[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]
Strange Horizons, January 1st & 8th, 2024
“A Cure For Solastalgia” by E.M. Linden (1/1/24)
“Frogskin” by M.L. Krishnan (1/8/24)
Reviewed by Mina
“A Cure For Solastalgia” by E.M. Linden taught me a new word. For those of you who also found yourselves running for your dictionary, “solastalgia” is a neologism: “a form of homesickness one gets when one is still at home, but the environment has been altered and feels unfamiliar…Used primarily to describe the negative psychological effect of chronic environmental destruction on an individual’s homeland, or the place they call home.” (https://bureauoflinguisticalreality.com/portfolio/solastalgia/)
The protagonist rebels against their parents (who clearly represent rapacious capitalism) and joins other like-minded eco-warriors (who are clearly on the side of the angels). They all have a “gift” or magic powers that they use to fight wanton environmental destruction on a small scale. They are clearly combating such destruction in a wealthy country with their magic. The protagonist can turn back time to undo the construction of a luxury hotel that destroyed a coastal ecosystem, for example. It’s a “restoration,” but it doesn’t always work. The protagonist faces a painful challenge—can they restore the wetlands of their childhood home that their parents helped destroy?
My favourite thing was that each character’s magic has a “signature,” which other magic wielders can recognise. The description of each signature is practically a poem, as is the description of the protagonist’s use of their magic. The prose is a treat and my only quibble with the story is that it is too starkly black and white.
“Frogskin” by M.L. Krishnan is just too full of flowery prose. I think that, with some restraint, this writer could be quite good. The story gets a bit obscured by the whirlwind of words. Perhaps it is imitating an Indian genre that I am not familiar with? In any case, it seems to be about a woman’s fate being determined first by her (seemingly doting) parents and then by her (clearly repulsive) husband and that woman’s attempts to escape to freedom over different lives.