Lightspeed “My Future Self, Refused” by Adam-Troy Castro
“So, You Married Your Arch Nemesis . . . Again” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
“SyncALife” by Ruben Reyes Jr.
“Welcome to Oxhead” by Julianna Baggott
“The Disappearing Dream Engineer” by Rati Mehrotra
“The Clockmaker and His Daughter” by Tobi Ogundiran
Reviewed by Mike Bickerdike
Of the original work this month Lightspeed offers a novelette, three short stories and two pieces of flash fiction, split evenly between SF and fantasy. It’s a rather mixed bag regarding the quality of the stories.
“My Future Self, Refused” by Adam-Troy Castro is rather unusual, and I feel one should be careful how it’s reviewed, given its theme and content. The piece is not entirely fictional, except in one regard. The author recounts the real-life sudden death of his wife in 2021 and takes us through several stages of his grief through the course of the novelette. The only fictional element is that the author is visited in several scenes by a time-travelling instance of himself from the future. His time-travelling self offers three pieces of advice to the grieving author, to help him through his ordeal. This novelette clearly means a great deal to the author and of course, as a reader, one sympathises with his loss. But as a work of fiction (or even simply as interesting prose) it’s not entirely successful. The story is certainly sad, but it doesn’t make for very engaging reading. The greatest value to be gained from this may have been for the author to write it all down, and for those who know him well to better understand the path he’s been on.
“So, You Married Your Arch Nemesis . . . Again” by Merc Fenn Wolfmoor is another rather challenging story that may have a limited audience. The tale is divided into apparently unconnected sections, which we ultimately learn are fictional instances in which two ‘non-binary’ superheroes fight together. At the end of the story, we learn the reality of the heroes’ relationship. Several sections of the piece comprise interviews conducted with one of the superheroes (‘Sol Undertaker’), regarding his relationship with the other hero (‘Voidshadow’). During these interviews, the interviewer comes out as bisexual on-air, which added little to the plot, and which comes across as virtue-signalling to the intended audience. Every reference to the heroes uses the pronoun ‘they’ and we cannot picture the heroes; they are purposely never described. By strictly keeping to certain linguistic constraints to satisfy the non-binary theme, we end up with a story that makes less sense and provides weaker imagery than could have been the case. The focus of the piece on non-binary relationships will doubtless be rewarding and of interest to non-binary readers, but the weak plot, messy story structure and lack of clear imagery may disappoint the general SF reading public.
“SyncALife” by Ruben Reyes Jr. continues Lightspeed’s trend this month of presenting tales with minority interest. A man buys an eighteen inch robot, into which some of his recently deceased father’s brain cells have been patched to create a small electronic verison of his parent. Living in his father’s old house, the protagonist is struggling both to pay the mortgage and to come to terms with the difficult relationship he had with his late father. There are a few problems with the story, and it’s likely to divide readers. On the one hand, the tone of the protagonist is rather whiny and unappealing, such that the reader doesn’t much care if he sorts his life out or not. A second issue is a lack of focus; it’s thematically rather disjointed and struggles to take the reader along a clear (or engaging) narrative path. The protagonist is gay, which led to his difficult relationship with his father—and this represents the core tension of the tale—but the story fails to explore this in a very satisfying manner. The poems provided as interludes between story sections distract, rather than contribute, to the narrative flow (and are of dubious merit), and the numerous gay sex scenes come across as seedy and overly graphic, to the extent that this reader questioned their intent and purpose. While some readers may appreciate its content and construction, this tale wasn’t to my taste.
“Welcome to Oxhead” by Julianna Baggott is flash fiction and as such, it’s quite difficult to summarise any aspect of the plot without giving away the whole plot. In a future world, two high school kids want to have sex, and realise they must turn off the power grid to escape their homes and make that possible. There are considerable unforeseen consequences, of course. The central idea is not especially new (Edmund Cooper and others wrote novels around very similar premises), and it’s all slightly Freudian—as the author herself notes—but it’s quite well done.
“The Disappearing Dream Engineer” by Rati Mehrotra may meet the elusive definition of ‘science fantasy’ as well as any recent short fiction I’ve read. In this piece of flash fiction, a researcher at a commercial dream research laboratory starts to briefly ‘disappear’ at times, without knowing they are doing it. It’s quite a neat little tale, although as is often the case, expanding this from flash-fiction to a longer story length may have led to a more immersive and interesting tale.
“The Clockmaker and His Daughter” by Tobi Ogundiran is the most enjoyable tale in this issue. In the mythical city of Nyss, years after occupation by the militaristic Anukhi, a clockmaker’s daughter falls victim to a dreadful disease: the stone-sickness. To save her, he tries to obtain ‘Asha’s Tears’, which carry mythical healing powers. Told in direct, clear prose, the characterisation and pace are good and Ogundiran generates good tension, particularly toward the end of the piece. The overall impression is therefore positive, though the key plot ideas–a sickness that turns people to stone, and healing fruit—are one’s we’ve all seen before. The slight lack of novelty aside, this will prove to be an enjoyable story for most readers.
More of Mike Bickerdike’s reviews and thoughts on science-fiction can be found at https://starfarersf.nicepage.io/