Tag Archives: The Best of World SF Volume 1

QUICK REVIEW: Delhi – Vandana Singh

First published in So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy (edited by Uppinder Mehan and Nalo Hopkinson) in 2004, Vandana Singh’s short story Delhi is a fascinating tale of a man burdened with a purpose he doesn’t understand, constantly searching for answers. Aseem has always been able to see apparitions around him, brief glimpses of people from other times who offer him momentary snapshots of Delhi’s past and future. He lives on the fringes, helping others where he can, always on the lookout for the one woman who he believes will provide clarity on what he’s supposed to be doing and why.

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QUICK REVIEW: Fandom For Robots – Vina Jie-Min Prasad

First published in Uncanny Magazine and nominated for Best Short Story awards at both the Nebulas (2017) and Hugos (2018), Vina Jie-Min Prasad’s Fandom For Robots offers a warm, affectionate take on online fan communities and the value of fan fiction. As “the only known sentient robot”, Computron resides in the Simak Robotics Museum and takes the stage each day to answer audience questions and demonstrate his sentience. When an audience member suggests he might enjoy a Japanese anime series called Hyperdimension Warp Record (超次元 ワープ レコード) he finds himself drawn in by the show’s story, despite his inability to experience it emotionally. While waiting for new episodes, he discovers a fan-made wiki for the series, which sets him off on an unexpected path.

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QUICK REVIEW: Debtless – Chen Qiufan (translated by Blake Stone-Banks)

Translated into English from the original Chinese by Blake Stone-Banks, Chen Qiufan’s short story Debtless explores bleak but powerful questions of wealth inequality, corporate control and memory manipulation in a sci-fi tale of asteroid mining and the impossibility of debt repayment. In a world where memories, debts and earnings are genetically encoded into people’s DNA, working brutal shifts in deep space mining facilities is a particularly dangerous way of attempting to repay a debt. Square Head stays relatively safe as his specialty is data analysis rather than hands-on work, but as he starts experiencing unusual dreams and his fellow miners begin to die around him at an increased rate, he finds the realities of his life changing around him.

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QUICK REVIEW: Immersion – Aliette de Bodard

Winner of both Nebula (2012) and Locus (2013) awards for Best Short Story, Aliette de Bodard’s Immersion is a powerful, thought-provoking story that belongs to her Xuya series – science fiction stories set in a world of Vietnamese culture-inspired alternate history. On Longevity Station, Quy spends her free time watching the spaceships arrive bringing Galactic tourists to the station, feeling caught between happy memories of her student days and the realities of her life now. When she’s called in to her family’s restaurant to help with negotiations for a Galactic couple’s wedding anniversary plans, she finds herself faced with the shocking sight of a woman who’s so lost in her attempts to fit in that she’s forgotten who she truly is.

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