I was late coming to Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea, partly because it seemed too Earth-bound a story, partly because I thought it might be too much a novel of ideas, cut off from the flesh-and-blood characters that make a story work. My impressions were completely wrong. The Mountain in the Sea is […]
The Employees by Olga Ravn, Translated by Martin Aitken
The Employees by Olga Ravn, in a beautiful translation from the Danish by Martin Aitken, requires a suspension of expectations about science fiction but nevertheless delivers a devastating impact. As a collection of statements by the crew members of a spaceship, both human and humanoid, it has little narrative drive at first, though it does […]
Remote Control by Nnedi Okorafor – A Review
From the brilliant opening of Nnedi Okorafor’s Remote Control, when we meet the confident Sankofa, just fourteen, walking a road in rural Ghana (“Small swift steps made with small swift feet”) the hints of her extraordinary power are everywhere. She is a subject of rumor, people hide from her approach, she wears adult clothes though […]
Finna and Defekt: Books 1 and 2 of Nino Cipri’s LitenVerse
I wasn’t prepared for Finna and Defekt, the two novellas so far comprising Nino Cipri’s LitenVerse. It’s hard to find stories that effectively satirize consumer capitalism and combine that with penetrating portraits of relationships, but here they are! These are absorbing and insightful stories skillfully blending emotional realities of dealing with gender, love, and loneliness […]
