Clarkesworld #209, February 2024
“Scalp” by H. H. Pak
“The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V. I. Lenin” by Zohar Jacobs
“The Peregrine Falcon Flies West” by Yang Wanqing
“The Beam Eidolon” by Ryan Marie Ketterer
“The Flowers That We Intend To Share” by Rajeev Prasad
“Kardashev’s Palimpsest” by David Goodman
“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim
“Lonely Ghosts” by Meghan Feldman
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
This issue offers two novelettes of modest length, two lengthy short stories, and four brief short stories.
In “Scalp” by H. H. Pak, people addicted to something known as “bugs” are treated by being placed for the rest of their lives in virtual reality, their bodies in a comatose state. Even babies born to addicted mothers suffer from the incurable addiction, and will never experience the real world. This short tale consists mostly of conversations among custodial workers at the facility holding these patients. They all have addicted relatives in the facility, and working there gives them a discount so they can afford to pay to keep their family members alive.
The author creates a disturbingly visceral dystopian future. Although there is little plot other than the basic premise, some of the story’s images are likely to stay with the reader for a long time.
“The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V. I. Lenin” by Zohar Jacobs takes place in an alternate version of the late twentieth century in which the Soviet Union has a thriving scientific research facility on the moon of Saturn named in the title. The narrator is the director of the base. A loyal devotee of the communist ideal of the atheist state, he has to deal with the emergence of religious faith among many of his fellow scientists. Complications develop due to events on Enceladus and Earth.
The author skillfully combines hard science fiction with alternate history. Vivid details make this past that never existed seem very real. The topics of religion and politics are handled in a thoughtful and mature manner, offering much for the reader to ponder.
The novelette “The Peregrine Falcon Flies West” by Yang Wanqing, translated from Chinese by Jay Zhang, features a young woman who leaves her boyfriend behind when she undertakes a very long journey. Ten years later, at a time when microscopic alien devices arrive on Earth, filling the atmosphere and lowering temperatures, she returns to him. Her research into the intelligence of birds holds the key to the mysterious behavior of the extraterrestrial objects.
This simplified synopsis may suggest that the story contains many disparate elements, both realistic and speculative. This is certainly true. As one example, I have not mentioned the woman’s mother, whose attempt to create a computer model of an avian brain and her later abandonment of her family play major roles in the plot.
The story begins in a very leisurely fashion, and readers will have to be patient as they read about the woman hitchhiking across China before the plot really starts. They will also have to play close attention as the story jumps back and forth in time, with certain aspects of it unclear until they are explained in flashbacks.
The narrator of “The Beam Eidolon” by Ryan Marie Ketterer is the spirit, for lack of a better word, of an alien planet. It lives within all the lifeforms on its native world. Humans arrive and make use of the planet’s natural resources, causing the narrator agony. It finds a way to inhabit the Earthlings as well.
The title refers to a ritual performed by all the creatures on the planet, which is also apparently a source of energy. (The humans use it to power their spaceship for their voyage home.) One very odd detail is that the Earthlings are said to be children (and there’s a hint that they have a dog with them). This reads like something out of a space fantasy for very young readers, and seems out of place. This brief tale creates an exotic and evocative, if somewhat confusing, mood.
In “The Flowers That We Intend To Share” by Rajeev Prasad, a family grows flora that are designed to produce pleasant emotions in those who inhale their scents. Robots work with the gardeners. As the sentient machines evolve, they develop an interest in exploring their environment. The theft of valuable orchids leads to a crisis.
The author creates a richly imagined near future with advanced technology. Although the characters are fully developed, some of the actions of the two young protagonists seem unlikely.
The novelette “Kardashev’s Palimpsest” by David Goodman begins in the unimaginably far future and looks back to a time not much beyond our own. The consciousness of a human being, which has been inside an artificial, space-going body for billions of years, creates a simulated version of its past biological self, in order to explore its memories. The ensuing investigation involves multiple alternate versions of the human’s past, due to the fact that it has created simulated versions countless times over the eons.
From the first development of life-extending treatments, to the ability to store human minds indefinitely, to human expansion throughout the galaxy, to the end of the universe, the text sweeps through time and space in an awe-inspiring manner. The sheer scale of the background brings to mind the works of Olaf Stapledon, particularly Last and First Men (1930) and Star Maker (1937). However, the author never loses sight of the fact that the story is about people, even if their lives are far beyond anything we can experience.
The title of “Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim reveals that it is a response to Ursula K. LeGuin’s famous 1973 story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” (I have read at least four others, and there are probably more of which I am not aware, so it seems as if this is becoming a subgenre of its own.)
Like other variations on the theme, this one rejects LeGuin’s suggestion of simply leaving the utopian city that depends on the extreme suffering of a single child for its happiness. Instead, it depicts rebels murdering the child, thus bringing disaster to Omelas until another takes its place.
As one might expect, the tone of this work is one of extremely bitter and sardonic satire, worthy of Jonathan Swift. Elements of the modern world, such as social media, are brought into the story, in order to make Omelas seem like our own society. Explicit comparison is made to real horrors such as slavery and concentration camps.
Like other fictional responses to LeGuin’s story, this one suggests that the original work dealt with evil in too passive a manner. The author makes the point clearly, but perhaps writers have gone to this well a little too often, given the multiple replies to the original. (Perhaps not, in light of the fact that I have written a lengthy review of this brief work.)
“Lonely Ghosts” by Meghan Feldman features an artificial intelligence that has been alone on a lifeless world for thousands of years. The only entity it communicates with is another AI on a moon orbiting the planet. What I have said may not be quite true, as the AI believes that the so-called ghosts of two human beings are present at its side, although the other AI cannot detect them. (Whether these are simulations in the AI’s software or hallucinations isn’t clear.) The AI suggests that even the other AI may not be real, and asks for proof.
The author manages to make the characters in a story without living human beings seem real. (There are hints that humanity, and perhaps all other forms of biological life, no longer exist.) This brief tale accomplishes what it sets out to do, even if the plot is very simple.
Victoria Silverwolf forgot to bring a book to work tonight.