Lightspeed“Let the Star Explode” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda
“Fragments of a Symbiotic Life” by Will McMahon
“An Incomplete Body Has No Answers” by Angela Liu
“Kopki and the Fish” by Alex Irvine
“The Three Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Third Law of Robotics” by Adam-Troy Castro
“Only Some of True Love’s Miracles” by P H Lee
“Islands of Stability” by Marissa Lingen
“Season of Weddings” by Sharang Biswas
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
Eight new works of fiction, many quite short, appear in this issue.
“Let the Star Explode” by Shingai Njeri Kagunda is a very difficult story to describe. The basic premise is that humanoid aliens come to Earth and allow people to jump through gates to other worlds. That makes the work sound like pure science fiction, but it also involves the protagonist’s encounters with a creator deity and a young boy’s transformation into a dying star, among many other strange things.
The major theme, explicitly stated, is that life doesn’t make sense, and that one should accept this fact joyfully. The text jumps back and forth in time, and from one viewpoint to another. There is also some political and economic commentary. At one point, the typography shifts to something resembling a free verse poem. In short, this is a stew with a very large number of ingredients, and will best be appreciated by readers willing to make the effort to follow it down the rabbit hole.
“Fragments of a Symbiotic Life” by Will McMahon is a brief tale in which the narrator is born with a living raccoon for an arm. In later life, what happens to the mismatched pair causes the narrator to ponder the relationship between humans and other animals.
The premise may seem whimsical, but it is handled in a serious, matter-of-fact manner, reminiscent of magic realism. The author has something important to say, and the final image is striking.
Narrated in second person, “An Incomplete Body Has No Answers” by Angela Liu relates how you attempt to communicate with the assembled body parts of an ex-lover, although it is missing certain organs and is unable to respond. You travelled to Mars, where your ex-lover left you for a woman. She gave you the incomplete version of your ex-lover, notably missing his heart.
The inclusion of science fiction elements seems out of place in a story that reads more like psychological horror. The symbolism of the missing heart is obvious, and the story can be read as an allegory for lost love.
In “Kopki and the Fish” by Alex Irvine, a cruel monarch forces a servant to undertake the seemingly impossible mission of obtaining a certain kind of fish found in a faraway land and bringing it back alive, so the ruler can devour its beating heart. If the servant fails and returns, he will be killed; if he does not return, he will never see his beloved daughters again. After multiple disastrous attempts to fulfill the mission, a touch of magic changes the servant’s fate.
This gentle but emotionally powerful story creates a great deal of sympathy for its long-suffering protagonist. The main fantasy premise will remind readers of a certain fairy tale, but the author handles it in a completely original way. The ending offers much food for thought.
Although it is nearly two thousand words long, “The Three Thousand, Four Hundred Twenty-Third Law of Robotics” by Adam-Troy Castro consists of a single sentence, broken into multiple paragraphs. A robot is ordered to wait on a barren planet until its master returns. The cruel owner knows that he will never come back, so the robot must remain motionless, suffering the emotions it experiences but is not allowed to express, forever.
Obviously responding to Isaac Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics, this story contends that human control over sentient machines is inherently a form of slavery. The large number of laws added to the original trio demonstrates the desire to have absolute dominance over others. The author makes the point powerfully, if somewhat repetitiously, but the unusual narrative structure is distracting.
“Only Some of True Love’s Miracles” by P H Lee begins with the idea of sculptors falling in love with their creations, causing the gods to bring them to life, as in the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea. The premise is extended to weavers loving their looms, which then come to life, then to many other creations. Eventually, weapons of war come to life, leading to the story’s final revelation.
The way in which the author develops the premise is something of a tour de force, creating a world full of loved, living devices in less than thirteen hundred words. Most of the text reads like an essay, although the ending adds a personal touch. The resulting work is more to be admired as an intellectual exercise than enjoyed as a story.
In “Islands of Stability” by Marissa Lingen, researchers study a woman who is more than one hundred and twenty years old in an attempt to uncover the secrets of her longevity. That’s about all there is to this brief tale, which ends just as the study begins.
Although set at a future time when some people have implants in their brains, in a way analogous to the Internet, none of the science fiction content is relevant to the minimal plot. The woman’s advanced age is within the realm of possibility, so the story could take place today. The implied theme, that staying interested in the world can extend one’s lifespan, is a worthy one, but the work seems incomplete, stopping just when it becomes most intriguing.
The protagonist of “Season of Weddings” by Sharang Biswas is Thanatos, the god of death, usually known as Nate. He attends a series of weddings, some in our own mundane world and some in the realms of gods and other supernatural entities. Along the way, he has to deal with the fact that the god Thor, a former lover, has left him for a mortal woman. A coincidental pair of encounters at two of the weddings offers the possibility of a new relationship.
This whimsical tale reads like a light romantic comedy, its fantasy content contrasting with its plot in a way meant to amuse. This sometimes verges on the ludicrous, as when the angel Gabriel acts like a stereotypical effeminate gay man. (The author is openly gay, so I’m sure no offense is meant.) Readers are likely to get a chuckle out of the way in which these deities and other fantastic beings act like ordinary folks.
Victoria Silverwolf resisted the temptation to write this review as one long sentence.