Bitsy's Books

Average: 3 Stars (so far)

I didn't finish the anthology, but hope to come back to it eventually. So far, there was a lot of interesting ideas, but no story really stood out or was incredible.

Favorites: "Finders" by Melissa Scott and "Missions of Greed" by Sue Lange

Worst: "Landfall" by Joan Slonczewiski

"Finders" by Melissa Scott

4 Stars

Scavengers Cassilde and Dai must decide whether to risk all their funds and Cassilde's declining health when their untrustworthy ex-partner/lover returns promising a possible monunmental discovery.

Probably the most interesting and unique world-building I've read in a long time, I was fascinated with the part cyberpunk, part scavenger, and slightly Eastern-influenced world Scott created and wished that this story had been a much longer novel. A dying world, ravaged by war, forced to live off their fore-bearers' (or Ancestors to the characters)tech for survival. The Ancestor's technology is in limited quantities, forcing scavengers to go into the wreckage of the Ancestor's homes to mine what is left of a decreasing supply. Scott never info-dumps, but gives the reader enough information so they can piece together the world and it's history. Sadly, I never quite got the sense of the main character and the plot relied on a character needlessly withholding information and a baseline stupidity of most characters involved (Let's ignore the strange ship that showed up and disappear on our radar! That won't haunt us later! Let's leave our ship unguarded despite said strange ship and a possibility of an important artifact! Nobody will bother us!) in order to move forward. Despite an ending that felt abrupt, this is a unique tale that bends genres and makes me wish for more tales in this world.

"Bad Day on Boscobel" by Alexander Jablokov

3 Stars

While performing her job helping aliens immigrate and adjust to life on the astroid Boscobel, Dunya and her daughter become caught up with a couple Martians, gangs, and a possible invasion.While I enjoyed the setting (a society built in very large trees) and the characters of Miriam and Dunya, the story hinged on deus ex machinas and inconstant characterization to move the plot forward too often and was filled with awkward writing. The worst offender was Dunya's plot moppet daughter,Bodil, whose only personality traits were annoyingly spunky and the ability to show up randomly and instigate plot events. She is apparently old enough to have a boyfriend her mother disapproves of, but spoke ["They hit him, momma (sic). A lot. I never trusted them. I want to hurt them" (60).] and acted [Bodil pushed her lower lip out and looked about to cry (71).] like she was six-years-old. While Bodil's characterization and the lazy writing hurt the story, the unique world, Miriam's bad-assary and Dunya's efficiency made up for the weaknesses. An enjoyable, yet mediocre story.

"In Colors Everywhere" by Nisi Shawl

3.5 Stars

***TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR THIS STORY***

In the future, planets become penal colonies. When a mysterious object from the overseer crashes on their planet, Mentor Trill and elder-in-training, Dola, go and investigate, finding both horror and hope.

I loved the idea of this world - a penal colony where the personalities of prisoners are placed in clones and left on their own to survive. However, the prisoners have thrived, creating their own economy and culture and having children. Because the prisoners are placed in bodies that may be different from their original sex (or race or age), sexuality and gender identity is more fluid (it's also implied that the original prisoners may have been imprisoned for being transgender). The sinister overseer, nicknamed Dr. Ops by the prisoners, is not allowed to kill them, but can do whatever else s/he wants. Shawl's fantastic world-building has echoes of imperialism, first-world/third-world, and globalism.

However, there is a rape in this story. It threw me because it was so unexpected, especially given the feminist overtones of this anthology. I did not agree with how the elders had sent their recruit to be raped and then deny her abortion as her final test. It was incredibly cruel and made the ending ambiguous. I couldn’t tell if Shawl is approving or condemning the elders' actions, but the whole rape-plot didn’t sit well with me.I loved the story, but I’m struggling with the implications in the story. The world-building was fantastic and progressive, but the rape and elders’ complicity in the rape dropped the rating down for me.

"Mission of Greed" by Sue Lange

4 Stars

Captain Lai has been vying to have a planet named after her for years. However, her ambitions may cost her her life when one of her crew members is found murdered and her crew mutinies.

A throwback to the pulp sci-fi stories of yore, Lange's story heaps on the suspense as Lai doesn't know to trust while a possible extraterrestrial adds a hint of space horror. I loved the character of Lai - she's ruthless, ambitious, and tunnel-visioned, an almost fatal flaw. She's not the nicest or the most admirable person, but she's fascinating. The story isn't the most original (and you can figure out pretty easily who the culprits are) or boundary-breaking, but it kept me glued to the page and curious what would happen next.

"Sailing the Antarsa" by Vandana Singh

3.5 Stars

Mayha is sent from her planet Dhara to sail the Antarsa sea - a current that flows in outer space. Her people believe it will take her to another settlement of humans who haven't never been seen or heard from since they left Earth with the Dharans. As Mayha hurtles into the unknown, never to see her loved ones again, she contemplates how life brought her to this point and begins to make a startling discovery.

Apparently this is the story to read in this anthology, so I'm sad I didn't love it. It's an excellent story, but there were a couple of things that tripped me up. I loved how Jainism was incorporated into the story and Dharan society. The ideas of kinship and non-violence are very refreshing considering how much sci-fi is based on imperialism. However, so much of the world-building relied on the fact that some Dharans have evolved inhuman traits (like scales or eyes that see in the dark) within only five generations. Evolution takes thousands of years, and to have some of the story hinge on this spontaneous Lamarckian evolution really made it hard to immerse myself completely in the story. Singh wrote an excellent story based on a theology that is so different from the various foundations of sci-fi, but the science was a bit too far-fetched for me.

"Landfall" by Joan Slonczewiski

1.5 Stars

Jenny Ramos Kennedy is working on a top secret project during summer break from college. However, her top secret project reacted badly to her experiment and hunks of debris are falling from space straight toward Havana.

This story is more like an interlude between two novels than an actual story. There was too much info-dumping, too many characters making an appearance with little if any personality, and no plot. The world-building is so lazy that the author mentions background info only to restate that EXACT SAME background information a page later as if it was new information. The “story” ends abruptly, and the last sentence basically read like an advertisement for the series. It also has two of my biggest pet peeves: heavy-handed politics and random Spanish words inserted into EVERY BIT OF DIALOUGE (because names like Cesar and Marta and the fact the story takes place in CUBA aren’t clues enough). There were a few interesting ideas (such as biology - something I understand! – used as part of the sci-fi world-building and computers implanted into the brain), but the mediocre writing and haphazard plot/world-building won't have me picking up any more of this author's work.

"This Alakie and the Death of Dima" by Terry Boren

2.5 Stars

The planet Dima is dying, forcing Alakie and the other Hu to leave behind their alien protectors, the Dina. However, Alakie isn't going to give up without making sure both the Dina' s and Hu's descendents survive.

The basis of this story was great - aliens saving and raising humans survivors of a crash, creating a symbiotic society, and the implications when their home is destroyed. However, I had no idea what the hell was going on for most of the story. I had to reread multiple parts just to somewhat grasp the world, the characters, the plot, etc. It didn't help the characters refered to each other by strange titles and themselves as "this *such-and-such*" I wish this story was more accessible, because underneath all the confusing world-building is a good emotional story. But as is, I shouldn't have to work so hard while reading for pleasure.