The Reference Library
by Rosemary Claire Smith
Do you love how science fiction writers find creative ways to update themes and tropes that have fascinated some of the stalwarts of our field for decades? I’m talking about characters such as the hotshot space pilot with deadly aim and relationship issues, or the cynical private investigator who also could stand to do serious work on their interpersonal skills. Then there are the clones unsettled by encounters with their alter egos, or the talented thieves who must rely on each other during that make-or-break heist. Another favorite is the exhilaration and terror of using one’s own feathered wings to fly. A favorite of mine is the alienation experienced by those who come to Earth after growing up very far off planet, or mysterious beings who dwell far down in the ocean depths. I also tend to fall into the quest for the one mysterious artifact that may determine the fate of galactic civilization, if it exists at all. This month, I found fascinating new books that take these familiar starting points in unexpected directions. They are written by a batch of new writers who draw upon their experiences living on three different continents.
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The Wings Upon Her Back
Samantha Mills
Tachyon
April 23, 2024
ISBN: 978-161696-414-6
394 pages
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Samantha Mills made a big splash with her multiple-award-winning short story, “Rabbit Test.” She follows it up with a debut novel that delves into the yearning for human-powered flight. It’s a craving, at times an obsession, dating back at least thousands of years to the Greek myth of Icarus, who was warned against flying either too high or too low. The Wings Upon Her Back explores how much a person might give up to obtain this dream, and then how far they would go to hang on to it. Mills creates a world where elite warriors willingly undergo surgery to attach a pair of wings to ports in their backs, which are connected to their nervous systems. The physical and psychological costs of the operation are frightfully steep. Nevertheless, highly trained fighters proudly undergo the procedure to become guardians of the city-state of Radezhda. Mills has created a richly drawn world in which fantasy elements and futuristic bio-medical technology are deftly and thoroughly intermingled.
In Radezhda, everyone belongs to one of five sects: scholars, laborers, farmers, engineers, and the military. Most residents harbor deep suspicions about those who belong to a different sect and strongly discourage their children from joining another one. Each group worships its own deity. These five enigmatic beings might be actual gods or technologically advanced beings exhibiting god-like powers on the rare occasions when they are physically active. They spend most of their time in a mysterious place above the top of high towers, where they are either asleep or in stasis. Mills leaves readers to their own interpretations rather than coming down on one side or the other of the usual divide between fantasy and science fiction.
This non-linear story is told in three interwoven parts. One consists of excerpts from a secret text written by heretical scholars, which gradually reveal what is really going on. The second covers the main character’s early years when she was known as Zenya. She increasingly rebels against family expectations that she will become a scholar like them. Instead, she joins the Mecha, aerial fighters sworn to a life-time of service defending the outer borders of the city-state of Radezhda from enemies. Thus, she becomes Pava Zemolai and later Winged Zemolai. She works extraordinarily hard to gain the approval of her group leader, Mecha Vodaya. However, after twenty-six years of faithful service to her mentor, Winged Zemolai makes a serious mistake in judgment by granting leniency to a lowly kitchen worker who impermissibly worships the scholars’ god. When the man plants a bomb, Mecha Vodaya not only sentences Zemolai to exile from the Mechas, but also has her wings brutally torn from her back and crumpled beyond repair.
Once-Winged Zemolai is left on the street to die. Instead, she falls into the hands of a rebel cell bent on re-educating her. Zemolai is forced to take a hard look at the decades she devoted to defending Mecha Vodaya’s increasingly repressive and totalitarian regime.
Zemolai’s path to redemption is difficult and uncertain, as she grapples with fundamental beliefs she swore to uphold at considerable personal cost. Worse yet, she must reevaluate her relationship with Mecha Vodaya, who became the most important person in her life. Mills gives us a moving portrait of the psychological responses that flow from having to acknowledge that the person one idolized for years and years committed reprehensible acts and used their undue influence to manipulate and exploit an inexperienced younger person who trusts and admires them. For everyone who ever wonders why a victim does not “just leave” their abuser, The Wings Upon Her Back compassionately illuminates how impossible this seems.
If The Wings Upon Her Back has a flaw, it is that secondary characters wind up being little more than embodiments of their respective social groups. Readers like me are far more interested in the complex relationship between Zemolai and Vodaya, as well as the intriguing world building, and the tense, vividly described aerial battles. These consume so much of the oxygen that little is left over for other characters. Here’s hoping Mills will return to Radezhda to give us more tales of winged warriors, their gods, and the people they are sworn to defend.
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These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart
Izzy Wasserstein
Tachyon Publications
March 12, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-61696-412-2
192 pages
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These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart takes place in the center of a decayed and partially-abandoned Midwestern city in the not-too-distant future. Izzy Wasserstein examines what’s left when all levels of government and big business give up on the heart of downtown Kansas City after it is beset by the twin scourges of climate change and end-stage capitalism. Before the pandemic, I would probably have doubted that the urban core of a major city might be ceded to the down and out, including the unhoused. Sadly, it’s easier these days to understand how quickly an urban area can change, especially when you stop to consider how many metropolitan areas all over the globe have been abandoned over the course of human history.
In short, Wasserstein’s late-twenty-first-century Kansas City works brilliantly as the gritty setting for a noir murder mystery reminiscent of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles in the 1930s. These Fragile Graces, This Fugitive Heart is an astonishing neo-noir techno-thriller SF mash-up. The story opens with a queer, trans woman learning that her former lover is dead. When Dora is asked to investigate, she is reluctant to return to the anarchist commune where she lived with Kay. She does so because there is nobody else to conduct an investigation. The evidence points to murder. In a city largely abandoned by the police and the criminal justice system, Dora is very much on her own in trying to solve the crime. Trouble is, she gave in to her impulse to burn her bridges when she stormed out, leaving the remaining commune members justifiably distrustful of her. However, some of their lives are in danger from whomever murdered Kay. Then an attempt on Dora’s life is made by . . . her pre-transition clone.
Many science fiction writers have used clones as mirrors to explore questions of identity. It makes good sense to suppose that, just as clones are not identical in other respects, their decisions as to their bodies and their gender identity will not be completely uniform. That said, it’s another thing entirely for a detective to come to grips with a clone of her former self, one who is actively working for the forces that want her dead. Izzy Wasserstein succeeds in not only nailing, but also reinventing, the trope of the hard-bitten private detective with a prickly personality, one who is both complex and deeply flawed for thoroughly understandable reasons. The icing on this cake is a twisty conspiracy leading to a satisfactory resolution, all packed into an admirably concise book.
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Lost Ark Dreaming
Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Tor Publishing Group, Tordotcom
May 21, 2024
ISBN 978-125089-075-7
192 pages
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It makes good sense for science fiction novels in which sea level rise figures prominently to be set in iconic locations such as Venice, New Orleans, Holland, and low-lying Pacific islands, but these are assuredly not the only human habitats threatened by the ocean’s incursions. Nigeria is another natural choice, one that forms the backdrop for Lost Ark Dreaming. It happens to be where Suyi Davies Okungbowa spent his younger years. The novel explores the premise that in the not so distant future, a scant five high-rises, termed “the Fingers,” are all that remain of Lagos after sea level rise transformed it into a human refuge off the coast of West Africa. Life in these towers comes off as considerably grimmer than in the New York high rises that Kim Stanley Robinson envisions along the mid-city canals in his New York 2140. For openers, Okungbowa’s towers are extraordinarily stratified. Their inhabitants grasp at whatever means they can find to better their situations, while being terrified of sinking or tumbling down to the lower levels, both figuratively and literally. Some have survived the collapse of other towers, which caused them to become refugees in others, including “the Pinnacle.”
Lost Ark Dreaming interweaves three story strands, told from alternating viewpoints. The first is a midder named Yekini, an analyst for a police department of sorts. She is assigned to look into a possible breach of the outer wall of the Pinnacle. Next comes Ngozi, an arrogant upper-level bureaucrat who fears losing so much. Lastly, we meet a courageous and pragmatic lower named Tuowo, a foreman/superintendent doing everything he can to keep all the residents of his level safe. Circumstances force the trio to work together despite their considerable disdain for one another. These circumstances consist of a mysterious—seemingly impossible—incursion into the high-rise by a mysterious being from beneath the ocean. The creature appears capable of breathing not only under water but also in the air. I first interpreted this being as a fantasy element injected into a futuristic story, one I was tempted to dismiss as a fanciful invention to further the plot. Eventually, it is revealed that this sea being, and others of its kind, evolved at an ultra-accelerated pace from humans enslaved in Africa. These ancestors were forced to board slave ships bound for the western hemisphere, but they jumped overboard and managed to survive under the ocean.
Having enjoyed science fiction stories that depend on faster-than-light travel, various forms of teleportation, and instantaneous ansible communication, I decided not to let extraordinarily rapid evolution capsize my enjoyment of Okungbowa’s novel. To do so would not only feel curmudgeonly but would also miss the point of this cautionary tale. Besides, people have always told stories about remarkable creatures dwelling in deep waters. There is indeed much we have yet to discover about the oceans around us and the creatures living in at considerable depths. I am reminded of coelacanths, dubbed “living fossils,” which were long thought to have gone extinct when the dinosaurs did, only to be recovered alive in fishermen’s nets in 1938. Nor are coelacanths the only species to astound zoologists. Orcas were long believed to live exclusively in coastal waters, until they were observed in recent years hunting grey whale calves and northern elephant seals in the open ocean.
Intriguing interludes provide considerably more context as to how contemporary societies evolved into the one portrayed inside the Pinnacle. It involved doubling down or tripling down on rigid economic stratification. This class-based society is not so restrictive that it would be impossible for individuals to improve their lots or to fall down into worse circumstances. In fact, all three view-point characters did suffer a detrimental change in status due to the loss of beloved family members—parents, a sister, and a wife. Memories of the deceased drive their desires to maintain or regain their social stratas.
Okungbowa paints vivid landscapes—or rather seascapes interspersed with high rises—filled with people whose lives and spirits get distorted and eroded away. The message is that this includes all of us, even those tempted to draw comfort from the seeming security of residing in the upper reaches of tall towers, those who want to believe that strong doors and locks will forever keep the midders and lowers out. It’s one thing to mythologize what beings might navigate the deep ocean currents all around our tower. It’s quite another to learn that those beings have vital reasons to climb up among us. As a former archaeologist, I am mindful that for thousands of years, people have enforced social hierarchies through the buildings they erected. Must it be inevitable that future generations will do so?
Lost Ark Dreaming depicts the ravages of centuries of capitalism, built upon the widespread institution of slavery, culminating in ecological disaster. As the oceans rise, those who control socio-political institutions respond by increasing the rigid economic stratification, literalized in the high-rise buildings of inundated Lagos. All in all, Okungbowa gives us an unflinching, vividly imaginative contribution to contemporary climate fiction, one that fights against despair sparked by rampant greed, one that rallies us to rise to the challenges ahead.
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The Stardust Grail
Yume Kitasei
Flatiron Books (Macmillan)
June 11, 2024
ISBN: 978-125087-537-2
320 pages
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Here’s a fast-paced read for anyone drawn in by a rollicking tale of thievery in the fine tradition of Oceans 11 and its sequels. Yume Kitasei made an impressive debut with The Deep Sky, a murder mystery aboard a generation ship bound for a distant planet. Her second novel, Stardust Grail, is billed as an anti-colonial space heist. The plot revolves around the quest to locate an ancient artifact, the last of its kind, that may well dictate the fate of an entire alien civilization. That is, if the thing still exists, for it has not been seen in over a century.
The Stardust Grail introduces an engaging, if unlikely, pair of interstellar art thieves who enjoy an unusual relationship. Grad school dropout Maya Hoshimoto devoted ten years to stealing rare art works in order to return them to their rightful owners. After one heist went terrifyingly wrong, she went back to graduate school at Princeton, where she studies comparative cultures. Her aquatic alien partner, Auncle, belongs to the ancient Frenro, who have lost much more of their technology than they remember. Maya misses her jaunts from planet to planet aboard Auncle’s spaceship, especially the times Auncle wrapped Maya in xyr tentacles while they conversed telepathically. One day, Maya’s old friend and partner comes calling with the lure of one last job—finding the last surviving stardust grail.
Auncle and the rest of the Frenro cannot conceive or bear children without the grail. The Frenro barely survived a disastrous war with other aliens, but lost their knowledge of how to create offspring. Thus, the continued viability of their species is utterly dependent upon this single remaining artifact. Here, I confess to harboring doubts as to how a species could have ever evolved with such a precarious ability to reproduce. This didn’t stop me from turning pages. The Stardust Grail unfolds like an onion. Kitasei is a master of revealing layer after layer of complexity surrounding the long, tragic history of inter-species relations.
Naturally, the possible existence of one lone stardust grail attracts other claimants, including other aliens with whom Maya and Auncle have tangled before. An Earth-based military coalition soon joins the race to find the grail. They need it to preserve the ancient nodes connecting far-flung inhabitable planets in distant parts of the galaxy. These nodes are degrading. Some have already vanished. Worse yet, the knowledge base for fixing the nodes was lost during the wars between the Frenro and the other aliens. While readers may harbor doubts as to how to resolve this ethical dilemma, Maya never seriously considers doing anything except helping Auncle and the Frenro.
In contrast, Kitasei does recognize that the ethics of trafficking in antiquities can be problematic. However, The Stardust Grail might have delved into a more nuanced exploration of the conundrums museums, collectors, and archaeologists face, one that better reflects sensitivities as to who “owns” priceless ancient artifacts of immense scientific and monetary value. It is easy enough to begin with the guiding principle that, in certain circumstances, artifacts and works of art ought to be repatriated to the living descendants of those who created them. After all, many rare artifacts were stolen from their original creators or owners by foreigners. Other items were forcibly seized or purchased under exploitative conditions, at best, or from outright looters. In still other situations, those who ratified a transfer belonged to a different ethnic group or did not share the cultural heritage of the original creators. It’s trickier, however, if those living in the area where the objects were collected or unearthed bear a tenuous relationship to the ancient inhabitants who created them in the distant past. Next, we come to the principal that objects of scientific value deserve to be placed in museums for study. Questions immediately arise: Who selects the museum? Who decides which experts ought to be granted access to study the materials? Naturally, museums also facilitate public display of their collections, or a small fraction of them, anyway. The choice of museum dictates who can view its contents and how well the objects will be preserved. Most importantly, who tells the story regarding these items that may have historical significance to several countries? Does it matter if the museum is in a politically unstable nation or one subject to attack by its neighbors? All this said, The Stardust Grail grapples with delicate ethical considerations in a far more sophisticated manner than tales glorifying tomb robbers of the all-too-common Indiana Jones or Lara Croft variety.
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Loka (The Alloy Era book 2)
S.B. Divya
47North
August 13, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-66250-506-5
367 pages
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Ever since reading and reviewing S. B. Divya’s Meru, I looked forward to the second book in this duology. Loka proves to be a worthy successor to Meru. That said, I wouldn’t mind if Divya returns to the Meru/Loka universe to explore the lives of other characters, or perhaps to show us the events preceding Meru, especially those that led to humanity being restricted to Earth for five centuries.
The main character in Meru is Jayanthi, a sixteen-year-old who is fully human but was raised by Alloys. These are our post-human descendants whose genes were extensively modified to make them well-adapted for the hard vacuum of space. Jayanthi developed an unlikely friendship and then a romantic relationship with Vaha, a young Alloy pilot on zer first assignment after barely graduating from flight school. Although both Jayanthi and Vaha put in appearances as viewpoint characters in Loka, the plot of this second novel revolves around their sixteen-year-old daughter, Akshaya.
Akshaya’s mother tailored her genes for life on the distant planet of Meru rather than Earth. This means Akshaya inherited her mother’s gene for sickle cell anemia, which is a biological advantage on Meru, in contrast to Earth. Like teenagers everywhere, Akshaya has little desire to conform to the life plan her mother devised for her. Instead, her dream is to take her best friend, Somya, on an around-the-world journey on Earth, known as the “Anthro Challenge.” Akshaya longs to see blue skies and sunrises, and to feel wind and rain. There are several catches. First, sickle-cell anemia can be a debilitating condition on Earth. Second, the Anthro Challenge disallows assistance from the Alloys who manage the regions of Earth renamed “Loka.” Nor do the rules of the Anthro Challenge permit the use of any Alloy devices or technologies, including advanced methods of weather forecasting. Lastly, the Anthro Challenge must be completed in a brief period of time. Thus, Loka is, in some respects, a futuristic version of Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.
Akshaya sets off with Somya on this voyage of discovery. The mechanics of their travels across Earth’s land masses and watery expanses are utterly convincing, and at times harrowing. It’s great stuff for anyone fascinated by the many difficulties inherent in human exploration of more hostile regions around the globe before the development of our current level of technology. Like any good tale about a voyage of discovery, this one includes plenty of experiences that force the participants to reevaluate some key beliefs about the natural world, the people who live in a variety of communities, and their inter-personal relationships. The adventures of the two teenagers gain an off-planet following like a far-future version of the reality show The Incredible Race. They also take on increasing significance for the lives of humans on Earth and elsewhere.
All too many coming-of-age tales fall prey to saccharine endings. Divya skillfully navigates the fine line between gritty truths and unrealistic optimism to wrap things up in a warmhearted way. Loka stands on its own rather well. I suspect, however, that it is more enjoyable if one reads Meru first. It should appeal to those looking for a Young Adult science fiction adventure that is a fast read.
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Ocean’s Godori
Elaine U. Cho
Hillman Grad Books
April 23, 2024
ISBN: 978-1-63893-059-4
368 pages
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Elaine U. Cho’s debut space opera, Ocean’s Godori, envisions a future in which many parts of the Solar System were terraformed under the auspices of the Alliance, which is Korea’s militaristic space agency. Told from several viewpoints, the story primarily focuses on Ocean Moon, a hotshot Korean space pilot whose loyalty to her friends and aim with a gun are matched only by her rebellious, anti-authoritarian streak. As XO of the Ohneul, a fourth class space ship, she soon finds herself at odds with the by-the-book captain. On top of this, Ocean enjoys a fraught relationship with her mother, whom she has not forgiven for thwarting her aspiration to become a deep-sea diver instead of an officer on an Alliance space ship.
One of Cho’s strengths is her fully developed portrayal of several more characters, such as Ocean’s friend Teo Anand. As the misfit scion of one of the wealthiest families in the Solar System, Teo aspires to design couture space suits. This seems like an absurdly unrealistic goal, even given his status as the younger son of a family known far and wide for their ruthless methods of amassing and hanging on to their unseemly fortune. The rest of the mismatched crew includes Maggie Thierry, the quirky and persnickety mechanic, as well as Von Kent, a xenobotanist who is extraordinarily loyal to Ocean, much to the captain’s displeasure. Then there is Haven Sasani, a gifted physician who hails from a small, poorly understood ethnic enclave that eschews physical contact with anyone outside their community. Haven came on board feeling uncertain about how he will fit into the dynamics of the established crew, only to learn that the captain took him on to replace a beloved crew member who was dismissed months before he would have been eligible to retire.
If the characters seem like they belong in a reassuring tale of found family, be advised that the meticulously-detailed interpersonal dynamics among the ship’s crew and with other characters, including the romantic yearnings of some, contrast markedly with several stark episodes of violence that come seemingly from nowhere. Dark forces are at work, ones that will go to great lengths to overturn the status quo in which Anand Tech exploits the hapless settlements stretching from Mercury all the way out to Neptune. As you might expect, the presence of an ace pilot means lots of white-knuckled flying scenes. Curiously, these came off as more akin to car races, perhaps because the controls include foot pedals and a steering wheel of sorts.
Two final notes: First, Oceans Godori ends on cliffhanger. A sequel, Teo’s Durumi, is in the works. Second, if you are thinking of reading Ocean’s Godori on an empty stomach, I’m hard-pressed to name another spaceship whose crew prepares and consumes Korean meals and snacks that smell and taste as delicious as the Ohneul’s.
Rosemary Claire Smith is a Sidewise Award nominee who has worked as a field archaeologist, union leader, and election lawyer. Over the years, Analog has published her alternate histories, time-travel tales, and other science fiction stories, as well as several guest editorials and book review columns. Rosemary has also written fantasy, horror and an interactive adventure game, T-Rex Time Machine. Her stories and essays also appear in Amazing Stories, Fantastic Stories, and other periodicals and anthologies. Follow her on-line: https://rcwordsmith.com and across social media @RCWordsmith to find out what else she is up to.
Copyright © 2024 Rosemary Claire Smith