Lightspeed “Moons We Can Circumnavigate in One Day, or the Space Probe Love Story” by Natalia Theodoridou
“One Heart, Lost and Found” by Kat Howard
“She Blooms and the World is Changed” by Izzy Wasserstein
“The Sword, the Butterfly, and the Pearl” by Deborah L. Davitt
“When Shiva Shattered the Time-Stream” by Sharang Biswas
“Saturday’s Song” by Wole Talabi
“Blood for a Stranger” by Timothy Mudie
“The Belfry Keeper” by S. L. Harris
Reviewed by Mike Bickerdike
“Moons We Can Circumnavigate in One Day, or the Space Probe Love Story” by Natalia Theodoridou is a piece of flash fiction, providing the thoughts of a ‘dying’ space probe, which wonders: around which moon should it spend its last days, in the company of (presumably) another space probe? It’s quite a poetic little piece that conveys the cold depths of the solar system rather well.
“One Heart, Lost and Found” by Kat Howard is an urban fantasy tale, in which an unnamed character searches for a wizard’s heart, hidden in a lost emerald. While the tale has some nice flourishes, the story is heavily dependent on its fantasy imagery to the detriment of the plot, which is somewhat weaker.
“She Blooms and the World is Changed” by Izzy Wasserstein conveys some interesting ideas and carries a depth of meaning that are to its credit. However, while the principal idea is good—a girl born on an alien planet develops floral features from the planet’s ecosystem through a prion-like invasion of her DNA—the set-up and consequences make less sense. Why would a single family of four live entirely alone on an alien planet? And why would the effects to the girl necessarily be so dangerous to that planet? These questions really need answering for the tale to be satisfying from an SF perspective. The author is a transgender woman (mentioned in her bio, in the magazine), and in this context, the story may be seen to offer a metaphor for a fear of transgender people. As a metaphor, despite its drawbacks, it is perhaps better than many.
“The Sword, the Butterfly, and the Pearl” by Deborah L. Davitt is a flash fiction fantasy piece, about a magic sword that changes shape and controls its wielder. This is written in second person (‘you’ did this, ‘you’ did that)—a prose style that won’t appeal to everyone. The underlying concept of the magic of propagating knowledge is interesting, but the awkward form slightly overshadows the story.
“When Shiva Shattered the Time-Stream” by Sharang Biswas is flash fiction, defined as SF in Lightspeed, though it’s more akin to fantasy or magical realism. Essentially it tells of a gay breakup that repeats. It’s quite a good idea, which suits the flash fiction format rather well, and while its appeal might not be universal, it’s well-written.
“Saturday’s Song” by Wole Talabi has an unusual and original structure, as the novelette is recounted by seven siblings—other-worldly spirits named after the days of the week—who are both made of stories and who tell stories. Exactly why they do this isn’t clear, but the story they recount is the tragic tale of a young Nigerian woman who cannot dream. She falls in love with another woman, much to her mother’s distress. When the lover dies, the young woman must make a pact with the ethereal “Sarkin Sarkoki” to understand why it happened and to exact revenge. It’s not the clearest tale to summarise, though the imagery is good in places. Much of the story takes place either through conversations between storytelling siblings, or within the mind of the main character, which makes the tale feel rather ungrounded. The structural device of the spirit-like storytellers is novel, but possibly not entirely successful; if they “sit beyond the boundaries of space and time,” their purpose is not clear. Possibly the imaginative approach compensates sufficiently for this weakness however, and this novelette will probably appeal to many readers, especially those who like the magical-realism tone commonly found in Nigerian genre fiction.
“Blood for a Stranger” by Timothy Mudie is quite an imaginative military SF novelette. In a future of greedy militarised corporations spanning the solar system, military personnel may have their minds digitally uploaded into spaceships at the time of their deaths, to become ‘shipminds’. One such ‘smartship’, undertaking corporation-sponsored warfare in the outer solar system, has what he first perceives to be a premonition. However, over time he realises this is something else, with implications for his future. The idea of sentient ‘minds’ controlling spaceships was famously developed to good effect by Iain M. Banks in his Culture novels, of course, and used more latterly by Gareth L. Powell and others. Here, the author brings further fresh thinking to the concept, with quite a satisfying conclusion.
“The Belfry Keeper” by S. L. Harris is flash fiction. To get straight to the point, it is the best piece of genre flash fiction I’ve recently read. Ostensibly a short fantasy tale, this is allegory, commenting on the daze by which we are inexorably moving into a future where profit overshadows value, and technology supplants knowledge and wisdom. It is also beautifully written and is therefore highly recommended.
More of Mike Bickerdike’s reviews and thoughts on science-fiction can be found at https://starfarersf.nicepage.io/