by: Ellen
Oh, Greg van Eekhout, Cindy Pon, Rajan Khanna, Ursula LeGuin, Melinda Lo, Ken Liu, K. Tempest Bradford, Daniel H. Wilson, Rahul Kanakia and Paolo Bacigalupi
To me, the stories that truly stood out were: Solitude by Ursula LeGuin by telling a masterful tale of a dystopia from the point of view of the people who have grown up in it and just consider it home and life. Seem through the eyes of an anthropologist from a different planet watching a new society grown out of the ashes of a great empire and her daughter who grows up on the world and absorbs the culture and customs. It has some amazing themes of people vs person, of solitude and thought and of judging “barbaric” cultures we know so little about. It has layers upon layers and is a beautifully well crafted story. What Arms to Hold by Rajan Khanna was also up there as being stunningly beautiful and tragic story. Good Girl by Melindo Lo was also a passionate, meaningful story that made excellent use of the short story format and was an enjoyable read.
And beyond that there were some very good reason in this book – it was a fun read and only a couple of the stories didn’t amuse me. It is heavy on the grimdark though, so if you need a pick me up, put this book down and find something gentler.
This is a book of several YA dystopian short stories that
aims for diversity. Much of YA, of speculative fiction and definitely dystopia
is extremely white washed and made up entirely of straight people. GBLT people
are, largely, dead and POC and women frequently take a back seat to the noble
straight, male lead. It’s refreshing to see an anthology of short stories that
focus on minorities.
I’m going to sound all kinds of fluffy but I have to say
I would have appreciated a happy ending or two. I know, it’s dystopia and all,
but only a couple ended with what could be considered actual happy endings and
I do so hate ending on a downer. Overall the book is gritty and dark and sad.
But, at the same time, more realistic for it. These are not kids who manage to
reach inside themselves and change the world, these aren’t kids who manage to
heal all the wounds and these aren’t kids who change the system, lead the
revolution and make the world a better place. They aren’t even kids who can
escape from their conditions and live better lives – sometimes just surviving
is an achievement in these worlds. Which is realistic but… well, grim. The Last Day by Ellen
Oh, a story of World War 2 Japan, where Japan didn’t surrender
after Nagasaki and Hiroshima – and more cities are wiped out is among the
darkest you’ll ever read.
And there’s nothing wrong with a bit of grim here and
there, but it does have a different light on the escapism. I do think one of
the best stories in this light is Gods of
the Dimming Night by Greg van Eekhout
where the protagonist refuses to leave his family and become a hero fighting in
Ragnarok, instead choosing to bring his family money for power and food.
My main complaint will always be that these are short
stories. I’m not a lover of short stories – I feel that they really don’t have
the chance to develop themselves. And I think that’s especially true of this
book which has 11 stories crammed in there – that’s 11 with a foreward and
afterward and it’s not a very long book. Some manage to elegant encompass the
entire story in the short story format: Good
Girl by Melinda Lo with a tragic love story in a dystopian world obsessed
with racial purity. Pattern Recognition by
Ken Liu, a story of a rich western
corporation exploiting poor POC children to be used as computers. What Arms to Hold by Rajan Khanna
is another beautifully tragic story of POC children being used as slaves in the
mines, his escape rather than being used as a tool for the revolution. No, it
doesn’t end with a resolve but, realistically, there is no good resolve that
would come. It has a bittersweet closure of its own.
While these really did well in the short story format,
others handled it poorly and, I think, felt more like prologues for something
greater. Blue Skies by Cindy Pon sets
up a wonderful story where the Haves rule over the Wants and a Want boy
kidnapping a Have girl to gain money to try and change society – it has vast
potential that is only hinted at in the short story. Freshee’s Frogurt by Daniel H. Wilson
was definitely the weakest story in the collection – was mercifully short and
barely even established a prologue for a greater dystopia. Why tell the story
of the first shots of a war which we never see? Similarly Next Door by Rahul Kanakia, a great story of an
extreme class divide and one boy and his boyfriend trying to find their own
home, felt like setting up for more. Especially since it appeared in the same
book as Blue Skies, it felt like the
relationship was introduced as an after-thought since it was brushed on so
shallowly.
While they aren’t prologues I also
think Uncertainty Principle
by K. Tempest Bradford spent a lot of time setting up an
extremely complex world with a changing reality and time travel – and how this
one girl can see how the time shifts and reality changes. It felt like it was a
perfect set up of the world but after all that effort the story ends – it’s a
difficult and mind bending concept to fit into a short story. A Pocket
Full of Dharma by Paolo Bacigalupi also introduced a
complicated world I wanted to see more of – the story itself was relatively
self-contained (and bittersweet tragic) but the setting was worth a revisit.
To me, the stories that truly stood out were: Solitude by Ursula LeGuin by telling a masterful tale of a dystopia from the point of view of the people who have grown up in it and just consider it home and life. Seem through the eyes of an anthropologist from a different planet watching a new society grown out of the ashes of a great empire and her daughter who grows up on the world and absorbs the culture and customs. It has some amazing themes of people vs person, of solitude and thought and of judging “barbaric” cultures we know so little about. It has layers upon layers and is a beautifully well crafted story. What Arms to Hold by Rajan Khanna was also up there as being stunningly beautiful and tragic story. Good Girl by Melindo Lo was also a passionate, meaningful story that made excellent use of the short story format and was an enjoyable read.
As to its brief, these stories certainly hit the mark.
Except for Freshee’s
Frogurt all of these stories had POC
protagonists and even in Freshee’s
Frogurt, the person doing most of the action was a POC. Not only do they
have POC protagonists but also include a large, diverse number of POC in side
and back characters. The stories, when coming from identifiable real world places,
are largely outside of a western context. And it’s more than just a label, more
than just a passing reference with no culture or markers – it’s a full
immersion and inclusion of actual characters.
Of the 11 stories, 2 of them had
GBLT characters (Solitude referred to
GBLT people in passing – but it was just in passing, the other stories are
erased). Good Girl focuses
considerably on the relationship beautifully and Next Door has it and has enough information (though contains
homophobia which seems out of place) to make it more than a reference even
though it’s a very distant focus. which
is… well, compared to the genre as it stands this book is head and shoulders
above the rest for diversity. But that’s because GBLT people just don’t exist
in dystopian fiction. So as a collection of dystopian short stories it’s
amazing inclusion in terms of sexuality. In terms of a book that is expressly
created to be diverse… the diversity is probably more a focus on racial
diversity.
And beyond that there were some very good reason in this book – it was a fun read and only a couple of the stories didn’t amuse me. It is heavy on the grimdark though, so if you need a pick me up, put this book down and find something gentler.
A copy of this book was provided by the editor through Netgalley
