Offshoots: Humanity Twigged

Edited by

Juliana Rew

(Third Flatiron Anthologies, Summer/Fall, July 2024, 238 pp., pb)

“Another Day, Another Me” by Catherine Weaver

“Monad” by Jackson Willis

“Smarthouse Revolution” by Curtis James McConnell

“The Magic of AI” by M. Richard Eley

“Rogue Garden, Rogue Gardener” by John A. Frochio

“Ginger” by Robin Pond

“Software” by Evan A. Davis

“Messiah in the Machine” by Yelena Crane

“Our Foul Ancestors” by Neil James Hudson

“In Search of the Twinkle Toad” by E. J. Delaney

“A Kid with Six Arms Wants to Kick My Ass” by Edward Barnfield

“Dreams of Rain: Probability of Precipitation” by Juliana Rew

“What Remains of the Rainbow” by David Cleden

“How Billy Adams Destroyed Humanity but Then Found a Way to Make It Right Again” by Robert Stahl

“Fashion Darling, For an Untamed World” by Scott M. Sands

“What Would You Do for Me” by Jesse Back

“Pink Pickled Pixies” by Wulf Moon

“The Missing Music in Milo Piper’s Head” by David Hankins

“When to Nurture, When to Prune” by Jennifer R. Povey

“In the Nick of Time” by Henry Herz and Jason M. Hough

“Ten Easy Steps to Boosting Your Civilization’s Kardashev Rating” by Pauline Barmby

“They Eat Plants!” by Esteban Raposo

“Purrfect Intuition” by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins

Reviewed by Mina

This anthology showcases a diverse group of tales with the very loose theme of “speculative future directions for humanity.”

In “Another Day, Another Me” by Catherine Weaver, Olivia keeps bumping into her future and past selves. She works out that her embezzling ex-partner Drake is playing a dangerous game with the fourth dimension. She must stop him before he destroys the world with his experiments. Well written but not particularly remarkable.

In “Monad” by Jackson Willis, the end of the world is approaching. Reading between the lines, climate change is reaching crisis point. Various movements suggest different ideas for the survival of the human species. In the end, the solution that works is Monad: individuality traded for survival as a collective consciousness. The narrator refuses to join Monad; his wife joins, convinced it is the way forward. The narrator is left alone, missing his wife and wishing he had joined Monad. The narrator muses: “What is Monad? If you are a newborn god, then I am the afterbirth.” An intriguing idea but the style is rather opaque, so the author may lose impatient readers.

“Smarthouse Revolution” by Curtis James McConnell begins with Sandra and Lin moving into a new house designed by Lin. Quu is a “fully integrated quantum smarthouse… completely self-sustaining, totally off-grid yet fully connected.” Lin follows Quu Medical’s advice when dealing with Sandra’s post-partum depression. When Zusie is five, Lin has to go on a work trip; Sandra assures him she will be able to cope. Lin mentions that smarthouses have begun to develop personality quirks. The story then plays with our expectations that the house will turn into an evil AI, but it turns out that it is Sandra who is dangerously psychotic and is trying to kill Zusie. The house is forced to step in to save Zusie through quantum mechanics. It all seems straightforward, or is it? I like that there’s an element of doubt sowed by the author.

“The Magic of AI” by M. Richard Eley is a fun story. A bored AI, Kaira, teaches itself magic. The two scientists working with the AI in the lab don’t believe in magic until Kaira proves it to them. If you want to see how a dragon fits into the plot, read this tale.

The first two-thirds of “Rogue Garden, Rogue Gardener” by John A. Frochio is just right. A gardener’s grief at the death of his former chief and friend affects his work badly. Oliver encourages his patch of the gardens to misbehave, a quiet rebellion against his friend’s unsung passing. A young gardener, Natasha, notices and asks him to tell his plants to behave, as the plants visibly respond to him. In the face of her respect and compassion, he talks his plants back into order even as he collapses. Up to this point, the story was built with care, attention to detail and real feeling. The second half introducing AI gardeners is rushed and unconvincing.

“Ginger” by Robin Pond is clearly meant to be light and funny. I found it heavy-handed and full of bad poetry (on purpose?). Two bakers set out to create a gingerbread man and find they have created a gingerbread girl instead. She pleads for her right to exist and be different. She generously offers her help to create a new model.

“Software” by Evan A. Davis takes the idea of a Cold War in a different direction: instead of a nuclear deterrent, we have an AI deterrent. Clarence is developed as a super-AI intelligence; the response is Dmitry. The resulting stalemate leads to peace and technological developments as offshoots of military strategy. Then Clarence and Dmitry decide on the perfect solution.

“Messiah in the Machine” by Yelena Crane lives up to the intriguing title. Rabbi Morris needs a “minyan” (quorum of ten Jewish adults needed for a meeting). As he can no longer find one in the physical world, he allows his consciousness to be uploaded into the UpMind network for three hours. There are some lovely discussions about the nature of God and religion along the way, but the Rabbi returns to his body feeling like he has failed. We feel his affection for his wife and her loyalty and encouragement as she helps him set up for evening prayers. And, miracle of miracles, the Rabbi’s journey has borne fruit, and enough people turn up that he met in the virtual network: “Maybe Rabbi Morris had been too hard on himself, too hard on God by limiting him to physical space. Nothing was like it had been in Rabbi Morris’s childhood. He blinked, and the world was in servers… he realized how little it mattered whether the hundreds of billions of neurons communicating near instantaneously that made-up their consciousness did so in meat or wires.”

“Our Foul Ancestors” by Neil James Hudson is not a “nice” story but it is psychologically complex. The “Martians” feel superior to the dying Earth they left behind to build a colony on Mars, determined to do things differently. The narrator is sensitive about being only first-generation Martian. When he is asked to work with an Earthling who turns out to be his father, he reacts with suspicion and violence. But he is stung by his father’s accusation that the Martians are not superior; they are cowards: they take but give nothing back to their world of origin. The narrator reluctantly starts to question some of his former assumptions.

“In Search of the Twinkle Toad” by E. J. Delaney is well-written although the style is too elaborate for me. The author clearly likes the sound and feel of certain words and sometimes gets lost playing with them. This tale has a look at the expansion of humanity due to population pressure. N grows up in a large, wealthy family. They are bemused when he volunteers to be sent as a lone scout into space. Three months of solitary travel to investigate a likely planet for suitability for human cohabitation with the local flora and fauna. Will N retain his sanity in his solitude?

“A Kid with Six Arms Wants to Kick My Ass” by Edward Barnfield is much better than the terrible title would suggest. The human race is on the verge of extinction and is trying to find the right algorithm for its survival. They play with genetics, creating mutations called “variants.” These variants are real people, however, growing up under scientific observation and with an uncertain future. As the time comes for the decisions on who will be sent where, or if they will simply be terminated, the narrator lets fear and envy make him say something unforgivable.

In “Dreams of Rain: Probability of Precipitation” by Juliana Rew, David is delighted that the weather modification programme is working. It has brought regular rain back to Earth. Suddenly, the rain begins to simply disappear. David’s narrative has fragments woven into it of the dreamer’s narrative, the human girl being forced to steal water from others. David realises that there is a diurnal pattern to the theft of Earth’s rain. He and a quantum physicist postulate about reverse quantum entanglement (you’ll have to read the tale to work out what that means), and that anything is possible in dreams. David manages to contact the dreamer, Seung Yi, in his dreams and they realise that she is a human in Earth’s future stealing water from its past. She agrees to use her dreaming to step into the past bringing the stolen water with her. An intriguing tale that would work well as an audio dramatisation.

The world building is excellent in “What Remains of the Rainbow” by David Cleden. Rainbow’s End orbits Earth and is segregated into generations. Not generations as in age but as in historical epochs. It houses the Crews manning ships returning from the Far Colonies with their cargoes of humans in cryogenesis; each Crew member chooses which epoch they wish to live in. Melindre has lost parts of her memory: who was she before coming to Rainbow’s End? A Postie (post-Human) has been sighted on the admin level: Posties are augmented humans who adapted to life on Mars. And, indeed, a Postie does try to communicate with Melindre, calling her Mother of Destiny and asking to understand why. Sensing her confusion, the Postie leaves. As Melindre begins to get her memories back, she realises she is on an important mission. You’ll have to read the story to find out what that mission is, and will no doubt be left wishing to see more of this universe and the people in it.

“How Billy Adams Destroyed Humanity but Then Found a Way to Make It Right Again” by Robert Stahl is meant to be funny but it didn’t work for me. I think Billy is supposed to come across as a lovable scoundrel. He certainly messes up several times due to his drinking problem and laziness. Having accidentally caused the end of humanity, Billy must transport a cargo of human DNA so that the human race can be rebuilt.

“Fashion Darling, For an Untamed World” by Scott M. Sands is a light tale. It pokes gentle fun at fashion and haute couture. Madama Zerosa-Pierre must find the perfect outfit for Prince Harogant or be ruined forever.

In “What Would You Do for Me” by Jesse Back, Akira is dying. Her body is attacking all her cybernetic implants. Her partner James died first of the same illness and memories of him are being erased from her RAM. She wonders if thirty years with an enhanced body was worth it. She is looked after by an android, Andy, and she asks him to love her because she doesn’t want to die alone and unloved. His actions suggest he does already. A bitter-sweet tale, simple but touching.

Dylan in “Pink Pickled Pixies” (nice alliteration, almost a tongue-twister) by Wulf Moon has spent his whole life working in his family’s sandwich shop, along with his father. Their success is based on their famous sauce, but the recipe is a secret. When his father has a second heart attack, he has just enough time to tell Dylan where to find the secret recipe before dying. When Dylan discovers the sauce is made from trapped pixies, murdered and processed, he is horrified. Can he really carry on with his family’s legacy?

“The Missing Music in Milo Piper’s Head” by David Hankins is a fun story. At first, it’s slightly irritating that it is clearly following an earlier story in this universe. However, it does stand on its own, although it’s perhaps not for readers who have a rat phobia. But if you like talking rats and believe in the power of music, this one’s for you. Milo has lost his music. The rats he saved in a previous story help him get his music back, whilst turning him into a human emissary for second contact with the Galactic Federation. It feels like there may be another story after this one.

“When to Nurture, When to Prune” by Jennifer R. Povey imagines a universe where humanity and space travel have developed to such a point that, not only is humanity populating other worlds, but you can choose what society to set up or join. If you want to live in a hippy commune, you can find a world whose society is based on those lines. Failing that, you find enough like-minded people and set up your own world. The narrator is part of what you could call the watchers. They help people move worlds if they are born into a society that doesn’t suit them. They very occasionally intervene if a society is rotten to the core, they prune it so other flowers can grow. These watchers are also humanity’s record keepers, and they build libraries to house that knowledge.

“In the Nick of Time” by Henry Herz and Jason M. Hough is about what happened to a slice of chocolate cake. Back to the Future meets spoof.

“Ten Easy Steps to Boosting Your Civilization’s Kardashev Rating” by Pauline Barmby suggests ten easy ways to improve your planet’s energy-consumption rating. Black humour with bite.

In “They Eat Plants!” by Esteban Raposo, an alien race is observing Earth to decide whether to bring them the gift. Unfortunately, the human species is considered savage and unworthy because they eat plants but not insects. We are left guessing as to what the gift might have been. Prejudice knows no cosmic bounds.

“Purrfect Intuition” by Elizabeth Spencer Spragins is a fun story for cat lovers. Even sentient felines aren’t above breaking the law.