REVIEW: “Necessary and Sufficient Conditions” by Wole Talabi

Review of Wole Talabi, “Necessary and Sufficient Conditions”, Apex Magazine 117 (2019): Read Online. Reviewed by Joanna Z. Weston.

This is a story about revenge. Yemi Ladipo is on a quest to murder the man who took everything from him, Professor Olukoya. It would do the story a disservice to say that Yemi learns that the truth is more complicated than it seems, because this story is so much richer than that cliché would suggest. The truth does not exonerate Olukoya, so much as flesh him out.

The story really picks up – transitioning from pure revenge in a science fiction setting to something unique – when Professor Olukoya begins to explain why he did what he did, so many years ago. His reasons are not enough to move Yemi, but it’s up to each reader to determine whether or not one death is worth it for the greater good. It would be easy to make the professor either tragically misunderstood by the protagonist, or a simple villian, and I’m glad that the story went in neither of those directions. Talabi does not let this story rest in simplicity, which I appreciate. The conclusion goes one step further, forcing Yemi to really confront difficult truths.

I haven’t touched on this yet, but the fact that this story takes place in a science fiction future in which an African country is at the forefront of technology is both a lovely change of pace (and something we should see more of), and a relevant plot point that I will not spoil for you. Highly recommended for anyone who likes their science fiction both character driven and fast-moving.

J.Z. WestonLeave a comment

REVIEW: “There Used to be Olive Trees” by Rich Larson

Review of Rich Larson, “There Used to be Olive Trees”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2018: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2018): 225-247 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Warning: minor spoilers.

Valentin is one of the Town’s two prophets, fitted with an implant so that he can talk to the gods. The only problem is: He can’t. Three times he has tried, and three times he has failed, when no one else has ever required more than two times. Once more he will be given the opportunity to try — but “anything was better” (p. 224) than trying and failing again, so the story opens with Valentin scaling the wall that separates the Town from outside, where the wilders are.

Once Valentin gets over the wall, the story goes pretty much as one would expect: He meets someone, and runs into difficulties, he must do what that someone requires of him before he can claim his freedom, and eventually, out in the wilds beyond the Town he learns how to finally speak so that the gods will listen. But by this time, he no longer has any desire to return to the Town to be their prophet; instead, he and Pepe are striking out on their own.

Nothing was especially surprising about the story, but there were little bits that I really appreciated. The tech was novel, and exceedingly believable (can I have my own nanoshadow, plz kthanx?); and there was a poignancy to the story that left it ending on a hopeful, rather than sour, note.

(Originally published in Fantasy & Science Fiction, 2017).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Uncanny Valley” by Greg Egan

Review of Greg Egan, “Uncanny Valley”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2018: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2018): 173-208 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Warning: minor spoilers.

The original Uncanny Valley is the “the proposed relation between the human likeness of an entity and the perceiver’s affinity for it” [1], the gap between things which appear to be human but not quite human enough. All the baggage that Mori’s original definition and paper have given rise to feeds into Egan’s story, a lot of baggage for it to carry, even before one begins to read. What would be populating this uncanny valley, and why? This will depend on the reader. What falls into that valley, and why, depends on the individual, precisely because it is about the discrepancy between perception and representation, both of which are individual.

For me, it actually took awhile before I realised who I was supposed to be putting into the valley; but even after it was explicit that Adam was not a man but a robot, he stubbornly refused to go into the valley, for me. It’s not so much that highly-enough developed robots are indistinguishable from humans to me; but that I find it a lot easier to interact with humans if I think of them as a bunch of highly-enough developed automata. So, robot or human, for the most part, it doesn’t make any difference.

But only for the most part: Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the story was the moment Adam did something that did dump me into the uncanny valley — and that was the moment Egan made it clear that a robot could experience sexual arousal and desire.

I have no idea how many other people will share that experience with me, or if they’ll find their own methods of populating the uncanny valley. I certainly recommend that everyone read the story and try it for themselves.

[1] Masahiro Mori, Karl F. MacDorman (trans.), and Norri Kageki (trans.), “The Uncanny Valley”, IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine 2012: 98-100.

(Originally published at Tor.com, 2017.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Future of Hunger in the Age of Programmable Matter” by Sam J. Miller

Review of Sam J. Miller, “The Future of Hunger in the Age of Programmable Matter”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2018: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2018): 155-171 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Content note: drug addiction and abuse.

Reading this story put me through the ringer. It is raw, and hard, and harsh, and dark. It is so masterfully put together that as a writer myself, I read it and despaired of ever writing anything ever again, because it was so good, and I could never do anything that good. At the same time, reading it made me want to write, because it was so good, and that means people can write things so good, and maybe I could too, someday.

But what amazed me most about it was not its depths, not the quality of the writing, but the way in which Miller took such a sad story that could have been sordid and turned it into something beautifully redemptive. The moment of hope at the end left me in tears.

(Originally published on Tor.com, 2017.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Exile” by Cathal Ó Sándair

Review of Cathal Ó Sándair, “The Exile” in A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction, edited by Jack Fennell (Tramp Press, 2018): 253-260 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

The final story in this anthology was originally published 123 years after the first one — so far into the future of the early 19th C as to be almost unimaginable (though that didn’t prevent the early authors from trying!). The contrast between this story and the previous ones was marked: This one felt modern. This is in part because, although it was written in 1960, it is set in what is still the future of 2019. (Although it’s not our timeline, that’s for sure; we did not make contact with the Selenites, those who live on the moon, in 2007 as happened in this story.)

Seán Murphy was a young man when he first read an advertisement in the paper calling for young men to emigrate to the Moon. Despite his mother’s desires, and promising to come back within 5 years, Seán went. But when his mother died before the five years was up, there was — for many years at least — no reason for him to return home, no reason, until he himself was old and grown, his wife dead, his children scattered. Then it seemed to Seán that his life on the Moon was an exile, and he desired to return to Ireland, to die there.

The joy in this story is the way it pokes sly fun at the loyalty that the Irish have for Ireland — “the nicest place under the sun” (p. 257) — in the face of the width and breadth of the solar system for comparison. But the grass is always greener on the other side, and what Seán finds when he returns to Ireland is not quite what he bargained on.

(Originally published in 1960; this translation by the present editor.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Chronotron” by Tarlach Ó hUid

Review of Tarlach Ó hUid, “The Chronotron” in A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction, edited by Jack Fennell (Tramp Press, 2018): 241-249 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Content warning: contemplation of self-harm and suicide.

Ó hUid’s tale is a cautionary tale of time-travel gone wrong. Seosamh, the narrator, is the friend of one Professor Ó Neill, who has long been working on “a contraption that could travel through Time” (p. 242). When the machine, the Chronotron, is finally complete, the Professor invites Seosamh over for dinner, one night in 1985, and to join him in testing the contraption.

This story is perhaps the most Irish of all the ones I’ve read in the anthology so far. The Professor interrogates Seosamh on “which event from Irish history is most to blame for the hideous state of the country today?” (p. 246); Seosamh is at no loss for options, including the Norman invasion, the Famine, or the Civil War. What better use for a time machine than to attempt to avert one of these crises? But never forget the consequences of meddling with history…

(Originally published in 1946; translated by the editor in 2018).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Twenty-Nine Responses to Inquiries About My CraigsList Post: Alien Spaceship for Sale. $200, you Haul.” by Tina Connolly

Review of Tina Connolly, “Twenty-Nine Responses to Inquiries About my CraigsList Post: Alien Spaceship for Sale. $200, you Haul.”, Unidentified Funny Objects 6, 2017.  pp. 64-67. Purchase here. Review by Ben Serna-Grey.

This one is pretty funny overall. Personally stories have a high chance of growing old quickly when it’s a clever/funny epistolary story, especially in the form of a quippy instruction manual or the like. But this one developed fairly well, pulled some genuine laughs from me, and didn’t overstay its welcome.

With Tina Connolly having the pedigree she does, I’m not surprised she pulled this one off so well. Recommended.

Ben Serna-GreyLeave a comment

REVIEW: “The Sorcerer” by Charlotte McManus

Review of Charlotte McManus, “The Sorcerer” in A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction, edited by Jack Fennell (Tramp Press, 2018): 209-221 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

The story of the Sorcerer is the story of William Carney, “who had a charm” (p. 209). There is a pleasing uncertainty and ambiguity to this charm — is it charm in the sense of being charming? Or is it more concrete, more explicit, is there some tangible magic spell that he holds? McManus is never explicit, leaving the reader to fill in the gaps as they will.

This unclarity concerning the Sorcerer’s charm is in interesting contrast to another character in the story, whom we only know as the Experimenter — he is never given a name. His experiments are scientific in nature:

He was engaged on experiments of light, and sound, and electric waves, and psycho-activities, and was just then experimenting on sound in its relation to the rest (p. 213).

His particular interest is in animal magnetism and odic forces, and the ways in which all of these forces interact is described sometimes in great detail. It makes for an interesting experience: The magic, less detailed, is described in such a way that one can yet believe in its veracity; the science, more detailed, has become dated, so that it is hard to willingly suspend one’s disbelief. It’s an example of a broader phenomenon — that fantasy can stand the test of time better than science fiction sometimes can.

(Originally published in 1922.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “The Great Beast of Kafue” by Clotilde Graves

Review of Clotilde Graves, “The Great Beast of Kafue” in A Brilliant Void: A Selection of Classic Irish Science Fiction, edited by Jack Fennell (Tramp Press, 2018): 193-205 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology).

Some science fiction themes are perennial: And in the case of this present story, the theme which feels just as current now in 2019 as it must have in 1917 when it was originally published is dinosaurs. Modern SF dreams of extracting dino DNA and splicing it in to eggs to create new dinosaurs; and apart from science people still dream of one day finding the Loch Ness monster or her cousins. In “The Great Beast of Kafue”, the narrator, tells us of an incident that happened when he was a young boy, living with his Dutch-descended father in Rhodesia, some years after the death of his Irish mother, concerning the titular Great Beast, whom newspaper reports had said had been sighted in the wild depths. A mysterious, fantastical beast, that few had seen — and in fact, seen by only one white man, and the narrator dreams of the day that he might find the beast himself, and with his father’s elephant gun kill it. But when he tells his father this, he finds himself drawn into a story he’s never heard before, and being asked to promise something that would mean forfeiting those very dreams.

In a weird way, this is almost a love story, more than anything, and its strengths lie in the timelessness of its topics (both dinosaurs AND love). But it’s not entirely timeless: It’s unreflectively colonial in a way that would’ve been unremarkable a century ago but which is somewhat uncomfortable now. I liked the way that Graves incorporated the narrator’s father’s Dutch heritage so seamlessly into the story, even while my appreciation of that warred with how problematic the framing itself was. It’s hard to know what to say about a story like this: I don’t want to excuse the author, but I also don’t want to say “don’t read it”. So I guess the best thing to do is to flag the issue, and let the next reader make an informed decision for themself.

(Originally published in 1917.)

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment

REVIEW: “Making the Magic Lightning Strike Me” by John Chu

Review of John Chu, “The Library of Lost Things”, in Steve Berman, ed., Wilde Stories 2018: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction (Lethe Press, 2018): 79-94 — Purchase here. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman. (Read the review of the anthology.)

Charlie Tsai’s job is one that needs a man with height, and strength — two things Charlie didn’t have and always wanted and that’s why he got the job. Because his new employers would “make the lightning strike” and even if it didn’t give him the body he wanted, it was close enough that Charlie would always be beholden to them.

This was a story full of contrasts and tensions — on the one hand, it almost feels like a superhero origin story. On the other hand, for a story involving big burly men who lift weights and are described as being like WWF fighters, it is unexpectedly and surprisingly tender. It is finely crafted, and that brings with it its own layer of pleasure, to watch a master story-teller plying their trade.

(Originally published in Uncanny Magazine, 2017).

Sara L. Uckelman1 Comment