Today’s stories are both about… apples! In a roundabout way, at least… You know you are tempted to read on!

Black Fire by Tanith Lee (a British woman)

from the January 2011 issue of Lightspeed

This has to be the first British work I’m reviewing unless I’ve managed to miss something. It is a retelling of the Adam and Eve story – I do love me some Bible fanfic, but Black Fire just isn’t strong enough.

The narrative is composed of police interviews with ordinary citizens. With this type of structure, a lot hinges on the voices being convincing. Here, the citizens sound realistic, but also slightly boring.

Special groanworthy quote: “My last thought is, I confess, is this really then what is meant by Science Fiction?“

iTime by Ferrett Steinmetz (an American man)

from the September 2011 issue of Redstone Science Fiction

A highly readable time travel story with two shortcomings. First, one of the characters is such a stereotyped vacuous bimbo that I found the first half of the story hard to read, I kept on cringing. Sure, the protagonist is a hacker girl, but as the story is based around their interactions,  the difference between these two women only emphasizes that the author tried to build on lazy stereotypes. The complete opposite of a caricature is also a caricature.

The second shortcoming is worldbuilding-related: there is zero social context. Minor characters are completely oblivious to the time-travel technology, even though a resale market has sprung up already: “Daddy paid four hundred thousand on eBay for an unbonded four-hour model,” she said, puffing out her chest. Still, no one understands that Miss Vacuous Bimbo is using a time-travel gizmo!

Also, the device must have a really horrendous user interface if  (spoiler!) Bimbo manages to use it without ever being exposed to any warnings. Even my Nintendo Wii keeps on telling me to please wear the controller strap, and that’s really minor in comparison. As the name strongly hints at the fictional gizmo being produced by Apple, a company whose strong suit is providing a smooth user experience, this is even more puzzling.

It’s a shame – the temptation aspect is very well-executed, and I liked  that different characters experienced similar temptation for different reasons. There is also a “learning social interactions” theme to the story that will probably resonate with many readers.

Today we have two stories about religion! Errrr… Scientology and the Flying Spaghetti Monster qualify, right?

The Hubbard Continuum by Lavie Tidhar (an Israeli Jewish man)

from Redstone Science Fiction, March 2011

L. Ron Hubbard was right and the future is a Scientologist nightmare with with Clears, Pre-Clears, implant stations and such. The plot is a short, fun romp with time travel and “psychic Thetan death-rays”; maybe a bit too self-referential for my tastes, though it’s by no means as bad as the usual ‘writing about writers who are writing’. I can’t help feeling Scientology ought to be more… paranoia-inducing.

I’m getting tired of repeating “this story was inspired by X, this story was inspired by Y”, but what can I do? Surely there is nothing new under the sun, but to see so many stories which are direct homages or rewrites is disappointing, even when they turn out to be decent work after all. I didn’t expect this! With that being said, this story was apparently inspired by William Gibson’s The Gernsback Continuum, except here the future is not Gernsbackian, but Hubbardian. Apparently, because the debt is not acknowledged by the author (compare Liu’s novella in my previous post), though the title makes it obvious. Still, I couldn’t find a single review online which noticed the link. This probably explains why the story is better-received than it ought to be: it seems more original than it actually is.

Grace Immaculate by Gregory Benford (an American man)

from Tor.com Originals, Oct 19 2011

A flash story about first contact with aliens and religion, with a twist. I’m bored with SF where the aliens learn something from the humans which Would Never Have Occurred To Them Otherwise – that’s so anthropocentric. But at least here (spoiler!) the aliens get the last laugh.

This one is mostly for completionists – while we’re at it: do send me links to religion-related SF, gotta catch ‘em all! – or those who really just want a mildly amusing story to go with their morning coffee.

 Here is the promised novella, thematically quite similar to the previous one.

The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary by Ken Liu (a Chinese-American man)

from Panverse Three (free reprint above!)

 This story was inspired by Ted Chiang’s Liking What You See: A Documentary, which is also well worth the read (but it’s unfortunately not available for free, at least AFAIK). The format is similar – a documentary (well duh!) – but the contents are radically different.

The Man Who Ended History is about the activities of the real-life Japanese Unit 731 in the 1935-1945 time period. The Japanese military set up a secret biowarfare research unit in occupied Manchuria and performed experiments on unwilling Chinese prisoners. If you’re unfamiliar with this (I wasn’t), then before reading the story or clicking on the links, do note that you will read about activities that were as atrocious as Nazi German human experiments in Europe. In graphic detail.

 Since the target audience is unfortunately not familiar with this massacre (or at least not as familiar as with the Holocaust), Ken Liu spends a lot of time on exposition, so the documentary format is well-chosen. The SF part involves time travel – not in any conventional sense, though; it’s definitely not one of those “travel back in time to kill Hitler”-type stories, don’t worry.

It’s a very thoughtful and well-sourced (!) story, with detailed endnotes. My only problem was that the more scholarly talking-heads  occasionally spoke in such dry and convoluted sentences I was tempted to skim.  People don’t talk like that in video interviews, not even historians; at least IMO. By contrast, the locals had very believable voices – the author states they were based on forum posts etc., a great touch.

I loved it how lots of characters did everything to simplify the issue, but since they were all presented together, the issue stubbornly refused to become simplified.

Something that should be IMO more emphasized – the movie the protagonists watch, Philosophy of a Knife (yes, it’s a real movie), while based on real events, is marketed as gorefest horror. I think that’s absolutely horrifying – having to come across a real-life historical atrocity connected to your people’s history the first time in your life in an exploitation movie…

Something else I wished to be explored in more detail (spoilers)!: Kirino mentions her children, and presumably Wei is the father, but there was nothing further about their offspring. Children who grow up with the legacy of being the descendants of both the murderers and the victims, that is something I can especially relate to as a Hungarian Jew, I wish there was more along those lines. Maybe in a different story…

I think there might be a technological solution to the SFnal conundrum, though (more spoilers): reconstructing mental imagery from fMRI activity is a problem I’d call almost-solved; since the story is set in the near future, the historical scenes people experience in the fictional scanner could be recorded at the same time – at least the visuals. But of course the claim could be made that fMRI recording interferes with the fictional Kirino Process. But this does not detract from the story itself.

Go read it; while I don’t think it’s perfect, it does things I wish more SF authors tried. I’m quite pleased that both this and the previous novella I reviewed tackle very serious issues related to real-life events, and do so admirably well.

It’s the weekend! I’ve picked two longer works, both about… Axis war crimes, and the different interpretations of victors and victims. Yes, this is still my series of reviews on speculative fiction, you’ve read that right! I want to talk about both at length, so I will post the reviews separately, and over the course of two days (G-d willing).

Before we start, a different issue – I’m a bit annoyed to see that some of the stories I was sure would fit into the short story category run in the novelette category on this year’s Hugos. I had originally intended to concentrate on short stories, but many places don’t post word counts in story headers, and in some cases stories are split up over multiple pages, which makes them appear shorter… like this one, which is actually a novella, even longer than a novelette! So I’ll have to reorganize the list and group stories by length.

Shtetl Days by Harry Turtledove (an American Jewish man)

from Tor.com Originals, Apr 14 2011

This story looked like a quick read when I scrolled through the page (and I wasn’t really in the mood for anything longer), but when I actually started reading, I was quite surprised to see “Page 1 of 4″ and a link to the following page at the bottom.

I read on, and I was very happy I did. AWESOME happens right after that page break. I want to say as little as possible, but still something that will make you read the story, so I will just say that Turtledove takes the timeworn shtetl-kitsch clichés and subverts them masterfully, while still staying true to the sentiment that pervades them. Amazing, really.

There are some minor inconsistencies, for example when it comes to pronunciation, but (spoiler!) since the characters are historical reconstructionists, it’s perfectly understandable they would get at least a few things wrong.

I only had a small gripe with the story – as an Orthodox Jew, I’m uncomfortable with fully spelled out divine names included in works that come without warnings to treat the names respectfully. As this stands, readers will probably print out the story and toss the printout once they’ve finished, or read it in the bathroom, etc. all of which would be prohibited by halachah (Jewish law).

The author is secular and thus probably not particularly bothered by it, but I am! If you as a reader want to play it safe, the easiest way is to just leave the story in electronic format (which does not qualify as “writing” as per halachah) and read it that way. This also saves trees

Another minor gripe which has nothing to do with the story content:  sometimes there were extra spaces inserted before and after vowels with diacritics, I guess someone’s word processor goofed up there!

*

Here is a beautiful Karliner nigun which demonstrates my point above. In practice, divine names are often hyphenated or substituted when not praying. In the video, you can hear people sing “Kah echsof” while the text reads Y-ah echsof”.

Here is another version (by Aharon Razel & co.) where they sing “Y-ah echsof”:

Shavua tov! For today’s update, I went to Tor.com and chose two new stories by authors I like (I’ve had one disappointment too many!). One of the stories was a hit, the other not so much, but you’ll see…

A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel by Yoon Ha Lee (a Korean-American woman)

from Tor.com (Aug 10 2011)

A splendid science-fantasy short in the tradition of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, a longtime favorite of mine. Writers of these sorts of “lists of unusual things” usually struggle with the ending. Yoon Ha Lee solves the problem amazingly well! This is truly a story (if it can even be called a story) that one with even the smallest inclination toward the poetic should read.

Judging from the author’s website, I’ve reviewed all three of her published stories this year. Conservation of Shadows was my favorite, with this one a close second, and Ghostweight a slightly more distant third. But they are all great works – my only concern is that people will nominate all three (I’ve seen a lot of support for each one) and thus the votes will be more divided than if there were one single standout story everyone could rally behind. Of course, I’m all for a consistently high level of literary output, but it does complicate decisions somewhat…

Hello, Moto by Nnedi Okorafor (a Nigerian-American woman)

from Tor.com (Nov 2 2011)

A tale about Nigerian women and the dangers of techno-magic. I’m a huge fan of Okorafor’s, but I can’t wholeheartedly endorse this story – I found the stance it took to be disappointing at best. “When you mix juju with technology, you give up control. You are at the will of something far beyond yourself.” I’m uncomfortable with the whole “magic is necessarily evil” idea, especially since it’s almost always presented in connection with indigenous magic, and Christian attempts to eradicate it (as in my native Hungary). Fortunately, this story doesn’t have any of the Christian proselytizing, but the stance is still similar.

(And if anything, magic is all about control – one attempts to exert control over the environment that goes beyond control achieved with non-magical means.)

Unfortunately, there is a major point I can only address in the spoiler section: Not another vampire story! Also, botched techno-magic turns people into “psychic vampires” and then “blood-sucking” vampires… [sic] OK, the techno-magic angle is new, but I am really tired of the Onoez, Evil Psi Vampire On the Loose trope. Could we possibly lay it to rest? Pretty please?

Jillian Tamaki also underperforms with the illustration. I love her art (the cover of Half World was by far the best part of the book), but she might not be a good match for Okorafor’s work, the styles are too different.

Still, I’d like to send this story to every Jewish woman with curly hair who wears a straight-hair sheitel!

…and LOL, I have a Motorola cell phone, though it doesn’t play that ringtone. It played something boring until I replaced the jingle with Mordin the Salarian singing (yeah, I know, totally unrelated to the review, but…):

Today we have two stories about human-alien interaction! To be honest I prefer the term “extraterrestrial”, it’s less value-laden… but that’s probably only me.

Join by Liz Coleman (an American woman) – I don’t have a link for her personal website

from the September 2011 issue of Lightspeed

A story about a human man who becomes a surrogate father to an alien joined to his body – for the time being, at least. A topic I personally find fascinating, and the characterization of the protagonist is decent.

I’m surprised SFnal body modification usually does not relate to the real-life body modification subculture in any shape or form, it’s like the authors do not even know (or have trouble contemplating?) that such a thing exists. This story is an exception! Unfortunately that alone does not really carry it through to the conclusion.

The protagonist visits his family on Earth and a strained coming-out scene ensues. It made me groan – the whole story looks like an extended metaphor for gay adoption even if that was not the author’s intent. It really comes across as  “look, I’m writing a story about a current issue, JUST IN SPAAACE“. Aliens are used as stand-ins for minority groups all too often and this is a trend I strongly dislike. If people want to write about minority groups, they should write about minority groups. If people want to write about aliens, they should write about aliens. Mixing the two has very unfortunate implications even if, I repeat, that was not the author’s original intent.

Also, I think the mother’s reaction was completely unrealistic (spoiler cut): the mother goes from “I’d never seen her like this. She looked like a wilted flower, her hand draped limply over her knee, her big onyx ring dangling from her grasp. She looked at me with empty eyes.” to “But she slowly smiled as she looked at the photo, and then at Ngoraich’s battered casing, and asked: “What’s her name?”” People don’t change that much in the course of a single conversation. I guess the author wanted a happy ending, but this is a huge oversimplification of coming out (related to any topic), and thus potentially harmful to people who’ve had to go through a coming-out talk themselves.

One more spoilery note: I’m not saying coming-out stories should always have bad endings, G-d forbid! But if the author wanted to end the story on a positive note, she shouldn’t have set up the story this way, with people starting off from an extremely negative position.

Making My Entrance Again with My Usual Flair by Ken Scholes (an American man)

from Tor.com Originals (Jan 12 2011)

This is a lighthearted story about a clown and a monkey… There are a few moments of brilliance here and there, but by and large the story is not very deep. Terry Bisson has proven that one can write humorous stories which are also very profound, and that really influences my expectations. If something is not very deep, it should at least be unique and memorable, and this story is neither.

It’s an okay read, but definitely not award-winning material. I find it hard enough to say much about it, but fortunately I ranted all too long about the first story, so there’s enough for you to read

Lots of websites are protesting the American SOPA/PIPA acts, going dark altogether or posting some kind of banner etc. I’m joining in by not posting the regular short story update today – instead you’ll have a set of informative links about these pieces of proposed legislation.

While I’m not an American citizen (and I’ve never even been to the US), my site is hosted on a server somewhere in Texas, so I’d be directly affected by these acts. Actually, everyone would be directly affected by these acts, as you’ll shortly see if you follow my links.

Depending on how much time you have, here are a bunch of options to educate yourself without having to wade through any legalese.

5 minutes:

The EFF’s one-page guide to SOPA

+ one real-life example (the most common argument for SOPA/PIPA that I’ve come across was “these extreme scenarios anti-SOPA/PIPA activists posit will never happen”… um, they are already happening, and these laws will only make them more likely to happen!)

15 minutes:

What Can You Do About SOPA and PIPA? from Ask Slashdot

20 minutes:

interesting video rant by a British gamer/lawyer – there is a bit of ageism in there re the US policymakers, but otherwise the video is informative and entertaining.

Once you’re finished, spend an additional 5 minutes telling others about this issue (if you’re an American citizen, be sure to email your representative).

Mama, we are Zhenya, Your Son by Tom Crosshill (a Latvian-American man who is also an immigrant)

from the April 2011 issue of Lightspeed

Definitely one of the more memorable stories from this year’s Lightspeed. I’m also very happy to see fellow Eastern Europeans gain more exposure

At first I thought this would be a story set inside a computer running Linux: “The gnomes live in the cellar. They’re short and green and wear big fluffy hats with their names on them, like GUI 1, GUI 2, GUI 3″. Which isn’t really a novel idea, save for maybe the Linux part. But the story is about something completely different and ends up being much more ingenuous than just another virtual-reality tale, so keep on reading! Without giving away much, neuroplasticity is a keyword.

Be sure to read the author interview as well once you’re finished. All magazines should have similar extra features!

To be honest I disagree with him (spoiler cut):

“What if you took a very young human brain and placed it in a complex simulated quantum-like environment? Might it learn to adapt to this environment and predict its behavior in real time as accurately as we predict the behavior of the real world (for a quantum-mechanical, probabilistic meaning of “predict”)? If it did, that would be a very strong indication that the human brain does indeed rely on quantum phenomena to make sense of the world”

I think the human mind can model environments whose behavior has no real-world analog; there are some really far-out ideas in experimental gameplay etc. that IMO seem to show this… but I don’t know if this issue has ever been rigorously investigated. Anyway, the story is great

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (a Chinese-American man)

from the Mar/Apr 2011 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (available as a free story from Del Rey’s website and as an audiobook from Podcastle)

This is a realy, really sad and beautiful story. Definitely one of the best in 2011 – if this keeps up, the hard problem will be deciding which Ken Liu story to nominate for the Hugos!

Also, finally a story that deals with immigration. Even people who belong to a non-WASP ethnic group tend to write about “the sourceland” as Deepa D put it, and not the immigrant or the ethnic-minority experience… at least in spec fic. (The trend is probably reversed when it comes to contemporary non-genre literature!)

Some of it reminded me of the scene in Michael Ende’s Momo where the kids play with the new toys. Also very melancholy.

You can say The Paper Menagerie is fantasy, or you can say it’s magical realism, it’s going to find its home anywhere. Go read it now.

_________

Note: a big thank you to España Sheriff who linked the audiobook version on hugo_recommend – I would’ve missed the podcast release altogether if not for this notice.

All That Touches the Air by An Owomoyela (an American asexual neutrois person of color)

from the April 2011 issue of Lightspeed

A lengthy alien-contact story with great characterization. Very few stories try to tackle the fundamental claustrophobia inherent in living in an alien environment (Bios by Robert Charles Wilson comes to mind, and… not much else) and this one does a great job. It’s great to see that not everyone reacts the same way, and some people might take precautions a bit too far, just like in real life.

There is also an annoying little know-it-all in there, a character type seldom seen in SF probably because it uncomfortably reminds most authors of their childhood selves.

It’s hard to say whether this story is better than Frozen Voice, the author’s previous work I reviewed… I enjoyed this one more on an intellectual level, but Frozen Voice had more striking imagery that stayed with me over time. (I am a very visual sort of person, you can bribe me with spiffy pictures ) Anyway, both stories are well worth the read!

As before, read the author interview – it gives a really new perspective on the story. (And yes, there’s a bit about childhood selves in there…)

The Rotten Beast by Mary E. Pearson (an American woman)

from Tor.com Originals (Nov 30 2011)

What a simplistic tale. I kept on waiting for a faint glimmer of originality – or perhaps a masterful twist that will subvert all the bad tropes in the story at the same time – but no, nothing.

Of course maybe we’re all just dealing with an unreliable narrator – after all, she is an emotional teenager who comes across as the straw-man who people like to attack when talking about religious fundamentalists. (No, actual religious fundamentalists are not necessarily like that, but this is an unrelated tangent best saved for some other time.) There is no mention of religion in the story though, there are only lengthy anti-technology and anti-science rants that are about as profound as those conspiracy theories about Satan’s barcode printed on your forehead.

The technology is laughable: “I press my hand to my chest and try to feel the biochips clicking away inside”, “Being controlled by all the computer chips stuffed into his Biogel?”. I understand this is a YA story, but young adults are not stupid for the most part; they should not be treated as such.

Unfortunately there is not a shred of evidence in the story itself that the narrator is unreliable. Moreover, the story is a straight-up retelling of Eve and the apple, except… with a peach. I’m serious. A peach.

I’d say this one is a lemon.

(:O Couldn’t resist…)

I’ve hammered my website into shape. New features:

* Facebook Like button – be sure to use it liberally

* Battle of the Stories! – my way of deciding who to nominate for the Hugos

* Short story reviews sorted by topic – similar to the popular stories by topic page at Expanded Horizons

* Small fixes

The only thing you’ll need to do is:

You mean he’s singing about a different kind of button? Pshah! Details…