The New Voices of Science Fiction

Rajaniemi and Weisman have chosen writers they believe "will become increasingly important in the years to come," and their success rate is impressive. They've chosen some of the fastest-rising talents in the field: Rebecca Roanhorse, Sam J. Miller, Amal El-Mohtar, Sarah Pinsker, Nino Cipri.

High points for me included Cipri's "The Shape of My Name," a story of a family dealing with time travel's impact on very contemporary issues; David Erik Nelson's "In the Sharing Place," a very creepy tale of a society recovering from deep trauma; Suzanne Palmer's "The Secret Life of Bots," a comedy in which an outdated worker bot must find a way to save its spaceship; Miller's "Calved," about a father's increasingly desperate attempts to connect show more with his teenaged son; and Sarah Pinsker's "Our Lady of the Open Road," which finds touring musicians coping with the changes brought about by plague and technology (later expanded into the novel A Song for a New Day.) show less

This short story collection caught my eye primarily because Hannu Rajaniemi's name was on the cover, but I wasn't fooled. Not really. This just happens to be a collection of the best SF stories to come out in the last five-ish years, as selected by him and Jacob Weisman.

Was I still interested? Yeah! After all, those guys have good taste. :) And when it comes to good tales as a whole, I enjoyed this entire book.

I've read a number of these stories already, and if I have, I'm lightly skimming over them. Otherwise...

Openness by Alexander Weinstein - A cool, scary look at intimacy worthy of a Black Mirror episode, where giving another person access to all your secret kinks, buttons, and memories can be either a great boon or a relationship show more killer. Me likey.

The Shape of My Name by Nino Capri - Time travel done in a very interesting way, focusing more on a strained familial relationship than anything else. The focus is clear but all the side discoveries are quite visceral.

UTOPIA, LOL by Jamie Wahls - Clever take on virtual reality and memes, with the added benefit of AIs and badass choices. Cool twist.

Mother Tongues by S. Qiouyi Lu - Linguistics-focused tale of parenthood and only wanting the best for the child with a very dark twist. It made me very sad.

In The Sharing Place by David Erik Nelson - What seems to be a tale set in the brackets of the Stages of Grief eventually becomes something much more interesting, more creative. Very chilling.

A Series of Steaks by Vina Jie-Min Prasad - I've read this twice and have seen it reprinted all over the place. If you haven't read it, enjoy a printed tale as tasty as steak. Don't ask if it's a forgery. :)

Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer - Also a commonly reprinted tale, but quite fun. A Hugo winner.

Ice by Rich Larson - Probably my least favorite of the collection, this was a tale of sibling rivalry on an ice planet. Genetic jealousy.

One Hour, Every Seven Years by Alice Sola Kim - Very oppressive in isolation and loneliness, this time travel tale seems to have lots of hidden gems in it. The descriptions of Venus and Mars and their places in the tale struck me as rather important. Time to see the sun!

Toppers by Jason Sanford - This one really caught my imagination. Apocalyptic New York meets a creepy Whispering Mist that is a lot more than it seems. Two thumbs up.

Tender Loving Plastics by Amman Sabet - AIs and foster care. What could go wrong?

Welcome To Your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhorse - Another Hugo winner. And it's easily one of the best stories I've read in the last few years. :) Quite sharp.

Strange Waters by Samantha Mills - Another re-read for me, Water is not always water, and fishing is not always fishing. Great worldbuilding, interesting mash.

Calved by Sam J. Miller - Another re-read. Excellent setting with a frustrated dad just trying to do right but unable to get a grip on the future world or his own slightly estranged son.

The Need for Air by Lettie Prell - A virtual reality warning. Pretty heartbreaking but my sympathies are all for the son.

Robo-Liopleurodon! by Darcie Little Badger - Nanotech in the ocean. Need I say more? Aren't you excited? I was! And am!

The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi by E. Lily Yu - The transformation from gamer to ... dreamer. Pretty mild, but interesting.

Madeleine by Amal El-Mohtar - Probably one of my favorites in the bunch, it combines a voluntary medical trial with horrible time-travel-ish side effects, reality modifications, and the very uneasy feeling that memory inside time is all that we have. Parts of me would call this a horror.

Our Lady of the Open Road by Sarah Pinsker - Very enjoyable tale of aging traveling rockers butting heads against a VR tech world.

A Study in Oils by Kelly Robson - I can't decide whether I think this is the best one in this collection or not, but it's really close. I'm a sucker for redemption stories... especially when it comes tied to horrible sanctioned free-range revenge and art. :) show less

As usual, this collection was a mix of stories I loved and stories I hated. Overall I thought the good ones outweighed the bad ones, and the stories ended on a high note. My favourite stories were “Utopia, LOL?” by Jamie Wahls, “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad, and “The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer.

Some notes I made as I went along on the stories:

“Openness” by Alexander Weinstein
1 star
I was going to abandon this one 6 pages into it because it has everything that I don’t like about short stories and science fiction. Don’t get me wrong, in general, I love science fiction, but there are certain tropes and signs of short-sightedness that drive me up the wall. In this case, we have new communication show more technologies that bypass speech that make it so that people are slowly forgetting how to hold actual conversations, and no actual plot to go with this technology. Yawn. Tech to make a tired point without any plot is so not my thing. And failed relationships are also not my thing. And I raged a little at the scenario where the woman was riding the subway and had her “single” relationship status on her profile publicly visible (that can be accessed by the people around her). Face palm. No, it’s not the same thing as setting your relationship status on facebook or using a dating web site. This is public and accessible by anyone who looks at you. This is not an opt-in situation. I would not have been nearly as livid about this if they had been in a different social setting, like an art exhibition or something where she might have relaxed her privacy settings because of being around people she might want to meet. On the subway in New York? No way. That girl would have been harassed into next year before she got to her stop. Anyway, I wasn’t surprised by the ending, only by the fact that they were still together after the trip to the cabin.

“The Shape of my Name” by Nino Cipri
3 stars
This was an interesting exploration of a trans identity mixed with time travel, but it didn’t wow me.

“Utopia, LOL?” by Jamie Wahls
5 stars
This was ridiculous and absurd but it made me laugh out loud so many times.

“Mother Tongues” by S. Qiouyi Lu
4 stars
Woah. Meditations on identity and first language and what a mother would give up for her child.

“In the Sharing Place” by David Erik Nelson
4 stars
Creepy and weird. I’m not sure the timeline of a few months makes sense. Maybe I misread that part.

“A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
5 stars
This was just fun, and Lily being such a badass while acting flaky was such a treat.

“The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer
5 stars
An excellent story following repair bots on a spaceship which makes this threat even more dire, “Stay away from anyone and anything and everything else, or I will have you melted down and turned into paper clips.” What use would there be fore paperclips on a ship?

“Ice” by Rich Larson
2.5 stars
The sibling relationship was fairly well done but the story wasn’t very interesting

“One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim
1 star
I just didn’t connect with the main character.

“Toppers” by Jason Sanford
4 stars
Now this exploration of time was definitely interesting, although non linear time breaks my brain.

“Tender Loving Plastics” by Amman Sabet
2 stars
An interesting setting, but not much of a story.

“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse
1 stars
I’m not really sure what happened here.

“Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills
3 stars
Interesting premise (a city with temporal flows off its shore allowing time travel) but I didn’t love it.

“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
1 star
I had no interest in reading about the father-son relationship, and I didn’t like the end.

“The Need for Air” by Lettie Prell
2 stars
This one started off interesting but the ending fell flat for me. It was just meh.

“Robo-Liopleurodon!” by Darcie Little Badger
3 stars
This was very silly and I can’t justify the rationale for building such a thing but it was fun.

“The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi” by E. Lily Yu
2 stars
This exploration of growing up, giving up full time gaming and choosing to do something with one’s life is just meh.

“Madeleine” by Amal El-Mohtar
4 stars
This was great! An interesting exploration of getting lost in one’s memories and learning that your imaginary friend is somehow real.

Our Lady of the Open Road by Sarah Pinsker
2 stars
About a musician playing live music in a time of virtual holographic concerts. Such a slog.

“A Study in Oils” by Kelly Robson
4 stars show less

Excellent collection with a number of award-winning stories, including Suzanne Palmer’s The Secret Life of Bots (service and heroism even when you’re considered outdated), S. Qiouyi Lu’s Mother Tongues (when you can sell your knowledge of your basic language to buy your child’s future, what should you do?), Rebecca Roanhorse’s Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience TM (also about selling your culture to survive, though very differently), Kelly Robson’s A Study in Oils (surviving the doing of a horrible act in a destructive culture), and a number of others, including Sarah Pinsker and Amar El-Mohtar. Overall, delivers on its promise.

An excellent collection of 20 short stories by new authors. Every one was good, and now I have many new authors to explore the works of!

My favorites:
The Shape of My Name by Nino Cipri: A trans man from a family of female time-travelers
Mother Tongues by S Qiou-yi Lu: A woman sells her fluent Mandarin to send her daughter to college
A Series of Steaks by Vina Jie-Min Prasad: Helena and Lily, steak forgers
The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palma: an old retired bot is brought back into use due to desperate times
Strange Waters by Samantha Mills: Mika, a fisherwoman in time, is trying to get home

But really, every story was good, and every author in this anthology writes interesting stuff.
———
Thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon for the egalley

It's an anthology, so it's uneven. But the high points were great.

Good collection, lot of range. I enjoyed all of them, but my favorites were "Madeline," by Amal El-Mohtar and "Our Lady of the Open Road," by Sarah Pinsker. YMMV.