{"id":277,"date":"2016-05-29T03:27:47","date_gmt":"2016-05-29T03:27:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=277"},"modified":"2016-05-29T03:27:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-29T03:27:47","slug":"review-the-apex-book-of-world-sf-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sfintranslation.com\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: The Apex Book of World SF 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"apex4\"edited by <\/i>Mahvesh Murad<\/p>\n

Apex Publications<\/p>\n

August 20, 2015<\/p>\n

360 pages<\/p>\n

\n
“The World SF anthologies have become a library, a map charting the contemporary scene of truly international speculative fiction.”<\/i> So says series editor Lavie Tidhar in his intro to this latest collection of speculative fiction from around the world. Indeed, these stories demonstrate the very diversity and universality\u00a0 of the human experience, whether it\u2019s lived in India or Australia, Finland or Egypt. While reading this fourth volume, I found myself wondering just how much of the iceberg of international sf I myself was even aware of- it reminded me of the saying \u201cthe more you know, the more you know that you don\u2019t know much at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>It\u2019s been a year now since I first started actively seeking out international sf and reviewing it here on SF Signal, and the thought that I might otherwise have missed these books depresses me. The Three-Body trilogy?<\/i> <\/b>Dendera?<\/i> <\/i>A Planet for Rent?<\/i>\u00a0<\/b> I can\u2019t imagine these stories not being in my life. I\u2019ve found myself reading Polish, Japanese, Finnish, and other sf in translation and thinking not just about the content but about the country of origin- its political, social, and economic realities; and what kinds of decisions the translators had to make to stay true to the stories while simultaneously making them understandable to English-only readers like myself.<\/p>\n

The stories in ABWSF4<\/em> reflect the myriad traditions and histories that together make this planet an interesting place to live. And with a good mix of pieces written in and translated into English, this volume also reflects the ways in which English itself has moved across borders. Whatever the original language, each of these tales invites us to consider how we would react\/adapt to an unfamiliar reality, one in which people can devour themselves or exist without a shadow, or even explore far-flung worlds that we can only dream of now.<\/p>\n

And while I enjoyed all of these pieces, I\u2019ve chosen four in particular to highlight here because they engaged my imagination the most. They made me laugh, shudder, re-read\u2026you get the idea.<\/p>\n

Taiwanese writer Sabrina Huang hooked me with \u201cSetting Up Home\u201d (translated by Jeremy Tiang), a work of magical realism in which objects appear in one man\u2019s apartment seemingly out of thin air. A sofa, a bed, a coffee-table: each of these objects simply \u201carrives,\u201d culminating in a woman who is supposed to be the man\u2019s bride. Turns out, the man\u2019s dead father has been pulling the strings, so to speak, and setting his son up with everything that he supposedly needs to lead a solid, \u201cnormal\u201d life. This parental tendency to want to control a child\u2019s life, even into adulthood, is universal; it\u2019s just that this particular parent goes\u2026well\u2026a little too far<\/i>. Huang builds up this brief but engaging story with a steady hand and perfect pacing, such that the reader, like the man in the story, begins to take each of these gifts for granted.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, Thomas Olde Heuvelt\u2019s \u201cThe Boy Who Cast No Shadow\u201d (translated by Laura Vroomen) was the next to jump out at me, given its exuberance, wit, and strangeness. In the world of this story, it\u2019s possible to be born without a shadow, or with a glass body instead of one composed of blood and bones. Heuvelt forces us to think about how we treat those who don\u2019t seem to \u201cfit in\u201d with their communities by showing us what happens when a shadowless boy and a glass boy compare their experiences and even fall in love. Each character struggles with his notoriety and the obnoxious stares of strangers, as well as bullies and hyper-protective parents. The narrative voice is at times cool and sarcastic, hilarious and despondent, and Heuvelt\u2019s deft handling of all of them makes me see why he recently won a Hugo, as well as many other awards. I\u2019ll be reading everything he writes, of that you can be sure.<\/p>\n

Johann Thorsson\u2019s \u201cFirst, Bite Just a Finger\u201d is, like \u201cSetting Up Home,\u201d short but powerful. Julia, who sees someone at a party bite off a piece of his own finger, decides to try it, too, why not<\/i>, right? Well, one thing leads to another, and before she realizes it, Julia\u2019s devoured half of her own body, each bite filling her with a strange sense of elation. We could read this story as a philosophical exploration of our inherent self-absorption as human beings, or we could take it at face value. I find the latter reading much<\/i> more fun.<\/p>\n

Finally, \u201cPockets Full of Stones\u201d by Vajra Chandrasekera fascinated me because of its unique ideas about what alien life might look like. Instead of blue blobs or giant squids, the aliens we might encounter could constitute a signal that can hack into and rewrite the human brain. It falls to one scientist on a relay station to stop the signal from being transmitted to Earth. Much of the story, though, isn\u2019t about aliens or invasion but about family, resentment, and the nature of time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s up to us as avid readers of speculative fiction to go beyond English-only American and British fiction and explore what the world has to offer. After all, what better way to learn about another culture than by reading the stories of its most imaginative and engaging writers?<\/p>\n

(first posted on SF Signal 9\/14\/2015)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

edited by Mahvesh Murad Apex Publications August 20, 2015 360 pages “The World SF anthologies have become a library, a map charting the contemporary scene of truly international speculative fiction.” So says series editor Lavie Tidhar in his intro to this latest collection of speculative fiction from around the world. Indeed, these stories demonstrate the<\/p>\n

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