Astra Crompton's Blog: A Literary Diary - Posts Tagged "vananda-singh"

Let me be clear, the title of this post is the title of the book, not my opinion of it. I love short stories. I find them an excellent way of discovering new writers, exploring interesting ideas, and gaining food for thought. In some cases, short stories can be the medium in which a writer shines brightest (see Margaret Atwood's Wilderness Tips).

This...was a difficult book to get through. It was not so much an exercise in great storytelling (which I feel any book claiming it is a "best" collection ought to put primary focus on) as it was a thought experiment that took prose right off the rails. The guest editor for the collection claims out of a hundred entries, these twenty got top spot because they all left her with an emotional resonance, but the only emotion this collection left me with was irritation.

The first few stories were so obtuse, and tried so painfully hard to be clever, that I could not even absorb them. One of the tales was so syntactically heavy-handed that I couldn't read more than a page in a sitting without rolling my eyes. Is this, I thought in despair, what constitutes great fiction, these days??

If it weren't for the shining light that was Kij Johnson's The Apartment Dweller's Bestiary, almost a third of the way into the book, I would not have been able to slog through it all. Kij's entry was a collection of vignettes, organized in alphabetical order and leapfrogging in theme from one POV to the next. The result was a whimsical, playful poke into the fantastical faery-esque creatures that dwell in human homes. But deeper than this, each of the creatures served as a commentary about (and often allegory for) different types of relationships, attitudes towards them, and revelations of the self. From unspoken loneliness, to relationships stagnating, from jilted lovers, to cold feet, Kij's offering juxtaposed the mundane and accessible range of human emotion with the fantastic realm of the not-quite-seen. It was magical. Easily the best thing the book had to offer.

Then, another slog through lukewarm entries that left me feeling nothing much, and a couple I detested. Granted there were a few with interesting concepts or passably appealing authorial voices, but not enough to warrant praise here.

Thankfully, a second gem: Dale Bailey's Lightning Jack's Last Ride. This dystopian not-too-far-future tale takes place during the oil wars, which have torn the US of A asunder. It follows a gang of oil thieves, very much in the vein of an Old West train heist meets Fast and the Furious. But what really gives this short story glittering panache is Dale's authorial voice; it feels like a roaring 20s gang picture--a little bit film noir, a little bit Mad Max--but visceral, personal, and shameless. There is a delicious murkiness to characters that have such purity of motive yet callously grey morals. The story is not all car chases, but it has a relentless, inevitable pull, like a crash you can't look away from. The visuals are artful and excellently delivered, from the crackle of the CCV footage to the smell of grease and hay. It was a perfect glimpse into an almost-real world that leaves you both shivering for how near we are to that truth and titillated to have witnessed it. Speculative fiction at its finest.

Followed by some more forgettable tales, including some by big-name authors that I've never gotten around to reading (and now am certainly put off of ever giving them my time).

But the last entry was worthy of a mention: Ambiguity Machines by Vandana Singh. This one felt as though it belonged in Psi Fi magazine: it was extremely philosophical, with probing questions that teetered between the scientific and the spiritual. Offered in three segments that were intertwined in subtle (and minor) ways, each examines a root concept of interconnectedness as it pertains to belief, to time, and to groups of people. Presented as a test for neophytes on which they must write an exam paper, the ideas in Singh's piece are so rich and thought provoking that I hope university classes do use it as an exercise.

In the end, I haven't thrown the book out a moving vehicle because these three, if nothing else, deserve further readings and reflection. The quality of the book is patchy at best, with offerings too varied to feel there was any sort of thread, and themes too disparate to ever fully capture any one reader's heart. Die-hard lovers of fantasy will be disappointed as the fantasy portions (which apparently constitutes 10 of the stories) was very low and urban as best, but speculative fiction lovers might be better mollified.

What I will say is: look up these three short stories, or at least Kij Johnson, Dale Bailey, and Vananda Singh, for they have a beautiful marriage of excellent prose, unique voices, and fresh ideas.