My life in books

Bogi Takács, “Some Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus”; Clarkesworld, April 2017
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/takacs_04_17/

This is a story within a story, with one sentient being - a genetically enhanced octopus - telling another sentient being - a human - what is remembered in the group memory of the octopi about a great wrong committed by humans. The details unfold slowly, through filters of memory, time and difference, but the issues are familiar, the arrogance and assumption of human exceptionalism, the unthinking use of other living beings, the carelessness of the species. It’s not dramatic in its accusation, but it lingers nonetheless.


“Sun, Moon, Dust,” Ursula Vernon; Uncanny Magazine, May/June 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/sun-moon-dust/

A sweet story of the “swords into ploughshares” variety; a farmer inherits a magical sword from his grandmother, a famous warrior in her day, but has no need or desire for war.


“Goddess, Worm,” by Cassandra Khaw; Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/goddess-worm/

Khaw deconstructs a Chinese legend about the discovery of silk weaving, revealing the acceptance of gendered violence that underlie it.


“Monster Girls Don’t Cry,” A. Merc Rustad; Uncanny Magazine, January/February 2017
https://uncannymagazine.com/article/monster-girls-dont-cry/

A powerful story about making room for difference. A young girl grows up hating and trying to erase the things that make her a monster in the eyes of the world finally learns to accept herself and demand acceptance from those around her.


“Carnival Nine,” Caroline Yoachim; Beneath Ceaseless Skies, May 11, 2017
http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/carnival-nine/

Yoachim’s short story places us inside a world of conscious wind-up dolls, living in miniature cities around a model train layout. Each day the maker winds up the dolls, and they live their lives, ever watchful of the number of turns they have - a figure that varies with the conditions of their mainspring and possibly the whim, or degree of attention, of the maker. It’s an extended metaphor for human life, with not a great deal to add to the conversation about life, death, and fate, but does get points for including a situation that parallels the way family dynamics can change with the addition of a disabled child. A touching story.


“The Last Novelist (Or a Dead Lizard in the Yard),” Matthew Kressel; Tor.com, March 15, 2017
https://www.tor.com/2017/03/15/the-last-novelist-or-a-dead-lizard-in-the-yard/

Reuth Bryan Diaso is perhaps the last novelist in a galaxy in which no one reads books anymore. He has come to the planet Ardabaab to finish his last novel before he dies, but he has lost his inspiration. A chance encounter with a young girl whose enthusiasm for knowledge and raw artistic talent gives him the energy to renew his writing, and to share with her his love of books, of the physicality of reading, of the crafts of creating not just the sequence if words that make up a novel, but the actual process of printing a book. This is a story about loss and creation, endings and perhaps beginnings, death and renewal. I found it quite compelling.


“Utopia, LOL?,” Jamie Wahls; Strange Horizons, June 5, 2017
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/utopia-lol/

It’s millions of years in the future, and human beings exist solely as uploaded intelligences in a vast artificial environment controlled by an AI known as Allocator. Almost all the usable mass of the solar system has been converted into the physical substrate that supports the set of virtual realities in which the human race spends its time, playing with simulations of millions of scenarios. But Allocator has limitations. It cannot interfere with human choices, which means that even as virtual beings, they continue to reproduce, requiring ever more substrate material. Allocator cannot extend its influence beyond the solar system - another programmed limitation - but humans can. Allocator’s dilemma - where can it find humans willing to inhabit space probes that will take them to other solar systems and find more space for the multitude of human minds? It’s a very well thought-out story, which touches on a number of issues related to artificial intelligence and informed consent.


“You Will Always Have Family: A Triptych,” Kathleen Kayembe; Nightmare Magazine, March, 2017
http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/will-always-family-triptych/

Kayembe’s novelette is powerful, terrifying, triumphant, laying bare the worst and best of the binds between family. In the midst of grief over the loss of his wife, a man does the unthinkable, destroys the son he believes caused her death, takes the other son away with him to America. Years later, he is truly haunted by his actions, and pays the price. Yet in the midst of a tale about supernatural revenge, there is also fierce love of brother for brother, mother for child and finally the discovery of self-love for the young woman who survives the toll exacted by the dead.


“Mother of Invention,” Nnedi Okorafor; Slate.com, February 21, 2018
https://slate.com/technology/2018/02/mother-of-invention-a-new-short-story-by-nnedi-okorafor.html

Anwuli is pregnant, almost ready to give birth. She is alone, deserted by her lover, a married man who deceived her about his status, then left her when she got pregnant. Shunned by her family and friends. All she has left is the smart house her lover built for her, an intelligent, self-repairing, self-improving home. But Anwuli has an even mire serious problem - she’s become severely allergic to the pollen of the genetically modified flowers that grow everywhere in New Delta City, and there’s a massive pollen storm brewing, one severe enough to put her into anaphylactic shock. When she goes into labour just as the pollen storm hits, help comes from a most unexpected source.