For this week's Friday Reads, my pick is Fran Wilde's Gemworld which comprises both novellas and short stories. I've been thinking about Gemworld lately because earlier this year, Fran Wilde tweeted that she has written a third novella set in this story-verse.
Gemworld is a place where gems are not just beautiful and valuable, but have powers and even minds of their own. In the old days, it was a kingdom where peace was
"...maintained by
Jewels and Lapidaries, people bound to singing gemstones with the power to
reshape hills, move rivers, and warp minds."
There are two short stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies:
This novella is both beautiful and devastating. As soon as I
finished reading it, I wanted to read more: more about Fran Wilde’s gemworld,
more about gems calling to people, controlling them, seducing them even from the
mines beneath the ground; more about the people listening and speaking to those
gems, binding them in settings and chains. It’s that kind of story: the kind of
fantasy tale that shows you a dazzling glimpse of a different world, and leaves
you wanting more.
As a professional finder, Fergus Ferguson is hired to locate
missing objects and steal them back. But it is rarely so simple, especially
after his latest job in Cernee. He’s been recovering from that experience in
the company of friends, the Shipmakers of Pluto, experts at crafting
top-of-the-line AI spaceships.
The Shipmakers have convinced Fergus to finally deal with
unfinished business he's been avoiding for half his life: Earth. Fergus hasn’t
been back to his homeworld since he was fifteen, when he stole his cousin’s
motorcycle and ran away. It was his first theft, and nothing he's stolen since
has been anywhere near so easy, or weighed so heavily on his conscience. Many
years and many jobs later, Fergus reluctantly agrees that now is the time to
return the motorcycle and face his family.
Unfortunately, someone has gotten to the motorcycle before
him. And before he can figure out where it went and why the storage unit that
held it is now filled with priceless, stolen art, the Shipyard is attacked. His
friends are missing, presumably kidnapped.
Accompanied by an untrustworthy detective who suspects Fergus
is the art thief and the sole friend who escaped the attack, Fergus must follow
the tenuous clues to locate and save his friends. The trail leads them to
Enceladus, where Fergus plans to go undercover to the research stations that
lie beneath the moon’s thick ice sheet deep in a dark, oppressive ocean.
But all movement and personnel are watched, and the limited
ways through the thick ice of the moon’s surface are dangerous and highly
monitored. Even if Fergus can manage to find proof that his friends are there
and alive, getting out again is going to be a lot more complicated than he
bargained for.
Why I loved this book:
In 2019 I read, loved, and reviewed Finder, the first book in Hugo-Winner Suzanne Palmer's Finder Chronicles for B&N's Sci-Fi and Fantasy Blog. I called it "a fast-paced, hugely enjoyable sci-fi adventure", and the same holds true for this sequel. Driving the Deep is a thoroughly entertaining, hellaciously fun and gripping adventure, with an awesome cast of characters, and powered by an excellent blend of real science and alien-infused science-fiction.
As in Finder, we're in the company of space-faring Scotsman Fergus Ferguson, who was somewhat modified
by mysterious aliens in the previous book and now wields certain electrical powers that can both be useful and terrifying. (Those powers come in handy several times in this book, and I am
really, really wondering what they'll be used for in the next
book.)
There are a lot of reasons why I love Driving the Deep and Finder. For one, there's the working class vibe of the people and the settings, reminiscent of movies like Alien and shows like The Expanse, fictional futures where we're not dealing with super soldiers, or ultra-rich geniuses, but various kinds of everyday, working people (and aliens), eking out a living in a world of powerful corporations and and planetary governments.
I also love Palmer's focus on communities, on groups of people working and living together. In Finder, we got to know the community and people of Cernee, a
gigantic space station, and in Driving the Deep, we are immersed in the community based beneath the ice and water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. Fergus is there to find his friends the Shipbuilders who have been
kidnapped by unknown assailants. But, to cover up his real objective, he has finagled a job for himself
driving a transport between various stations below the icy
waters. (There are some truly breathtaking moments involving
the piloting of these transports, by the way, and the title, Driving
the Deep is well earned.) Along the way, Palmer gives us delicious details, like, what people eat in this community, how they live and sleep and get around; why they've come there; what they do for fun, and so on. It's this level of everyday worldbuilding that really makes me love Palmer's fictional world.
Another thing I love about this book, and this series, is how Palmer deals with the presence of Artificial Intelligences and aliens. When it comes to AIs, there's the very helpful talking, thinking ship (built by Fergus's friends the Shipbuilders) we first met in Finder, and on Enceladus, Fergus encounters another AI. Palmer doesn't make these technological marvels the Big Bad. They are not bent on destroying humanity (at least not so far?). Instead, they're characters, just like the people, and Palmer gives them their own unique voices and personalities. I am definitely a sucker for good and decent (and often funny!) AI-entities like these.
It's a similar story with the aliens. There are lots of aliens in Palmer's universe: no longer do humans have to wonder if they're alone in the universe! But, like the AIs, they are not a monolithic force of homicidal, horrifying enemies. (The Asiig, the aliens who "altered" Fergus in Finder are mysterious and frightening for sure, but they're not your typical world-destroying menace.) There are many kinds of aliens in Palmer's universe, and they're important since it's very much thanks to alien technology that humans have acquired the ability to travel and live in space the way they do. Aliens work with humans in the solar system and elsewhere, and just like with the AIs, Palmer gives them all personalities, making them individual characters. They're part of crews and communities everywhere Fergus goes, and I just love how the books envision this future society that is in no way perfect or idyllic or a utopia, but where good communities and friendship, are a natural part of the world, and can include both aliens and AIs.
I love all these things and more about Driving the Deep, but the main attraction for me, is Fergus Ferguson himself. He's a hilarious trouble-magnet, for one. When he heads back to Earth at the beginning of the book to take care of some old, unfinished business, he barely has time to set foot on the planet before he's in deep, DEEP trouble. Over and over again, Fergus finds himself in a whole lot of awful trouble and has to think, fight, lie (or obfuscate), or sometimes just alien-zap his way out of it. Fergus is hugely likeable. He's quick-thinking, able to MacGyver himself out of a lot of bad situations, resourceful, and brazen when he has to be. But what I mostly love about him is the way Palmer writes him as a person who makes friends wherever he goes because he's just such a decent guy. Of course, he also makes enemies everywhere, and his showdown with a certain nemesis in Driving the Deep is pretty darn harrowing and spectacular.
There's a basic goodness to Ferguson, and to the world itself, in Palmer's books. Not to say that everyone is nice and good, far from it, but there's a really appealing basic belief that people can be worthy of trust and friendship, rather than some cynical grimdark world where everyone wants to shaft and shank everyone at the first opportunity.
If you're looking for some rollicking great scifi that kept me hooked right until the epic conclusion, then these books are for you. And if you get to reading right now, you'll be ready to pick up the third book, The Scavenger Door, later this year.
It's Friday, and every Friday I'll be sharing some reading recommendations here. It could be anything: a story, a novella, an issue of magazine, a novel... whatever's on my mind that week. So for this week, my very first #FridayReads, I'm recommending issues of two different speculative fiction zines, and a novella!
Fusion Fragment #5 is a fantastic issue of this spec-fic zine, and includes great stories by Vanessa Fogg, Jess Koch, David F. Shultz, and others. Zandra Renwick's story "Otherwhen" is one of my favourites from this issue: an unsettling, trippy, and highly original take on time travel. There's also Spencer Nitkey's terrific and powerful magic-in-space story, "Winter's Song", but really, this whole zine is well worth a read. You pay what you want, and then you can download the entire issue!
🕮
The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg was just announced as a finalist in the novella category for the Ignyte Awards, and I loved this story so much when I read it last year and it's such a rich, beautiful story. Or, like I said in my review:
R.B. Lemberg’snovellaTheFourProfoundWeavesis
a lyrical and gripping journey that begins in a sunlit desert full of
sand and bones, continues into a city haunted by memories and ghosts,
and eventually takes the reader into the the light-less depths beneath
the earth. It’s a story that delves deep into themes like resistance,
courage, and endurance.
I'm extremely thrilled and proud to be a finalist for an Ignyte Award in the Critics category. Huge thanks to everyone at Fiyah and the Ignyte Awards for this honour, and also huge congratulations to my fellow finalists!
Voting is open to the public and you can go vote in all the categories here: vote for the Ignyte Awards.
More about the Ignyte Awards from the Awards committee:
The FIYAHCON 2021 Committee is thrilled to announce the
finalists for the 2021 Ignyte Awards. The Awards seek to celebrate the vibrancy
and diversity of the current and future landscapes of science fiction, fantasy,
and horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding
efforts toward inclusivity of the genre. To that effect, the committee feels
that these creators, creations, entities, and perspectives from 2020 represent
the brightest lights in speculative fiction’s future. We encourage you to seek
out the nominees unfamiliar to you on this list, engage with their works of
fiction or acts of community, and to use those experiences to inform your vote.
From
New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel
that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary
on identity politics and the American Indian experience. Fans of Jordan
Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of
four American Indian men and their families, all haunted by a
disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later,
they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally
helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them
in a violent, vengeful way.
Why I loved this book:
The Only Good Indians
is a striking, devastating, grab-you-by-the-neck tale filled with
gruesome deaths, a stalking horror brought to life by past misdeeds, and
spectacular gore mixed in with sharp and jagged psychological
horror. The last third of the book, when the
vengeful creature is hunting down.... well, I won't say who, but you'll
know who if you read it... is
some of the most tense and gripping stuff I've read. I felt like I
barely breathed for that part of the book.
Content warning, should
you need it: there is violence aplenty in this book, and that violence
is brutal and wrenching, and some passages I confess were hard to read
(I am not great with gore even though I do love horror).
And
oh yeah, SPOILER ALERT: pretty much everything goes to absolute hell for
the four guys at the center of this book. It goes to hell in
spectacular fashion, with such relentless and inescapable force that it
occasionally veers into black comedy. One of the things I love about the
book, and Stephen Graham Jones's work in general, is how it allows
those moments of gruesome levity to shine through the horror and
tragedy, like a glint of teeth in a bloody maw, I suppose.
The
four men are not terrible-bad people. They are not cartoonishly evil.
They did do a bad thing in their youth, and they knew it was bad, and
it's haunted their thoughts since. When the book starts, that haunting
presence is in the process of becoming a lot more real, though.
That
everyday ordinariness of these men is one of the things that really
makes this book work for me. There's a layer of extra horror added by
the fact that they are not irredeemable a-holes, but regular guys who
did something bad and then went on with their lives as best they could
(with varying results). And when the ghost of their past misdeed takes
physical shape and returns to wreak havoc in their world, they panic.
They do stupid, ill-advised, and terrible things in an effort try to fix
the situation. Of course, they only keep making it
worse. Part of both the tragedy and dark comedy of this book is
following these men as they keep fighting against the thing they helped
bring into this world, trying to free
themselves, trying to avoid retribution, and in the process (mostly)
dragging themselves down further into the abyss.
I won't go into
specifics about what exactly stalks these men through the book, but
suffice it to say that something they thought was dead, something they
thought they killed, has been born into the world again.
What
else? Well, there's a dramatic and VERY high-stakes basketball game,
there's a sweat-lodge ceremony that goes spectacularly wrong, there are
innocent people and creatures caught up in the madness, there are
haunting memories of hunting in winter, and devastating memories of
trains, and there's that chase scene in the snow that just... murdered
me. I also need to say that as a reader, one of the joys of this book is
seeing small details pay off in satisfying, though often horrific,
fashion as the story plays out.
I love this book for the way
the everyday spirals into
horror, the way guilt and fear seep into everything, and for the way it
allows the characters brief moments of grace before it's all torn
apart again.
Hi, hello, and welcome to my first short fiction roundup written for my new website / reading-blog, Maria's Reading. Starting with this March roundup, all my monthly roundups will be published here. After bringing over all my roundups previously published on my blog and at Curious Fictions, they are finally all together in one place.
I started writing short fiction roundups for my blog in 2016, so there was a lot of content to bring over, but having them all in one place feels right.
In 2018 and 2019 when I still wrote for B&N's now defunct Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, I put together two roundups each month: one for B&N and one for my blog. The B&N roundups are still available at the B&N website, but I have provided links to them here.
Currently, I'm proud to be part of the Strange Horizons team, writing a quarterly roundup for them called Short Fiction Treasures, and links to those columns are available on this site as well.
When B&N shut down in 2019, I brought my monthly roundup over to Curious Fictions, partly because I did not have the mind-space or time at that point to make a new home for my roundups, and partly because Curious Fictions is an awesome site with a great interface for both writers and readers. I will still be posting weekly roundups, reprinted fiction, and more over there.
This month, I'd also like to shout a bit about a new speculative fiction zine that is running a Kickstarter campaign right now. The Deadlands"is a monthly speculative fiction magazine, exploring all aspects of Death and the borders it shares with the living". The Deadlands has a fantastic team on board, and a great lineup of writers too, and if you, like me, have missed Shimmer, then you should know that Shimmer-editor E. Catherine Tobler is the editor of this new zine. Check them out and support them if you can.
If you'd rather listen to the audio version of this roundup, it's available on YouTube.
Keeping House by Sarah Day at PseudoPod (narrated
by Kat Day)
Matt ignored her. He went into the basement room and ran a
hand along a wall. His face was distant and unfocused, like he was listening to
something she couldn’t hear. He smiled.
The dark room yawned out beyond them and Lydia felt a little
dizzy. She had the sensation of standing on the edge of a cliff looking down.
The floor was smooth and uninterrupted. It blurred out beyond the reach of the
light.
A young couple are looking for a house. It will be their first home as a couple, and while the house they're looking at seems great,
the basement... well, in the basement, Lydia feels the presence of something other.
She shrugs it off, but after they move in, things get even stranger for Lydia who starts to feel
consumed by the need to clean, to do her domestic chores, to keep house. This
is an awesome horror story with a lot of layers that explore traditional gender roles, the way housework is often seen as a woman's
responsibility, and the way marriage and relationships sometimes seem to
consume women's other ambitions.
One of the neighbors got in his car and took off down the
street like a crazy person. Almost hit a little girl… she looks okay though.
The cat is acting strange. She keeps pawing at the air. I dunno. It’s weird.
Okay, so give me a call.
Written as a series of transcribed voicemail messages, this
story is a subtle and dark piece of cosmic horror in flash format. I love how
Quigley captures the growing, unsettling sense of dread in each bit of this
story, and I particularly love the pivotal role played by the cat.
After his father's death, the protagonist receives a book of local walks for hikers that his father wanted him to have. He cannot quite fathom a reason why his aloof, and emotionally distant, father insisted he'd have the book, but after the funeral, he decides to follow one of the trails in the book, just to clear his head and get some fresh air. On the way, he finds a quiet empty calm, or void, that he has not experienced before, and through the following years, he goes on the same hike several more times. And though the protagonist might not notice, there is a change that comes over him as time passes. This is a subtle horror tale with a sense of dread that tickles at the back of your senses right from the start. I love the way the protagonist's change happens quietly and stealthily, and I particularly love how firmly rooted this story is in the landscape and even the changing weather. There's a sense of inevitability here, of how our past and our own family history can reach out and hold us fast, even when we don't realize it's happening.
In this story, the Egyptian jackal-headed god Anubis is living in a swamp near New York City. Years ago when they were children, Grace and her brother Matthew, befriended him and have continued to visit him over the years. But now Matthew is in hospital in a coma after an accident, and Grace has come to seek help and guidance from Anubis once again. As it turns out, she might also be able to help Anubis. I absolutely adore this story, and this depiction of Anubis in exile, and there are several scenes in it, in particular one inside the museum towards the end, that are stunning. The ending left me sobbing, and there's a gentle but sure wisdom in the way Anubis speaks to Grace about death and grief and letting go.
“Every dawn is a victory,” he says. “Remember that, Grace. Every day of life a triumph over the chaos of night.”
The title, of course, refers to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, AKA Spells for Going Forth by Day.
I wanted to say it with my whole body. I wanted to say it
the way my ancestors would have. I let the words float from my belly up my
throat. They caught there like a crash and splintered. I picked them out one by
one.
This is an evocative, lyrical piece about language
and identity, and about how the culture and history of so many indigenous
peoples, even their languages, have been stolen and buried and then used for
other people's purposes, put on display in museums, studied as if they are dead
things. In this story, even speaking one simple, intimate phrase has tragic
repercussions.
More about Sasha Lapointe:
Sasha LaPointe is a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack
and Upper Skagit Indian tribes. Her memoir Red Paint is forthcoming from
Counterpoint Press and her collection of poems, Rose Quartz, will be published
by Milkweed. Sasha’s writing explores her Coast Salish identity as well as her
experiences in the underground punk scene in Seattle and what it means to grow
up mixed heritage. Sasha lives in Tacoma, Washington. Website: sasha-lapointe.com
There’s a woman outside of a town called Sheridan, where the
sky comes so near to earth it has to use the crosswalk just like everybody
else.
There’s a woman outside of Sheridan, sitting in the
sun-yellow booth in the far back corner of the Blue Bison Diner & Souvenir
Shoppe under a busted wagon wheel and a pair of wall-mounted commemorative
plates. One’s from the moon landing. The other’s from old Barnum Brown
discovering the first T-Rex skeleton up at Hell Creek.
There’s a woman outside of Sheridan and she is eating the
sin of America.
Valente's story, set in a diner in a regular part of regular
America, is both brutal and beautiful. As so often in Valente's work, it's full
of lush prose and keenly observed descriptions of the world, people, and food. Also, there is a whole lot of horror lurking
beneath the surface here. The twist in this story, once Valente reveals what the
"eating of sin" entails and what it means for the person who must
consume this feast, reminded me of Shirley Jackson's classic short story
"The Lottery".
The Glaze was a pretty sight when she first disembarked on
Teegarden, at least compared to the dull orange deserts of Mars. Now the glare
hurts her eyes, and the shore looks barren-grey.
Maryellen buttons her fur coat. She hops down the low
seawall that separates the path from the rocky strip of beach below it, then
rolls a luxurious blunt in privacy. She cuts open a cigar from her stash with
reverence. The weight of several joints’ worth of giggle-smokes feels holy in
her hand.
This story brings together two of my favourite things: an old-school noir vibe and science fiction. Maryellen is a standup comedian who left the solar system to escape some... problems. She found a new planet to hang her coat, but things are not uncomplicated there either, especially when there's espionage and intrigue and maybe even rebellion afoot. Gripping and entertaining from start to finish and full of wonderful characters.
This story is part of Strange Horizons' special Palestinian issue and it is also one of the best, gutsiest most harrowing short stories about virtual reality, identity, politics, and AI I've read since Rebecca Roanhorse's "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" in Apex Magazine. I won't spoil the story by saying more, but please check out this story and this fantastic issue of Strange Horizons.
I began to use my microscope to look at everything that frightened me.
This is a uniquely imagined, beautifully told, and wonderfully weird story about fear, and love, and microscopes, and about finding the courage to look for, and find, the things we want even though we're scared. I won't say more, just: read it.
The day the horses came to her town, Bola could think of
nothing else.
She stood in the shade of the acacia tree while her little
brothers clutched at her legs and pointed. Lord Kami rode at the head of the
procession of nobles, standing high in the stirrups of his own horse. Three
thousand years old, they said of his beast. Kami’s agbada flapped in the wind
as he rode, and though his war-mask hid his expression behind the leering face
of a jackal, Bola could tell he was grinning.
I have not stopped thinking about this story since I read it. It takes place in a world where humans are locked in an ongoing battle with a strange people called the feverborn. In this world, one of the most mysterious and powerful things used in battle are the techwork horses. It is said that no one but a highborn person can ride them, and that they will only bond to a person who manages to speak to them the right way in an old, almost forgotten language. When Bola first sees the horses as a child, she is mesmerized. All the horses are claimed by highborns, except one, which is left behind in Bola's community. Over the years, as she grows and ages and has a child of her own, and as she grows older still, her love for the techwork horse that no one could awaken remains. There is a moment in this story, the moment when Bola realizes the truth of what she needs to do, what she always needed to do, that spoke to me on so many levels: as a person, as a mother, as a writer, as a human being. A truly outstanding and original work of fiction set in a fascinating world I would love to see more of.
Upland Wildlife by Rhonda Pressley Veit in Black Static #78/79
Welcome to Normal Valley, home of 250 Good Normal
People, the sign says. 250, more or less. Good and normal, more or less.
This is a stunningly good tale of horror from Black Static, about two touristing families driving through Normal Valley who happen to stop for a bit of fun horse riding at a seemingly normal farm. It's a trip that comes to quite a terrifying end. At the farm lives a family that are part of the valley, of its history and landscape and its folklore and mythology in a profound way that has terrible repercussions for everyone involved. I love the way this story captures the family dynamics at play among children and adults, both among the visitors and the locals, and I love how folklore and old tales are woven into the narrative throughout. There's a steely tension running through the story, and every twist of the plot tightens that tension until the breaking point.
When we meet Izzy at the beginning of this tale, she has just left a party because she feels overwhelmed by all the social interactions that are difficult for her to interpret and participate in without misunderstandings and frustration. What happens next, leads to a wonderful and unique twist on human interactions with the faerie realm, and the idea that there are a multitude of intricate rules you must follow in order to not get into trouble with the fae. A wonderfully quirky and darkly funny story.
Crazy Beautiful by Cat Rambo in The Magazine of Fantasy and
Science Fiction Mar/Apr 2021
This is a mind-bendingly strange and audacious story about an art-producing AI that either goes off the rails, or just follows its instructions extremely well, or maybe it's a bit of both. The story is written as a series of emails, transcripts, and other fragments of communication, and deals with an AI that is made to create art on its own, including gene art and biomodification. The AI was given two drives: to consume art and create it, and one of its creators also included some snippets of theology because what could go wrong withthat, right? This is a thrilling, trippy, and spectacular short story.
C.L. Clark's story puts us into the middle of an army that has been fighting for years, trying to win freedom from the reign of the Tyrant. After years of warfare, everyone involved is tired, run-down, and on the verge of giving up or at least believing that defeat is close at hand. This goes for the two people at the heart of the tale: the army's Captain and its Quartermaster who have been in a relationship that is as old as the war. In flashbacks, Clark tells us the story of their relationship and the war, and these two stories are tightly intertwined, as their love, and the fortunes of war, waxes and wanes and changes everyone involved in fundamental ways. I love everything about this story, the wistful, reflective mood of it, the way it tells a real love story that is not magically perfect, and how it captures the ups and downs of love, life, and war. How good is this short story by C.L. Clark? Well, I thought it was so good that I immediately went and ordered Clark's novel The Unbroken.
In this story, an American ex-soldier struggling with life after his experiences in Afghanistan, finds a strange disc-shaped vessel, damaged in a crash, near his cabin. Unsure of the origins of the vessel, he sets out to find the presumably injured pilot of the wrecked craft. He is not alone: his dog Tripod, a rescue dog he adopted while overseas, is by his side, helping him track the pilot through the wilderness. While we soon realize that this is a first-contact story, the heart of the tale is the relationship between a a man and his dog, and I love how this story explores the profound and unique bond between humans and dogs.
In the darkness the mound looked too small, too well-shaped
to be natural. Only visible to eyes who had seen hell and lived. Beneath the
grass was the specter behind the stories, no one knew the origins of the
legend, the haint whose soul was said to hover above Voodoo Fields.
One night, three white men burn down The Freedmen’s
School
in Gayoso’s Flats. The children sleeping inside the school perish in the
fire. After that horrific night, the Black community grieves, but one
of them, Dusa Dayan, is overcome not only by grief but by rage, and she
goes looking for vengeance. She knows where to go, she knows what to do,
and though the price for that vengeance might seem high, it's a price
she's willing to pay. A gloriously sharp and jagged
piece of horror.
Who better than a trio of middle-aged (+) Latinas from South
Philly to show you what can bubble up when la gente decide to cook?
Okay, then. Imagine that instead of reading this, you are
climbing into our food truck ...
This is a terrific interactive (!) short story about
political resistance and FOOD, and (I think) this marks the first time Apex has published
an interactive story. Vourvoulias says that Las Girlfriends are also part of
the universe in two of her other stories: "Skin in the Game" from 2014 at TOR.com and "The Life and Times of Johnny the Fox" from the
anthology Knaves, published by Outland Publications. I really love the sense of subversive
humour and the political edge of this story, and the interactive format makes
it an especially interesting read.
This
story is set in a world where predatory creatures called nightbirds
hunt and kill humans. Humans have learned to run and hide from these
creatures, but of course, that doesn't always work. As the story begins,
a mother and her very young baby are caught in the wilderness and the
mother has to find a way to get back to the safety of her village
without getting killed. What makes the story stand out, is that the
mother is dealing with all the issues of recent childbirth as she has to
hide, run, dodge, and fight the monster: breastfeeding, a crying baby,
bleeding, joint pain and vaginal pain, weak stomach muscles... I don't
think I've ever read a story that takes these very real postpartum
details and weaves them into the tale. The result is a tense, taut, and
breathtaking chase story that had me on the edge of my seat. And the
added twist of the tale, when we realize we're dealing with not one but
two mothers... adds to the stories harrowing brilliance.
Ratnakar's story is set in a future where humanity has managed to destroy much of the natural world and where a variety of new diseases are wreaking havoc on people everywhere. In order to find new cures, scientists are exploring the oceans, and the creatures there, ravaging life in the ocean as they once ravaged life on land. Another thread in the story involves the development of a radical new procedure that makes it possible to relive a person's memories after their death. The main character, Nithya is chosen to relive the last two years of the life of a scientist named Noor who has died under strange circumstances, and soon, she is plunged into a much more complicated and complex situation than she could have foreseen. This novella is marvelously rich and layered. It's a love story, and it's also a story about scientific ethics, family, grief and identity and the way our memories are deeply embedded in our thoughts and every facet of our existence. One of the story's highlights is the absolutely fascinating exploration of a very peculiar and unique species of mind-bending sponge, and I just love how Ratnakar blends science and fiction in her science fiction.
