I started reading the scifi anthology The Best of World SF Vol 1 edited by Lavie Tidhar today. The first story was Immersion by Aliette de Bodard. I thought the story, about a perception enhancement device and a chance encounter, was a bit average. But the context of my reading was above average. It was a sunny afternoon after work and I was sat down on a bench under the pine trees in Croydon Park. I could see a dog playing with a frisbee on the sports oval in the distance. I’d sat down here to read many a short story before, but I haven’t had much time for it lately. So here I was again, at last. There is an amazing ghost gum tree near where I was reading, with twisty branches that seem to point eventually towards the tall straight light tower by the oval. It’s almost like who needs to read when you have this all around you?
Read the second story from The Best of World SF. This was Debtless by Chen Qiufan. Another slightly disappointing story. It starts off well, detailing life on an asteroid mine out past Mars in quite a lot of impressive scientific detail, with the disquieting notion that the worker’s memories are partially erased by the Company supposedly for greater efficiency. The dangers of the job are highlighted when the narrator, Dongfang Jue, witnesses one of his colleagues dying in an accident when she tries to bring in one of the precious money-spinning asteroids. But it quickly turns into psychodrama with Dongfang dreaming of another life he might have led, trying to grasp a memory that has been erased. This storyline was a bit incoherent for me, and in any case I didn’t love the concept of debt that the workers owe the Company in the first place. Just what we need: another future dystopia where our lives are ruled by Corporations.
I read a couple more stories from the Best of World SF. They were Fandom For Robots by Vina Jie-Min Prasad and Virtual Snapshots by Tlotlo Tsamasse. The piece by Tlotlo, a Botswanan writer, is a well-written story of climate change dystopia in Africa where even the very air is up for purchase and most people stay indoors vibing on virtual reality, otherwise known as DigiWorld. It is not an option for the MC here who must go outside to visit her ailing mother who is now 12 months pregnant. It’s not a happy tale, but a vivid one nonetheless. The other story, Fandom For Robots, was an absolute pleasure to read. Telling the story of Computron, ‘the only known sentient robot, created in 1954,’ it lovingly details the out of date boxy robot’s growing fascination with an online anime show called Hyper-dimension Warp Record. This story charts the adventures of prison escapees Ellison, a human, and Cyro, a cybernetic robot. Computron gets drawn into the story so much that it begins writing fan fiction for it, especially identifying with Cyro. But its portrayal of Ellison lacks nuance, which is where fellow fan fiction writer bjornruffian helps out. The two begin a correspondence, with Computron calling itself RobotFan. They begin work on a collab fanfic of the show that becomes a hit. Bjornruffian, who is a woman, doesn’t know RobotFan’s true identity, and thinks its occasional mention of a lack of emotion circuits is simply its sense of humour. This story could have gone on much longer for me. In fact, there’s definitely scope for it. Like, what happens when bjornruffian discovers RobotFan’s true identity? Terrific stuff, and the first five star story for me from this collection.
Read another short story from The Best of World SF. This was Delhi by Vandana Singh. A well-written story about a man in the titled city who sees visions of people from the city’s past and from its future, and who is tasked to help one such woman in particular. The setup was good but I feel it failed to deliver.
I read a couple more stories in the Best of World SF collection. One was The Green Ship by Francesco Verso, a good story. It tackles the issue of refugees fleeing from Africa for Europe in the near future. The titled object is in fact an old aircraft carrier repurposed by a UN type organisation to be a kind of floating island and refuge for the refugees it picks up. It’s always nice to see a touch of idealism and positivity in science fiction, instead of the usual dystopian vision. I call this positive version of scifi Freepunk, and I’m putting this story in that category.
I’m still working through the short story collection The Best of World SF. A couple more good ones have been The Sun From Both Sides by R.S.A Garcia, and His Master’s Voice by Hannu Rajaniemi. The Sun From Both Sides was a two-part story, first about a woman rescuing her lover from slavers, then second the lover rescuing the woman from the consequences of her actions in saving him, because the slavers had placed a bounty on her head. The writing was dazzling, with the second part employing the language of chess to describe the lovers’ hierarchical society where the woman had been taken and imprisoned. The other story, His Master’s Voice, featured an intelligence-enhanced dog who narrates the story of working with an equally intelligent cat to save their master from oblivion. Again, the writing was dazzling, conveying just enough information to make the story plausible. My only complaint about both stories was that they were both perhaps too ‘efficient’ in their narrative styles. Many details were left out and new words or concepts were introduced but given scant definition so that the reader was left struggling to decipher what exactly was going on. You felt like the author was a lot smarter than you and they wouldn’t dumb down their writing for your benefit. So you’ve got to read ‘smarter’ to catch up. Makes for a brainy but not always satisfying read.
I read the last story of The Best of World SF, called If At First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again by Zen Cho. A good way to end, because it was very good. It would want to be – being a Hugo Winning story. I’ve also read a short story collection by Cho and it was good too. Her writing reminds me of Ursula Le Guin. It’s delicate and poetic and whimsical, but grounded in human kindness. A lovely story about an Imugi, a mythical Malaysian creature like a giant worm or snake trying to ascend to become a Dragon. It fails many times, but the last time’s the charm when it becomes involved with a human woman who had inadvertently caused it to fail on its previous attempt. Hilariously, it face-planted into the side of a mountain.
Looking back over my marks on the contents page, the collection had nine stories I really liked out of twenty-five. Not a great ratio, but the nine were very good, and I’m probably being unfair to quite a few of the others, all of which I’d say were at least well-written. It introduced me to some interesting authors who were new to me, like Lauren Beukes, Kofi Nyameye, Francesco Verso and Vina Jie-Min Prasad. I must check out more of their work. Lavie Tidhar, the Editor, did a good job, and this series is proving popular, with at least two more volumes out there.