Lightspeed “The Incorruptible World” by Anjali Sachdeva
“The Memory Plague” by D. Thomas Minton
“Answering the Questions You Might Have About the Kharbat” by Adam-Troy Castro
“Frost’s Boy” by P.H. Lee
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
Four stories grace the pages of Lightspeed’s 128th issue this month. Readers will find two SF and two fantasy tales for their reading pleasure.
“The Incorruptible World” by Anjali Sachdeva
In the far distant future, Jade and her wealthy husband, Ash, are preparing for their honeymoon. To mark this very special occasion (and with future vacations in mind), Ash has had a small, private planet created for them; one that is an exact replica of the natural world humans destroyed centuries ago but completely sterile in every way. After a wonderful three weeks of living in simulated nature, they prepare for the shuttle to come back and take them home. Unfortunately, the shuttle never comes. Trapped on their manufactured paradise, the couple now must figure out how to survive.
Sachdeva’s wildly imaginative tale really hits the mark. The idea of being trapped on a manufactured planet in a remote area of space, one that is completely dependent upon working machines to simulate natural processes, is truly a horrifying prospect. Any little thing that could go wrong would mean a terrible death, like the machines that generate the atmosphere breaking down. It’s a bit of a slow burn in terms of pacing, but it builds the tension nicely as the two try to adjust to a world that humans haven’t known for hundreds of years. Even the absence of bacteria, something so often overlooked, adds a set of interesting complications to the story. It’s a sad tale, but one very much worth reading.
“The Memory Plague” by D. Thomas Minton
Audu, the 106th version of this particular vorta, breaks free from his birth pod. After finding the body of its predecessor, it swallows a stone containing the memories of those who came before it. Within moments, other parts of this vorta, Omi and Rhu, soon emerge from their womb-sacs, as well. Driven by a primeval hunger, they begin searching for the prey that should be here. But where have all the humans gone? And why can they not sense the collective mind of the other vorta that should be present?
Told from the alien’s point of view long after humans are gone, Minton’s story is mildly interesting. For the most part, it’s an okay story, but I found a few issues within the narrative.
To start, when I read “vorta” in this story, I can’t help but think of the Vorta from Star Trek, the ambassador race serving the Dominion. In fact, there’s a lot about this story that feels somewhat derivative of Star Trek’s Vorta and Dominion, especially that this “vorta” is the 106th of its lineage (a clone that, like the Dominion’s Vorta, is activated once its predecessor dies and retains the memories of those versions of itself that came before it), and its species uses a collective consciousness to communicate like the Founders. The desire for Audu and its brethren to feed can also be equated to the Dominion’s desire for conquest over “solids,” and its dedication to the Vortive is quite like the Star Trek Vorta’s deification of the Founders.
Also, the imagery can be hard to follow in this story. Some of it is a bit too vague to get the point across. And, too, I don’t quite buy the appearance of a ghost (if that’s what Tru is supposed to be—that’s not very clear at all). Another good question is what purpose does culling other life forms really serve? What exactly does it do for the collective? For me, this story was just too vague to become invested in it, overall.
“Answering the Questions You Might Have About the Kharbat” by Adam-Troy Castro
You’re being attacked. Of course, you didn’t know this to be the case; you only know that it hurts. Well, not to worry! The world’s leading expert on the Kharbat, the creature attacking you, is here to answer any questions you might have before you die.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again—I like Adam-Troy Castro’s work. There’s not much to say about this story without giving away too much and spoiling it, so I’ll just say that, despite its subject matter, it’s a fun read and an interesting little thought experiment.
“Frost’s Boy” by P.H. Lee
Come, have a seat and listen as a truth-sworn member of the tale-spinner’s guild tells you a story of a beautiful infant abandoned in the dead of winter by his starving parents. You may think the child died there, nestled in the crook of a tree where his father left him, but you’d be wrong. Before the night was over, he was found by Frost, the being responsible for covering the world in ice each winter. Unable to harm such a lovely child, Frost took him as its apprentice. Years passed, and the child grew into a coldhearted, wicked youth whose favorite part of his work was to freeze pretty maidens to death and watch them die. Now, though, he’s met a girl that may not be as easy a target as the others.
I quite like Lee’s opening paragraph. It immediately establishes the narrator as unreliable in a rather fun way. I also like the premise. Unfortunately, the execution of that premise is lacking. First, there are a lot of typos and oddly worded sentences. For example, when the boy is abandoned, a pair of wolves stop by. During their conversation, the word “wolf” is written as “would,” so that it reads “…the second would sadly shook her head…” Another example can be found in the paragraph when the boy is doing chore’s for the girl’s father. It reads “…The man leapt at the sight, and cowered away from the water and swore aloud while the boy played with the water, and laughed and laughed and laughed until he did not stop…” Until he did not stop what? Laughing? He rarely stops laughing throughout the entire story and, given the surrounding context, I just can’t make sense of this sentence in any other way.
Frost’s boy also appears to continuously wear an evil grin. This is clearly done to emphasize the boy’s character and the cruel pleasure he feels at his deeds, but it doesn’t work. Sadly, it’s just repetitive and not genuine characterization.
In general, the writing style is trying very hard to mimic that of a fairy tale, but the effect just doesn’t quite hit the mark. Much of the writing and the dialogue are not very believable and tend to be needlessly and arduously repetitive. How many times does the reader need to be told that the man’s wife is “cleverer than him by three times or more” or that the boy “has no need for the tools of man” or be reminded of the girl’s purity, for example?
In the end, this is a mediocre tale. It’s a fair enough read, but nothing spectacular.