I read Crossed Genres' Issue #25: Indoctrination last night and was mostly underwhelmed. The first story, Cabaret Obscuro was imaginative, but I never really felt enough of the world to really invest in it. In the story, humans are the dominant members of a society also populated by "xenos", alien lifeforms ranging from cartoon stickmen to hobgoblin magpie trainers and household instruments like mattresses and candles brought to life. The performances at a human and xeno cabaret are contrasted, critiquing the use of xeno performers as the "freak" or "novelty act". The thrust of the story felt broadly allegorical (with the xenos standing in for marginalized members of our own society) without enough specificity to provide an interesting critique. The climactic scene in which our protagonist, the hobgoblin musician/stripper had some emotional force and was more creative and delightful than I'd expected, but mostly this story felt like a neat idea not pushed hard enough to have much force.
The second story Distant Gates of Eden Gleam features a career office clerk brought in to the offices of the Illuminati in order to do some of the grunt work associated with running the world. A revelation of the first day is that there are 14 continents, cleverly hidden. The instructions relayed are almost entirely relatively small-time disasters - a forest fire, oil spill, etc. Not surprisingly, he becomes disenchanted and does something about it, giving a speech about how he never really wanted to be a career office clerk, he was just held back by the poor economy. After observing that this is a story about a low-level file clerk in the bowels of the Illuminat, there's not much more to say.
The third story, The Lion God (which I immediately renamed Subverting Aslan in my head), had some potential. A great lion has come to earth, performed various miracles (mostly healing-related), and his very presence compels worship and adulation. The lion has set himself up as God and (perhaps unsurprisingly) implemented a relatively socially conservative society, ensuring at least a few rebels. The story is told from the perspective of one of these rebels during her inquisition by the Lion God himself.
The Lion God got a lot of points for me because the Lion God was genuinely godlike. He's a big, impressive force who performs genuine miracles and inspires worship even in rebels like the protagonist. I've talked before about appreciating science fiction & fantasy that take religion and gods seriously, and this story does. It also gets points for the sheer insolence of basically dropping Aslan into a New York broadcast center. That was pretty awesome.
One of the problems I had with The Lion God was simply a matter of taste - the protagonist is young and impertinent with lines like "In that moment I know that 'Licorice Death' will be the name of my next band". I didn't enjoy this at all, and it knocked me out of the story a bit. More broadly, though, the complaints against the Lion God are predictable, especially for Crossed Genres' audience. Aslan is enforcing the patriarchy - women are banned from boxing and wearing pants is frowned upon. Years of fiction like The Handmaid's Tale are doing the heavy lifting for this story, along with the ongoing and important discussions within the genre.
The Lion God is a fine story. I was delighted (over and over again) at the realization that the author dropped Aslan into a modern broadcast center and made him the villain of a story. I was grateful to the author for presenting a truly godlike creature and never pulling back the curtain to reveal some illusion. And yet despite the strengths of these concepts, the actual grievances against Aslan were stale, the story lasted a bit too long, and the conclusion was a bit of a letdown.
Overall, I wasn't a huge fan of this issue, but I found pieces of each story to enjoy. There's a lot of emotional strength in the final scene of Cabaret Obscuro (and probably a lot more for more marginalized readers than there was for me), I just wish the rest of the story had led me to it more strongly. I think the core concept in Distant Gates of Eden Gleam was worth telling, I just wish it'd showed up in a shorter & punchier form. I will always be happy that I've read Aslan Subverted (and probably will never read The Chronicles of Narnia the same way again), so that's a story I didn't even know I needed checked off my to be read list. But sometimes when you only make space in your lineup of authors for men, the overall product falls a bit short.
Showing posts with label Crossed Genres. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crossed Genres. Show all posts
Monday, January 5, 2015
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Review - Crossed Genres Issue 22: Robots, Androids & Cyborgs
There's a great deal of interest in short fiction reviews right now, and after my experiences with Long Hidden and Women Destroy Science Fiction (very excited that Women Destroy Fantasy & Women Destroy Horror also just came out, although I'll probably be skipping horror stories), I'm trying to read more short stories as well. Crossed Genres Issue #22: Robots, Androids & Cyborgs came out yesterday, and I found myself enjoying (not unreservedly) all three stories in the issue.
Mabo by Megan Chaudhuri is a far-future tale set on a distant planet. The problem of interstellar travel has been solved by sending off robots implanted with human embryos and maternal programming to raise the first generation of humans on arrival. The protagonist is one of those children, raised alone (most robots raised 2-3 children) and born without arms. She tells the stories of discovering that difference to her own children, eventually coming to an understanding and reconciliation with her mother-robot, Mabo. Of the three stories, Mabo most clearly highlights the differences of purpose-built robots. Mabo herself is easy to visualize, alien, and maternal. The child is perhaps overly naive, but strong and charming. The ending felt a bit rushed, but I appreciated the complexity and nuance of attempting to reconcile a purpose-built, algorithm-driven machine, with the maternal instincts and drive that those algorithms were intended to create. My main complaints are the brief interludes with the children, which may be necessary for pacing and occasionally worldbuilding, but mostly just dragged me out of the story building between the girl and her mother. Also, the language occasionally jumped to light vulgarity in ways that didn't feel particularly natural. This might have been an intentional play on how robots, and those raised by them, would use different rules for escalating to curses, but I found it jarring. Of the three stories, Mabo was my favorite.
When They Come Back by Natalia Theodoridou is the story of a wandering cyborg and an angel in a post apocalyptic setting. The "they" of the title are humans, who have disappeared from the land. Now most cyborgs hunt angels, who can change their shape (and apparently need to change periodically as they grow exhausted). Our two main characters wander, looking for hope, and exchanging fantasies about what will happen When They Come Back. The plot, such as there is, is episodic, with the sense that the story could be continued almost indefinitely if the author wanted to pull out other themes from this world. Most of the episodes lying between the beginning and the end felt a bit weak, and while I plan a separate post specifically about how I reacted to two of the episodes & what that says about my reading expectations, it's not clear why the story is the length it is, rather than adding or removing an episode.
Mabo by Megan Chaudhuri is a far-future tale set on a distant planet. The problem of interstellar travel has been solved by sending off robots implanted with human embryos and maternal programming to raise the first generation of humans on arrival. The protagonist is one of those children, raised alone (most robots raised 2-3 children) and born without arms. She tells the stories of discovering that difference to her own children, eventually coming to an understanding and reconciliation with her mother-robot, Mabo. Of the three stories, Mabo most clearly highlights the differences of purpose-built robots. Mabo herself is easy to visualize, alien, and maternal. The child is perhaps overly naive, but strong and charming. The ending felt a bit rushed, but I appreciated the complexity and nuance of attempting to reconcile a purpose-built, algorithm-driven machine, with the maternal instincts and drive that those algorithms were intended to create. My main complaints are the brief interludes with the children, which may be necessary for pacing and occasionally worldbuilding, but mostly just dragged me out of the story building between the girl and her mother. Also, the language occasionally jumped to light vulgarity in ways that didn't feel particularly natural. This might have been an intentional play on how robots, and those raised by them, would use different rules for escalating to curses, but I found it jarring. Of the three stories, Mabo was my favorite.
When They Come Back by Natalia Theodoridou is the story of a wandering cyborg and an angel in a post apocalyptic setting. The "they" of the title are humans, who have disappeared from the land. Now most cyborgs hunt angels, who can change their shape (and apparently need to change periodically as they grow exhausted). Our two main characters wander, looking for hope, and exchanging fantasies about what will happen When They Come Back. The plot, such as there is, is episodic, with the sense that the story could be continued almost indefinitely if the author wanted to pull out other themes from this world. Most of the episodes lying between the beginning and the end felt a bit weak, and while I plan a separate post specifically about how I reacted to two of the episodes & what that says about my reading expectations, it's not clear why the story is the length it is, rather than adding or removing an episode.
The ending of When They Come Back is enigmatic, and perhaps over dramatic, but despite my complaints about the episodic nature of the story (again I think this partly reflects my own expectations that stories of any length should point towards ending and get there with all deliberate speed), I found the atmosphere evocative and enjoyable. I didn't love the story, but I'd like to rediscover it from time to time. I suspect I'd highlight different elements each time.
The concluding story in the anthology, Daddy's Girl, by Eleanor R. Wood, is also the weakest, though even this one managed to finish quickly enough I didn't dislike it. The premise is that through an experimental procedure the girl's father has been transferred into a robot body, and then the software crashes, leaving him unresponsive. The story gestures towards a series of dismal economic trends in order to leave the girl without any means to repair her father: the company that originally made the father goes out of business, there is a lack of new research in the field due to economic downturn, the consequences of income inequality are manifested as the girl takes up a paper route in an attempt to save up for the impossibly high fees any repair would cost, and even when she becomes a researcher, she is isolated by the scheming of her fellow academics. While elements of the story are familiar, there's not enough groundwork to support them. This would be a problem if the complex setup was more than an opportunity to tell a heartwarming story about a girl driven from a young age to serious studies in order to be reunited with her father. Beth is just charming and dedicated enough that the story finishes with a warm glow before exasperation at the details take it down.
With a collection, it's worth examining the whole as well as the parts. In this issue, Crossed Genres tackled Robots, Androids and Cyborgs with a story that presented robots governed by specific yet flexible algorithms, cyborgs whose behavior is nearly indistinguishable from humans other than an irreversible directive against self harm, and an android housing a human identity in all it's complexity. Between them, the three stories present a variety of relationships and technologies that seem startlingly feasible. I enjoyed all three of the stories (which I had not expected), and I think they fit well together in imagining ways that we may relate to our technology in its increasing complexity. As I reflect on the theme, the imagined identities and levels of technology seem somewhat parochial - I would have enjoyed a story utilizing technologies qualitatively different from those we now imagine, rather than simply the added quantitative complexity, and I would have liked a theme that addressed how we now interact in an increasingly connected world. This issue feels like it could have been imagined and written years ago, rather than imagining a future to come.
That having been said, I enjoyed all three of these stories and think they nicely complement each other. Mabo is an enjoyable story that does a fundamentally important job of illustrating the differences, strengths and limitations of humans and robots, and reconciling them in a single community and family. When They Come Back does not lend itself to easy interpretation, and is one that I would like to read and revisit for years to come. Even Daddy's Girl managed to overcome weaknesses in the premise to charm me into rooting for a long desired family reunion. Crossed Genres Issue 22: Robots, Androids & Cyborgs is worth a read.
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*Unfinished - My reactions to a pair of episodes in When They Come Back and what I think they reveal about my expectations as a reader.
With a collection, it's worth examining the whole as well as the parts. In this issue, Crossed Genres tackled Robots, Androids and Cyborgs with a story that presented robots governed by specific yet flexible algorithms, cyborgs whose behavior is nearly indistinguishable from humans other than an irreversible directive against self harm, and an android housing a human identity in all it's complexity. Between them, the three stories present a variety of relationships and technologies that seem startlingly feasible. I enjoyed all three of the stories (which I had not expected), and I think they fit well together in imagining ways that we may relate to our technology in its increasing complexity. As I reflect on the theme, the imagined identities and levels of technology seem somewhat parochial - I would have enjoyed a story utilizing technologies qualitatively different from those we now imagine, rather than simply the added quantitative complexity, and I would have liked a theme that addressed how we now interact in an increasingly connected world. This issue feels like it could have been imagined and written years ago, rather than imagining a future to come.
That having been said, I enjoyed all three of these stories and think they nicely complement each other. Mabo is an enjoyable story that does a fundamentally important job of illustrating the differences, strengths and limitations of humans and robots, and reconciling them in a single community and family. When They Come Back does not lend itself to easy interpretation, and is one that I would like to read and revisit for years to come. Even Daddy's Girl managed to overcome weaknesses in the premise to charm me into rooting for a long desired family reunion. Crossed Genres Issue 22: Robots, Androids & Cyborgs is worth a read.
(Go here to subscribe)
*Unfinished - My reactions to a pair of episodes in When They Come Back and what I think they reveal about my expectations as a reader.
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