basu (India). Another take on the phrase "sleeping beauty". The elaborate defenses of Nydra's "castle" make the story longer than it needed to be. The mindset of the caste system (the protagonist is clearly considered beneath contempt by the "heroine") underlies it all. A not-so-surprising betrayal rounds it out.

There are but four stories to go. Stay tuned.

Note 1: My first two years of college I was a chemistry major. My sophomore year I took Organic Chemistry, a three-quarter series of classes; the school year was in quarters, rather than semesters. The first day of class the professor (a rather recent PhD from Harvard) said the following:

This class will decide which of you will actually major in chemistry. The testing and work in each quarter will reduce your number by half. At the moment there are 150 of you…149…148 (as two students walked out). About fifteen will pass the final exam at the end of the third quarter.

He was right. I was one of those fifteen, finishing with an A-. I loved those courses.

Note 2: You may know the Central Dogma of Genetics, that DNA is copied to RNA, and the RNA is used to construct proteins, according to a standard coding table. There are 20 amino acids that make up all proteins (on Earth), and there are 64 3-unit codes (the units are A, C, G, and T in DNA, and instead of T, RNA has U), called codons. This allows for some redundancy in the translation, and protects against certain kinds of single-nucleotide mutations.

You probably don't know that there are (so far), 24 variations on the "standard" translation table. They can be considered minor variations; all the variations occur in one or more of 18 of the 64 "positions", leaving 46 untouched.

Some bacteria, most mitochondria, a few protozoa, and even a few small metazoans (multicellular animals) have variant coding schemes. That means the ribosomes, the protein-building "machines" that couple the RNA codons to their corresponding amino acids, are tailored to the appropriate table for the creature in question. It also means that the mitochondria in every cell of your body have the "vertebrate mitochondria" coding table, and some of the bacteria and archaea in your intestines have specific variations.

Now, consider, if we find life on another planet, will it be DNA/RNA/Protein based? Perhaps that is inevitable, but it's not certain. Even if so, will that planet's "standard" code translation table be the same as any of the Earthly ones? That is much less certain! Mathematically crossing 64 with 20, we find about 10⁷⁰ possible tables! If multiples are kept together, the number reduces to about 10⁴⁰. These numbers might be much higher; I may not have thought of everything when I did my bonehead permutation math.

The bottom line: I suspect it's impossible for aliens to eat us, or for us to eat them...or their food animals/plants/whatever. If we want to migrate people to an exoplanet, we'd probably do best to find a totally barren one and terraform it.

Ideas in abundance

 kw: book reviews, story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, world science fiction, utopias, dystopias, robots, zombies

By page count I am a bit more than a third of the way through The Best of World SF, Volume 2, edited by Lavie Tidhar. I reviewed stories in the first volume in six posts, beginning with SF from everywhere, almost a year ago. As with that volume, I'll review story by story, 12 in this post, focusing on new ideas.

"The Bahrain Underground Bazaar" by Nadia Afifi (Bahrain). It takes an aging woman a very long time to come to terms with the death wish within. A technological ability to experience a dying person's last moments don't seem to make her journey any easier than ours.

"The Ten-Percent Thief" by Lavanya Lashminarayan (India). With most of the world a slum of poisoned air and water, devoid of nature, a woman risks her life to plant a single flower bulb outside the protected enclave of a city of the rich.

"At Desk 9501" by Frances Ogamba (Nigeria). A technology permits those with the constitution to live extra-long lives to confer some of their lifetime to extend the lives of others who are dying untimely, for a fee of course. The life-givers experience side consequences.

"Milagroso" by Isabel Yap (Philippines). One translation of "milagroso" is "miracle". A producer of technological miracles is confronted with the real thing. Magical reality, in a controlled, subdued way.

"Bring Your Own Spoon" by Saad Z. Hossain (Bangladesh). In a dystopia that is not too different from much of life in Bangladesh, a poor man who is a superb cook is helped by a Djinn to open a restaurant for the dirt-poor, who can pay only with bartered goods. Of course it is illegal, and doesn't last, even with the power of the Djinn. Magical reality with a slightly hopeful ending.

"Blue Grey Blue" by Yukimi Ogawa (Japan). It's ambiguous whether the colors seen are in the world around or the eyes themselves. In this fantasy, eye colors and the colors of the people change with mood and the fortunes of life.

"Your Multicolored Life" by Xing He (China), translated by Andy Dudak. This seems peripherally related to The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, without the happy ending. I would retitle it "The Slave and the Scholar". Two men do indeed change places, and though the circumstance of each is actually improved, it doesn't last.

"The Easthound" by Nalo Hopkinson (Jamaica). A kind of zombie story, where all adults became monsters that destroyed and devoured first each other, and then attempted to do so to their children. Some children survived by killing the remaining "sprouted ones". Then they learned that puberty results not in adulthood, but in "sprouting" as a monster. It's the most dystopian story I have ever read; the extinction of humanity is at most a dozen years in the future.

"Dead Man Awake, Sing to the Sun!" by Pan Haitian (China), translated by Joel Martinsen. Not all who die are fully dead. Some are undead, and the undeadness is spreading, transmitted by a bite. Perhaps the human race is being transformed into a new kind of creature that cannot die all the way dead. Zombie or vampire, or both?

"Salvaging Gods" by Jacques Barcia (Brazil). AI to the max. Manufactured gods, and at least the one limned in this story can perform miracles of the sort that genies (or Djinn) perform in Arabian folk tales. But nothing lasts, for God is flawless, while these gods are flawed.

"The Next Move" by Edmundo Paz Soldán (Bolivia), translated by Jessica Sequeira. An occupying soldier has gone rogue, "saico" (psycho) in the parlance of the story, which has a number of phonetic spellings of colloquialisms. Of course he is eventually "eliminated". Much of the story is his own stream of consciousness.

"The Child of Clay" by Dilman Dila (Uganda). A robot world, in which the strongest motivation is reproduction, by a technology full of mystery. One robot is childless, and in seeking a solution, returns biological life to a barren land. It took a page or two to realize that "rit" and "rits" are pronouns, the pronouns "it" and "its" preceded by an "r" for "robot". I suppose the making of new pronouns arose from the recent "choose your own pronouns" fashion. That's the closest to anything positive to arise from recent "woke" fashions.

By comparison with the best stories I've read in recent anthologies of both science fiction and mainstream fiction published in the US, nearly all of the stories in Best of World SF are better.

3 on Metamorphosis

 kw: story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, metamorphosis, coming of age, anthologies

Last evening I finished reading The Best of World SF, Volume 1, edited by Lavie Tidhar. The three stories that end the book have a common theme one could call either Metamorphosis or Coming of Age.

"The Last Voyage of Skidbladnir" by Kevin Tidbeck. Skidbladnir is a hermit crab. A big one, that needs not a snail shell for a home but a skyscraper. It is also an interstellar traveler. People have learned to communicate with these crabs for the sake of interstellar commerce. I am not sure what the crabs get from it. Skidbladnir is outgrowing its "shell", and needs help to locate a bigger one.

"Prime Meridian" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A woman down on her luck, in a dystopia where that is the usual lot, is portrayed very evocatively, by an author who somehow kept my interest, even while evoking someone skirting the edge of chronic depression. When opportunity arises, the woman grows to the challenge. Some caterpillars take a lot longer than others to turn into a butterfly.

"If At First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again" by Zen Cho. A fantasy tale of an immense snake turning into a dragon...after a few tries. It's hard to say more without giving much too much away.

I am quite pleased that of 26 stories, only one had to be skipped, and for well over half I said to myself, "I'm glad I read that."

8 quicker stories, and one passed over

 kw: story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, anthologies, ragpickers, faithfulness, obsession, cryptozoology, scams, fantastical maladies, hallucinations, exobiology

The next set of stories (in The Best of World SF, Volume 1, edited by Lavie Tidhar), which eventually totaled nine, were a bit shorter than those that went before, and I had a little more time to read today. I also focused more on the ideas, since most of these were less lyrical.

"DUMP" by Cristina Jurado, translated by Steve Redwood. Large trash dumps, particularly in Third World countries, have residents who scrounge useful stuff. This story's trash dump is bigger than most cities, with hierarchies of ragpickers. One has her life turned around in an unexpected way.

"Rue Chair" by Gerardo Horacio Porcayo. The story started dark and got darker. A few sentences in I skipped the rest. There are places I am unwilling to be taken.

"His Master's Voice" by Hannu Rajaniemi. Multiple levels of flashback keep the reader off balance, as a pet dog and cat learn (fast) the technologies needed to rescue their Master, who happens to be either a cloned person or the cloner, I couldn't tell for certain.

"Benjamin Schneider's Little Greys" by Nir Yaniv, translated by Lavie Tidhar. Sometimes hypochondria is a mask for real maladies. This one happens to be contagious, and very mysterious.

"The Cryptid" by Emil Hjörvar Peterson. Here a Cryptid is a possible cryptic creature, not verified, as distinguished from a Wonderbeast, a verified being, possibly from another dimension.

"The Bank of Burkina Faso" by Ekaterina Sedia. We know the ploy, "My deceased uncle left a large sum in Bank X, which can only be accessed with the help of a non-National such as yourself." What if two people have such stories, focused on the same Bank X, and the stories are true, and they meet and join forces? In this case it requires teaching stray dogs to dream.

"An Incomplete Guide to Understanding the Rose Petal Infestation Associated With Ever Typhoid Patients in the Tropicool IcyLand Urban Indian Slum" by Kuzhali Manickavel. One must let go and swim through sentences of utter unreality, couched in medical terms.

"The Old Man with the Third Hand" by Kofi Nyameye. Is the protagonist real and her imaginary friend a figment, or is it the other way around? This has a happier ending than I at first expected.

"The Green" by Lauren Beukes. The planet is remote, the plants and animals exponentially deadlier than any to be encountered on Earth. Yet harvesting them has become a necessity for the miraculous products to be found therein. How to cope?

Some good and interesting ideas. Others, I have yet to discern. All (but one) worth the reading. There are but three stories left in the book, but one is another novella (85 pp).

Sundry superheroes...and supervillains of course

 kw: story reviews, science fiction, fantasy, supernatural creatures, supertechnology

I find I am a bit more than halfway through The Best of World SF, Volume 1, edited by Lavie Tidhar. Two stories this time, because the second is a novella, about 40 pages long.

"The Emptiness at the Heart of All Things" by Fabio Fernandes. Matinta is a genus of jumping spiders, most of which are found in Brazil. The genus is probably named for Matinta Pereira, a supernatural hag that wreaks justice…sometimes. An author and policewoman journeys to an isolated house in scrubby land called sertão to meet a forgotten woman author, to interview her. She uses the guise of gathering material for a dissertation. A series of murders, centered on the house, constitute the mystery she hopes to solve. But dealing with a Matinta is more than she bargained for.

"The Sun From Both Sides" by R.S.A. Garcia. I think it is no mistake that this story comes after the prior one. Here we find a plethora of superheroes and supervillains. Or, perhaps, the beneficiaries of multiple, competing supertechnologies. If the weapons described herein are ever developed, either a new level of Mutual Assured Destruction will balance the powers, as in this story, or all life will be rapidly annihilated. Here, wish fulfillment reigns, and the super couple at the core of the story prevails. (The image is more violent than the style of warfare depicted in the story, but semi-pacifistic combat doesn't make for memorable images)

Showcasing the perceived outsiders

kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, collections, short stories

The title of New Suns: Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color, edited by Nisi Shawl, is actually modest. When I saw the title, I figured the writers would be predominantly African-American, with a smattering of Latinos, but I found they also included several sorts of Asians and a Native American or two.

Reading the stories was a heady experience, like attending a tasting with unfamiliar wines and liqueurs. I read most of the stories, but not all. From the opening I could tell that some worlds were much too occult or horrifying. I nearly skipped "Burn the Ships" by Alberto Yañez, but found it to be a magical fantasy Holocaust, with a different outcome.

Similarly, "Kelsey and the Burdened Breath" by Darcie Little Badger borders on occult horror, telling the tale of "shimmers", a different word for ghosts, that are either vampires or cannibals in their own sort of afterlife. In the story's milieu, they are visible if one knows how to look. The evil ones become "burdened" and cannot rise into the sky, as is usual. But it is really a story about Kelsey's growth.

I delighted in the premise of "The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" by Minsoo Kang. The title tells a story in itself. Would that producing lying translations could actually avert war!

The breadth of vision is sufficient that most folks will find at least a few stories to savor, no matter what their ethnicity.

Finding Nebula

kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, short stories, collections

My long-term favorite collection of science fiction short stories (with a novella or novelette thrown in) is the Nebula Awards series. This year the new volume with last year's stories is Nebula Awards Showcase 2019, edited by Silvia Morena-Garcia.

The science fiction field has finally emerged from the gutter; starting nearly 50 years ago, writers were released from a tacit and mostly self-imposed censorship regarding sexual subjects. Many of them went wild. Even Isaac Asimov, who had utterly eschewed any sexual content, began writing bad sex scenes into the last few of his Robot and Foundation stories and books.

I avoid reading erotic writing for the same reason I don't go to strip shows: I care about my marriage vows, and I prefer not to gaze or dwell upon who/what I cannot possess. In our mid-seventies, I still think my wife is an unsurpassed beauty; I need no other.

That said: while the writers of this volume of Nebula don't hide sex, it plays about the same part in the stories that any of us might allow it to play in our public lives. Occasional mention, but not the focus. I think the past two generations of readers are finally tired of camera-in-the-bedroom writing. Besides, folks who want those kinds of thrills have about a billion free porn videos available.

I greatly enjoyed most of the stories. There were three that I began, and within a page my spirit protested, so I went on to the next story. Not because of eroticism, but either outright fantasy (which I don't like to read) or a world I preferred not to enter. So I'll mention just a few that I fancied:

• Weaponized Math, by Jonathan P. Brazee – Sniper war setting. A number-wizard turned sniper saves the day.
• All Systems Red, by Martha Wells – The cyborg calls himself Murderbot. The cloned brain and other organic components of this bodyguard of sorts (on a very interesting distant planet) clearly came from a barely functional introvert. Someone after my own heart.
• Wind Will Rove, by Sarah Pinsker – Generation ship setting. They've lost much of their cultural past due to hacking (I keep telling folks, microfilm is the only secure backup for stuff you really want to keep!). Music, and a particular tune with a mixed provenance, help the protagonist stay sane, connecting her to both past and future.
• Carnival Nine, by Caroline M. Yoachim – Wind-up clockwork people. They live around 1,000 days. I hope the days are long; that's only two years and nine months on Earth. Life with a disabled child is tough, no matter what kind of critter you are.

I hope that's enough to whet your appetite.

What is best - depends on the editor

kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, short stories, collections

Looking for some lighter reading I picked up The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2019, edited by Carmen Maria Machado and the series editor John Joseph Adams. If there is a theme for this volume, I'd guess it is "Pouring out their pain." Even in the fantasy stories, all but a few of the twenty offerings, there are few positive endings.

Most of the authors are members of groups that are currently or formerly marginalized (and, I must say, members of most "formerly" marginalized groups still think they are marginalized, big time, whether they are or not). I'd say that gives the bunch of them the right to complain. It is interesting how some of them sought to couch their complaint. Most notably, Brenda Peynado in "The Kite Maker" places us inside the head of a human who is sympathetic to space alien refugees; they are not invaders, but fleeing a destroyed planet. The aliens resemble dragonflies, very fragile, and even though living in refugee camps—thinly disguised versions of the internment camps of the 1940's—and quite inoffensive, they are thoroughly hated by a great many. The trouble is, the story goes nowhere. The POV protagonist loses his business, but nothing is improved.

The most poignant is "On the Day You Spend Forever with Your Dog" by Adam R. Shannon: meditations and ruminations while a beloved dog is being put to sleep. As touched as I was, I couldn't help noticing that the three-injection cocktail described is the one used for capital penalties by lethal injection, that is, "putting to sleep" for humans. Animals are typically euthanized by slow injection of a large overdose of an opioid or anaesthetic. It would actually be more humane to euthanize humans the same way.

I got no more than a page into some of the stories; I quickly discerned that they were going somewhere I didn't want to go. The rest left little impression. And that got me thinking. Who decides what is "the Best" for one of these compendia? The editor(s) of course. Thus the quality of the editor determines the quality of the volume. There are several other "the Best" collections being published on a more-or-less regular basis which I esteem more highly than this one.

A collection of very mixed value

kw: book reviews, science fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, science fantasy, anthologies, collections

Long gone are the days I could pick up a book of short Sci-Fi stories, or an issue of Analog or The Magazine of F&SF, and read from cover to cover with few or no pangs of conscience. I don't mind the discomfort of learning, nor that of attaining a new viewpoint, as long as I gain something of value. But I don't like taking in something that drags me down and is hard to be rid of.

In SF genres, I prefer short stories to novels. Starting in about 1980, during a period in which I read very little SF, Tor began publishing in the genre and became a leader in the field. But now that sword-and-sorcery fantasies have come to dominate the genre, even being placed in space settings and alien planets, I read a lot less than I did before. Tor seemed to have a pretty good lineup of the "sword free" stories I prefer. Unbeknownst to me until this past week, Tor has an online imprint, Tor.com, that publishes shorter pieces, up to novella in length.

Tor.com is almost eleven years old, and to mark their first decade in business they gathered 40 stories into a hardcover book, Worlds Seen in Passing: 10 Years of Tor.com Short Fiction. I began to read with great anticipation, and when the first two stories ("Six Months, Three Days" by Charles Jane Anders and "Damage" by David D. Leving) earned my personal "Glad I Read That" distinction, my anticipation increased. Then, "Thud, Bam!", I read the next two ("The Best We Can" by Carrie Vaughn and "The City, Born Great" by N.K. Jemisin). The first was so-so at best, and the second made me cringe, not in any good way; it earned "Sorry I Read Any of That" distinction by 1/3 the way through, and I didn't complete it. A few stories later I came across my first "Didn't Read Any" ("Elephants and Corpses" by Kameron Hurley). The editors of Worlds Seen were kind enough to put a brief summary ahead of each story, which helped me select the ones to not even try. Scores for the 40 stories:

1. "Glad": 10
2. "So-So": 10
3. "Sorry", didn't read much of it: 7
4. "D.R.", didn't read any of it, or no more than a paragraph or two: 13

For someone who loves good SF, that is a sad commentary. Why do I dislike certain stories? First and most important, they offer to take me somewhere I don't want to go, and put something in me I wish I hadn't imbibed. I try to catch these as early as possible, and the summaries helped. Secondly, in others the main character(s) go nowhere, learn nothing, and leave a reader feeling at best like the time to read was just wasted. I look at such stories as fodder for the feckless Millennials of the stereotype (and I thank God that, among the Millennials I know, few are truly so directionless and void of aspiration). Thirdly, some stories are just plain evil.

Well, then, what do I like in SF? Firstly, the characters either dwell in a world I'd like to inhabit, or are effectively working toward constructing one. Secondly, the characters (and by extension, the authors) are capable of constructive thought and able to learn, unthreatened by the abilities of others. Coda: In a longer story, characters may not begin that way, but grow into it. That also makes me happy. Thirdly, if malice or evil makes an appearance, it is thwarted; neither is it over-dwelt upon.

I suspect the Tor.com editors thought all these stories were just peachy. Each story had its own editor, but I didn't count how many editors participated in the volume. It's a sure bet that no more than a fourth of them are people I'd be willing to count as friends.

The tales that reach inside us

kw: book reviews, fantasy, fairy tales, collections

After reading How to Fracture a Fairy Tale by Jane Yolen, it took me a few days to work out just how to review it. I realized that using my usual methods I could not avoid serious spoilers.

Having been primed by the cover of Bitwise, I noticed the odd green hue on this cover. Sure enough, under black light it has quite a different aspect, but although the green ink is fluorescent, it is not phosphorescent.

Stories of giants, monsters and supernatural creatures are more than just children's entertainment. They allow us to think, "What if I was like [insert favorite monster]?" We may identify with the prince or the hero when we're little, but later on, we tend to identify with the giant, the dragon, the vampire, or whatever.

I can't be certain that Ms Yolen consciously obtained her title from the "Fractured Fairy Tales" feature of old Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, favorite fodder of my teen years. Actually, only one story in this book partakes of the spirit of the cartoon, for this Snow White gets a jump on the stepmother and brains her with a frying pan when she visits the Dwarves' cottage. A more satisfying ending, don't you think?

The stories partake of numerous cultures, from Japan ("Foxwife", where the wife's name is Kitsune, キツネ) to Scotland ("Sule Skerry"), from China (a few featuring Eastern dragons) to Israel ("Wrestling with Angels"). Prompted by the author's Jewish heritage, two (three?) stories feature time travel to or near the Holocaust in Eastern Europe, one in particular in which a young women is brought by Elijah to rescue a little girl who will become her great-grandmother. Some are more explicit fractures of well-worn sayings ("Cinder Elephant" and "Sleeping Ugly" for example).

The last 35+ pages of the book have musings on the tales, and a poem for each, sometimes following the theme, sometimes in stark contrast. And I really ought to end right there.

Librarians with superpowers

kw: book reviews, fantasy, mysteries, librarians, dragons, fairies

Genevieve Cogman's fourth novel of the Invisible Library series, The Lost Plot, introduced me to her writing. She knows how to write a page-turner. I wasn't sure when I checked the book out whether it was SciFi or Fantasy—the local library doesn't differentiate; they tag both genres with a "fantasy" logo, which I consider a bit snobbish. It soon became clear; however, the author's worlds have consistent rules, making this a lot more satisfying to a logical mind than most fantasy.

The Invisible Library (IL) seems to be located in a realm between worlds, in a kind of multiverse. Worlds such as ours have little or no magic, others have more, and some are "too magical", being chaotic. The IL operates portals between worlds, or portals between the Library and all worlds. The portals have at least some time-shifting abilities also. A Librarian can traverse the portals, and indeed, create a portal when surrounded by a large enough number of books. I gather that the Librarians are in the business of gathering the best literature from all worlds, and cross-pollinating. They also act as a buffer between the Dragons and the Fae (presumably a less fraught word than "Fairy" in the current sociopolitical climate), powerful and opposed forces, that control numerous worlds of their own, and can move between them more freely than humans.

Both Dragons and Fae are shapeshifters. I am not sure why either a Dragon or a Fae would take human form. It makes writing about them easier, I suppose. Their rivalry is strong and bitter, yet they seem to "play fair", according to rules only dimly revealed in the book. Each player, Dragon, Fae, and Human, has powers they can wield. One Human power is the language called Librarian. It evokes magic in any world, and is most effective in worlds with little or none of their own, such as ours. Some of the thrill points of the book focus on efforts by one or another Dragon or Fae to keep Irene silent so she can't speak Librarian to do such things as escape capture or injure opponents.

The book's plot (not the "lost" one), revolves around two high-ranking Dragons who, faced with a quest that can make or break their clans, begin to flout the rules. This can damage whole worlds, and also imperils the IL, which alarms the ruling Dragons and Fae both…once they find out about it.

Making the transgressions known to a particular Dragon Queen becomes the onus of Irene Winters, the heroine of the story, and a Dragon named Kai, her apprentice (although no Dragon takes the Librarians' Oath to become a full Librarian).

The flow of the plot reminds me of the Perils of Pauline books and similar stories, with one cliff-hanger after another. It is basically a series of exercises in keeping unbearable forces in (or near) balance. The writing is so entertaining that I recognized the transparency only in hindsight. And, by the way, I never figured out what Plot had been Lost. Considering that both terms have multiple meanings, perhaps that's for the best. Now, if only I can figure out how to get superpowers from being surrounded by books, as I am at this desk!