Clarkesworld #208, January 2024
“Nothing of Value” by Aimee Ogden
“Binomial Nomenclature and the Mother of Happiness” by Alexandra Munck
“Just Another Cat in a Box” by E. N. Auslender
“You Dream of the Hive” by C. M. Fields
“Down the Waterfall” by Cécile Cristofari
“Stars Don’t Dream” by Chi Hui
“Rail Meat” by Marie Vibbert
“You Cannot Grow in Salted Earth” by Priya Chand
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Two novelettes and half a dozen short stories appear in this issue.
The narrator of “Nothing of Value” by Aimee Ogden uses teleportation to visit an old lover who refuses to use the device. Their reunion fails to rekindle their romance, leading to an ironic ending.
The author creates a richly imagined future, in which the solar system has been settled and people use teleportation to travel from one planet to another. The question of whether the device literally kills the user, creating a duplicate instead, lies at the heart of the story.
Any tale making use of this theme will inevitably be compared to James Patrick Kelly’s famous story “Think Like a Dinosaur.” The present work suffers a bit by comparison with that classic, but the clever, logical, and unexpected ending adds interest. If the two main characters were described in more detail, or at least had names (they are just called “I” and “you”) the story would be more appealing.
In “Binomial Nomenclature and the Mother of Happiness” by Alexandra Munck, an astrophysicist discovers two previously undetectable moons orbiting Earth, made of a substance that can only be perceived through special devices. She tells the narrator about this, even though it is supposed to be top secret. The narrator uses goggles to detect this new kind of matter and discovers that it is associated with emotions. Meanwhile, an elephant that has been enhanced so that it can talk to people has her unborn child transferred to an artificial womb, leading to a crisis.
As can be seen, quite a few things are going on in this novelette, although it is not quite as jumbled as I have made it seem. It reads like two or three different stories blended into one. The author makes a valiant effort to bring all these threads together into a single tapestry, with mixed success. The use of an eccentric narrator, who calls the other human characters “Colleague A” and “Colleague B” even though their names are known, adds to the sense of incoherence.
The main character in “Just Another Cat in a Box” by E. N. Auslender is one of a huge number of versions of the same man. He is the latest to emerge from a device that creates these multiple copies. Like all the others, he discovers the disaster that has occurred in the place where he finds himself, and learns of the terrible duty he must perform.
Without giving too much away, I can say that the situation is certainly dramatic and original, even if it strains credibility. The story has a frenzied mood that fits well with the mental state of the protagonist. The character is only known as “He” (with the capital letter and italics), which may be an attempt to convey the fact that he is only one out of countless others, but the technique is distracting.
The protagonist of “You Dream of the Hive” by C. M. Fields is rescued, against her will, from the so-called Hive, which has replaced much of her body with mechanical parts and made her one component of a symbiotic organism. While confined to a hospital bed inside the spaceship that rescued her, surgeons slowly restore her humanity while she yearns to return to the Hive.
The theme is reminiscent of the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation, although it is handled in a sufficiently original way. The Hive is described only vaguely. It is unclear how it absorbed the protagonist, or how she was removed from it. As the title implies, the story is narrated in second person, possibly in an attempt to allow the reader to experience the character’s sensations. This technique is used effectively, but does not seem completely necessary.
In “Down the Waterfall” by Cécile Cristofari, a physicist travels in time by infesting herself with microorganisms that simultaneously destroy and recreate the cells in her body. The implication is that escaping the perception of time is only possible at the moment of death. She uses the technique to change one small but important moment in her life.
The method of time travel is more poetic than scientific, reflected in the metaphor found in the title, which appears throughout the text. (Appropriately, the other major character is a poet.) The story can be read as a metaphor for lost opportunities and life choices. It appeals much more to emotion than reason. As in other works in this issue, the characters are never named. The reason for the seeming popularity of this omission escapes me, unless it is to make them seem more universal.
The novelette “Stars Don’t Dream” by Chi Hui, translated from Chinese by John Chu, features a team of widely differing characters working for the same goal. In a future world where people spend almost all their time in virtual reality, traveling in robotic bodies when they leave the gigantic towers in which they live, these disparate individuals combine their efforts in order to send tiny probes carrying plant life to Venus, hoping to change the planet’s atmosphere after many thousands of years.
The background is vividly imagined, and the characters are fully developed, with lives and concerns other than just their shared project. Near the end of the story, the author changes focus from these individuals to a much broader point of view, creating a true sense of wonder.
The title of “Rail Meat” by Marie Vibbert refers to workers on racing yachts, who act as human ballast. Their function is to move their bodies in ways that keep the ship heading in the best direction to win the race. The story extrapolates this job to ships that fly through the air.
The main characters are con artists who meet by accident when they both infiltrate a party for the extremely wealthy. The woman intends to steal what she can find, but the man has a much more ambitious scheme. He plans to use his good looks and charm to draw the attention of the very rich owner of one of the flying yachts, act heroically while serving as rail meat and thus win her affection, marry her, and take her for everything she’s worth. The two rogues become lovers and partners. The woman joins him on the yacht, despite the extreme danger of working as rail meat.
The story’s combination of science fiction, crime, and romance works perfectly here, creating a highly entertaining confection. The skillful blending of wit, eroticism, glamour, and suspense creates a mood similar to that of the Alfred Hitchcock film To Catch a Thief, although the plot is completely original.
“You Cannot Grow in Salted Earth” by Priya Chand is a brief tale in which the main character recalls an expedition through a wormhole to a distant planet, and the return to Earth just before the gateway was sabotaged, cutting the home world off from the rest of the universe.
To say anything else would reveal too much about the protagonist’s experience, which is the point of this very short story. The work is mostly mood and introspection, conveyed in an effective fashion. As with much modern speculative fiction, this piece is narrated in second person. This may draw the reader into the protagonist’s mind, but runs the risk of seeming trendy.
Victoria Silverwolf has seen a lot of Hitchcock films.