Reactor, September 2024
“Set in Stone” by K. J. Parker
“The Unwanted Guest” by Tamsyn Muir
“Spill” by Cory Doctorow
“Vigilant” by Cory Doctorow
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
This month’s issue features historical fiction, a play, and two high-tech stories from the same author.
“Set in Stone” by K. J. Parker takes place in ancient Mesopotamia. The narrator is a sculptor who is hired to create a battle scene for a king. All previous sculptures of this kind have been based on real battles, but this one is imaginary. The narrator is uncomfortable working on something that isn’t true, but completes the task. The outcome is unexpected.
The bittersweet conclusion adds a touch of fantasy to what is otherwise realistic historical fiction. The narrator’s informal style makes the story very readable, the characters relatable, and the past come to life. The relationship between art and truth is the work’s major theme, but the philosophical content does not detract from its warm, human appeal.
“The Unwanted Guest” by Tamsyn Muir takes the form of a play. A dead man, a woman who killed another and absorbed her soul, and a voice belonging to someone not identified until late in the text are the main characters. There are also nonspeaking attendants. The man attempts to discover which of seven coffins contains the corpse of the person whose soul was absorbed by asking the woman a series of questions.
This is a greatly oversimplified synopsis of a strange and surreal work that resembles the Theater of the Absurd. Many of the fantasy concepts mentioned in passing seem to require familiarity with other works by the author for full understanding. Much of what happens on stage, such as the constant shuffling of the coffins, seems arbitrary.
“Spill” and “Vigilant” by Cory Doctorow are a pair of stories featuring the same protagonist, a computer expert who uses hacking skills to help those oppressed by authorities. Both stories might be considered borderline science fiction, as they deal largely with technology, but of a kind that currently exists.
In the novella “Spill,” sections of text narrated by the hacker alternate with those narrated by an activist who joins protesters working to prevent an oil pipeline from encroaching on indigenous lands and waters. An act of sabotage leading to an oil spill is blamed on the protesters, but the hacker uses his skills to uncover the real culprits.
The author’s political viewpoint is obvious, with the activists as the good guys and the pipeline company and law enforcement as the bad guys. Be that as it may, the story works best as a thriller. The sections narrated by the activist are more engaging than those narrated by the computer expert.
“Vigilant” is a shorter and more intimate tale. The hacker helps a student whose anxiety disorder forces him to take tests at home, monitored by a system that looks for cheating. The problem is that the system is far from accurate, accusing the student of cheating just for doing things like turning his gaze away from the computer for a moment. The narrator comes up with a way to defeat the system, only to discover that the student has a better strategy in mind.
Perhaps because this story deals with a more personal problem than the previous work, its political viewpoint is not as overt. The fact that the computer expert is less than perfectly effective makes it more believable as well.
Victoria Silverwolf went to a combination pizza restaurant and bookstore recently.