[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]

Strange Horizons, February 14, 2022

“Intimacies” by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko

Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf

The narrator of “Intimacies” by Filip Hajdar Drnovšek Zorko is a hippocampus, a mythical sea-dwelling being that is part human, part fish, and with some aspects of a horse. In these beings, males bear offspring from fertilized eggs deposited in their pouches. (This method of reproduction parallels that found in the real world in seahorses.)

The narrator is washed ashore during a powerful storm. He meets a human man not long before he bears his multiple children. Later, he returns to the man’s island home, and discovers what became of his offspring.

The author does a fine job of writing from the point of view of an inhuman creature. Both the narrator and the human man are fully developed characters, with whom the reader can empathize, despite their great differences. The style is clear and vivid, so that the strange events of the story seem real. The mood is quiet and thoughtful, with profound insights into various forms of parenthood and other emotional relationships.

Victoria Silverwolf is more familiar with the word hippocampus used to describe part of the brain.