The Reinvented Heart

by Cat Rambo (Editor), Jennifer Brozek (Editor), Jane Yolen (Contributor)

What happens when emotions like love and friendship span vast distances — in space, in time, and in the heart?

Science fiction often focuses on future technology and science without considering the ways social structures will change as tech changes — or not. What will relationships look like in a complicated future of clones, uploaded intelligences, artificial brains, or body augmentation? What stories emerge when we acknowledge possibilities of new genders and ways of thinking about them?

The Reinvented Heart presents stories that complicate sex and gender by showing how shifting technology may affect social attitudes and practices, stories that include relationships with communities and social groups, stories that reinvent traditional romance tropes and recast them for the 21st century, and above all, stories that experiment, astonish, and entertain.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Cat Rambo

HEARTS
Poem: They: A Grammar Lesson by Jane Yolen
Retrospect by Seanan McGuire
Lockpick, Locked Heart by AnaMaria Curtis
Touch Has a Memory by Lisa Morton
Ping-Pong Dysphoria by Madeline Pine
In Our Masks, the Shadows by Sam Fleming
Ships of Theseus by Felicity Drake
With All Souls Still Aboard by Premee Mohamed
More than Nine by Beth Cato

HANDS
Poem: There Is a Hand by Jane Yolen
The Shape of the Particle by Naomi Kritzer
No Want to Spend by Sophie Giroir
Little Deaths and Missed Connections by Maria Dong
Sincerely Yours by Lyda Morehouse
Photosynthesis, Growth by Devin Miller
No Pain but That of Memory by Aimee Ogden
Go Where the Heart Takes You by Anita Ensal

MINDS
Poem: Mars Conquest by Jane Yolen
The Star-Crossed Horoscope for Interstellar Travelers by Fran Wilde
Canvas of Sins by Mercedes M. Yardley
If My Body Is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground by Lauren Ring
PerfectMate™ by Xander Odell
Etruscan Afterlife by Rosemary Claire Smith
Our Savage Heart Calls to Itself (Across the Endless Tides) by Justina Robson

Afterword by Jennifer Brozek
Biographies

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, LGBT, Romance, Adult

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 10, 2022

About the author

F&SF writer Cat Rambo lives and writes in the Midwest. They have been shortlisted for an Endeavour Award, Locus Award, World Fantasy Award and most recently the Nebula Award. Their debut novel, BEASTS OF TABAT, appeared in 2015 from WordFire Press, the same year she co-edited AD ASTRA: THE SFWA 50TH ANNIVERSARY COOKBOOK. Their most recent book is DEVIL'S GUN (novel, Tor Macmillan). They are a former two-term President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and still volunteers with the organization.
They run the popular online writing school focused on fantasy and science fiction, the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers. (academy.catrambo.com)

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Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm going to list out the individual stories and how I rated them. Overall I thought it was a really great idea for an anthology that mostly stayed on topic with successful results.

I'm reading The Reinvented Heart and I wanted to keep track of my thoughts on the anthology.

Hearts
They: A Grammar Lesson | Jane Yolen
Short poem.

Retrospect | Seanan McGuire ★★★☆☆
A researcher has terrible biohazard containment while investigating a paleontological fungal spore and ends up with a symbiotic contamination that experiences love with its host.

I think this one is a bit of a stretch in terms of the remit of the anthology, but it was ok.

Lockpick, Locked Heart | AnaMaria Curtis ★★★☆☆
A company provides a service where you can sell it your ability to feel a particular emotion, after which when you would feel that emotion, instead you see a paywall notification and you feel numb instead. Only, the Earth has been mostly abandoned in a mass exodus and the company is now defunct on Earth leaving many people unable to unlock their emotions.

The central idea is believable, both in terms of the horrible business model of the company and the idea of abandoned DRMed properties.

Touch has a Memory | Lisa Morton ★★★★☆
AI robots are a thing and so is the ability to register your gender and sexuality. A free robot wants to change their register for themself from an "it" to "agender pansexual" but has been denied and comes to a lawyer to appeal the decision. The lawyer works in the field and warns the robot about violent protesters that will target both the lawyer and the robot because of the case, but chooses to take the case anyway. The lawyer is female heterosexual, but experiences attraction to her client.

This is the first story in the anthology that I've really loved. I really liked the discussion between the protagonists that clarifies the difference between sensuality and sexuality and how a robot without genitals or biological arousal can still experience a sexual life.

Ping-Pong Dysphoria | Madeline Pine ★★★☆☆
Hia is a cyborg that can house they're consciousness in either a "boy body" or a "girl body" and has access to both. They're clearly genderfluid and will switch bodies after they begin to experience dysphoria in their current housing. The story is Hia dealing with the anger and breakup caused because their current male partner only wants their female body and wants her to become pregnant ("her" used consciously to indicate Hia in their female incarnation).

This is very short, but really doesn't get into the biggest questions I have about it:
1. How did Hia get like this in the first place? Is Hia artificial?
2. I can't understand why Hia would even be in a relationship with this person. How did this happen?

In Our Masks, the Shadows | Sam Fleming ★★★☆☆
A woman becomes tired of the dating scene in the augmented reality world that everyone now lives in. This has some interesting ideas including the expansion of sociopolitical social media bubbles into the real world, along with some thinking about skins in terms of curating your appearance to the outside world. She's approached by someone without augmented reality and finds that person attractive.

I think this one is shallow. The ideas are interesting enough, but the conclusion that the main character chooses by switching to reality is only supported by a series of poor experiences with her augmented reality partners. I think the conclusion that we're meant to draw is that AR is always fake and therefore unsatisfying, whereas anyone who's familiar with the real world dating scene would have just as bad a "hit rate" on successful encounters.

Ships of Theseus | Felicity Drake ★★★★★
A woodworker is beginning to experience RSI in her left wrist and is considering a voluntary arm replacement. Tech has advanced to the point that prosthetics are "augments", stronger and better than the original with no loss of feeling. She discusses the idea with a workmate who has two leg augments due to a childhood accident. To demonstrate the feeling of his legs he rigs up a neural connection between them and she revels in the sensation of touch that she feels on his legs. She gets the arm replacement and shares its sensation with her workmate. Soon after she replaces her other arm and the two begin to share the neural connection between them and their augments more and more, creating a very different sort of intimacy.

I found this deeply fascinating. The intimacy between the leads isn't sexual (although I assume it would become so over time), and it's a distinctly science-fictional one with fascinating implications. The fantasies of the main character and the discussions of the limitations between them as well as the way that they both lean into a sort of sharing of ownership over their limbs and each other is great to read and think about. It's also a good exploration of the sort of characters that would embrace voluntary augmentation in the face of prejudice from their family and public. Quite brilliant.

With All Souls Still Aboard | Premee Mohamed ★★★☆☆
A mother dealing with her young child is approached by a senior military man. He informs her that her husband, the man who died heroically while saving the Earth from an asteroid impact could be the subject of cloning, but only if she consents. She initially says no, but a medical episode where she nearly loses her son changes her mind.

The plot isn't any more complicated than that, but the story is fleshed out by emotional impact of the mother both nearly losing her son and revisiting the grief for her husband in a new way, along with the guilt of all the people who won't get the opportunity to live again. From how they talk about it, there's no indication that the clone would have her husband's memories, so for me it's not much more interesting than the question of whether a frozen embryo should be brought to term if its parents have been killed.

More Than Nine | Beth Cato ★★★☆☆
Aboard a spaceship a cat whose the forty-second iteration of a cloned original is nearing end of life. The pilot of the ship and her family have kept the line of cloned cats going for generations. When an alien comes aboard and steals the cat the pilot goes to rescue it, only to find it hooked up to technology that lets it talk to her.

This is a very silly, but very cute story.

Hands
There is a Hand | Jane Yolen
Short poem.

The Shape of the Particle | Naomi Kritzer ★★★☆☆
This is barely SF, with just a nod to it being near future. A Scholar's Hall whose residents have formed into a communal family of around 40 people burns down and the college that hosts it doesn't want to rebuild while the group continues to host people who aren't producing scholarly work.

The relevance to the anthology is the formation of the family with a recognition that many of its constituents are there because of their effect on the family, not on its output. For me that was a bit of a stretch, although I don't think there's anything wrong with the story.

No Want to Spend | Sophie Giroir ★★★★☆
Ruby is an asexual in a society where sex is commodified and everywhere. I'm sure that lots of ace people would say that's what modern western society already is, but this is overt enough for even allosexual people to find oppressive. It's so oppressive that she's trying to get off-world where she imagines it would be better for her.

This is a complex issue and this is only a short story; it's hard to see the resolution as something Ruby couldn't have worked out on her own, but even so, I quite liked it.

Little Deaths and Missed Connections | Maria Dong ★★★☆☆
On a space-based penal station. the inmates are pumped full of drugs amid a rigid and regimented work/rest cycle that leaves almost no time for themselves. When one inmate starts receiving love letters from a secret admirer she creates a break in the only relationship that she actually has on board the station.

I think the most powerful thing about this story isn't the romantic relationship, but the absolutely horrific situation that the characters find themselves in and consider normal.

Sincerely Yours | Lyda Morehouse ★★★★☆
A woman with crippling social anxiety takes a job where she's the sole crew member of a remote outpost orbiting in Saturn's F-ring. After intercepting an odd message from Ceres she ends up in an old-fashioned text mode email exchange relationship with a fellow anime fan.

This is a lovely story that respects social anxiety and doesn't treat it as a condition that needs to be overcome. Avril in this story has a very narrow bandwidth where she can engage in a relationship and the story is largely about the boundaries around that relationship.

Photosynthesis, Growth | Devin Miller ★★★☆☆
The main character is in a relationship with a photosynth who can literally unfurl the skin from her torso to increase the surface area for photosynthesis, leaving her rib cage and internal organs open and visible. Only the main character is going away to university at a polar location where she can't follow.

The story follows the growth of the main character from an essentially codependent relationship to one that's more balanced, without actually breaking the relationship. The SF element isn't actually relevant to the theme; you could write this without any SF elements at all.

No Pain But That of Memory | Aimee Ogden ★★★☆☆
On a penal planet two siblings are in opposition both before and after a mind-controlling tyrant arrives.

The story here is about the complexities of the relationship between the siblings, one of whom is a powerful psychokinetic and the other who's a mutated monster.

Go Where the Heart Takes You | Anita Ensal ★★★★☆
Two women who have formed the heart of a successful plural marriage over decades take a trip from their native Ganymede to a space station in the belt to see the Jamboree, a week-long social festival. There they encounter a unique family and pitch in to sort out some issues.

This was delightful. Two people with so much love to share meet some other people who desperately need it. Like a few other stories in this anthology, I think it could largely be done without needing the SF element, but I guess the plural marriage element and extended family is vaguely SF.

Minds
Mars Conquest | Jane Yolen
Short poem.

The Star-Crossed Horoscope for Interstellar Travelers | Fran Wilde ★★★☆☆
A tongue-in-cheek horoscope listing for people living in a space-based future, including new starsigns for people born in FTL transit and advice on reading horoscopes. There's a small romantic subplot in the horoscope listing with the compiler reaching out to someone.

This was ok, but very slight.

Canvas of Sins | Mercedes M. Yardley ★☆☆☆☆
I find the whole concept of sin-eaters to be abhorrent, and this leans into the reasons that I hate it. In this case, the sin-eater is treated as a thing until someone starts to care for her.

The whole concept is repulsive and the ending takes it a step further. Does Ivo think Kel is going to be ok with what she did?

If My Body is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground | Lauren Ring ★★★☆☆
A look at uploads and the way people in real life now treat people online as if they weren't people.

Interesting line of thought here. It feels very prescient assuming uploading is ever viable.

Perfectmate™ | Xander Odell ★★★★☆
A woman gets help from an AI to guide her dating profile and they have interesting conversations as the woman is forced to think about what she actually wants.

This was a bit similar to the horoscope one, but I really liked it anyway.

Etruscan Afterlife | Rosemary Claire Smith ★★★★☆
In a future where uploading is possible a lesbian couple struggle with the decision of whether to upload or not. One of them obsesses over the possibility that they might break up if they upload.

This was sweet and covers an interesting line of thought around a fairly old SF idea.

Our Savage Heart Calls to Itself (Across the Endless Tides) | Justina Robson ★★★☆☆
A distant future has sentient creatures of many different origins and designs who all think of themselves as human.

While interesting, I didn't think it was as compelling as either of the editors thought it was.

[Lauren loves llamas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll be honest, that cover completely caught my eye, and when I saw this anthology had stories from Naomi Kritzer, Seanan McGuire and JANE YOLEN!!!! I couldn’t resist. The overarching theme is that of relationships in science fiction – romantic, familial, or platonic – with all the stories written by female or nonbinary authors. It’s divided into three unequal sections. The first section “Hearts” has the most stories (unsurprising given the theme) and revolves around love, mostly of the romantic type. “Hands”, the next section, deals more with actions, whether that’s building communities or some seriously dysfunctional family dynamics. “Minds”, the final section, deals more with the mental rather than the physical aspects of relationships.

Because it’s generally hard to rate such a broad group of stories, here’s each one in the order they appear, along with some quick notes.

HEARTS

“Poem: They: A Grammar Lesson” by Jane Yolen – ★★★★★. Deceptively simple but absolutely terrific, a perfect start to this collection.

“The sad conclusion that must be drawn is that some people cannot handle a little intimacy.”

“Retrospect” by Seanan McGuire – ★★★★★. Hi, I’m freaked out and fascinated and kinda jealous actually? Seanan McGuire has a way with medical/scientific short stories and novellas that is absolutely unrivaled. They’re twisty in the most delicious way.

“Lockpick, Locked Heart” by AnaMaria Curtis – ★★★★☆. It’s abandonware, but for emotions! An interesting concept and a mostly successful execution. The quip about the organizational skills of nuns had me laughing!

“Touch Has a Memory” by Lisa Morton – ★★★★☆. This one reminded me of a noir mystery, though it involves a high-powered lawyer and a rich robot instead of the usual hard boiled detective and femme fatale. It’s a fascinating take on rights and gender and attraction.

“Ping-Pong Dysphoria” by Madeline Pine – ★★★☆☆. The story is fine, but compared to the previous ones? It fell short, both in length and in execution. It wasn’t quite meaty enough for me.

“In Our Masks, the Shadows” by Sam Fleming – ★★★☆☆. A exploration of online life versus “real” life and how it relates to dating. The central theme – about the shallowness of how we often represent ourselves to the outside world – felt, well, shallow.

“Ships of Theseus” by Felicity Drake – ★★★★☆. This story explores a woman’s choice to voluntarily augment herself with a prosthesis and her interactions with a friend who has prosthetic legs due to an accident. They’re able to neurally link together and “feel” the other’s limbs. This story was absolutely fascinating, between the ethics of voluntary augmentation and the ability to literally walk in another person’s shoes (or limbs, whatever).

“With All Souls Still Aboard” by Premee Mohamed – ★★★★★. This is perhaps the most low-tech of the stories, dealing with the daily life of a mother and young son after her husband is killed while saving the planet from an asteroid. It’s full of grief and a bit of hope, and the emotions are just so present and engrossing. Definitely a writer I’ll be following!

“You need someone to take care of you.”
“And I need to take care of someone,” I said softly.

“More than Nine” by Beth Cato – ★★★★★. It’s cute and a bit silly, but I also cried like an idiot. I was absolutely delighted to see that this author has written several other cat stories, and she’s on my TBR for sure now.

HANDS

“Poem: There Is a Hand” by Jane Yolen – ★★★★☆. Yep, Jane Yolen’s still Jane Yolen.

“I learned that you can’t understand the shape of the particle without understanding the particles near it,” I said.

“The Shape of the Particle” by Naomi Kritzer – ★★★★☆. I’m trash for anything found family, so of course I gobbled this up. It’s a very near sci-fi sort of story, but it fits well enough into this anthology given its themes. It’s a lovely rejection of one’s worth being only what you produce; about how building a community is just as important. (As a sidenote, Naomi Kritzer is one of my favorite short story writers, with “Little Free Library” being my favorite).

“No Want to Spend” by Sophie Giroir – ★★★☆☆. An asexual person attempts to get passage off an incredibly sexually-oriented world. It was a bit too in-your-face about it and the resolution seemed lackluster.

“Little Deaths and Missed Connections” by Maria Dong – ★★★☆☆. A woman in a space prison starts finding mysterious notes left behind by a secret admirer…. if only she can figure out who that is. Another story that’s just fine and didn’t really catch my attention.

“Sincerely Yours” by Lyda Morehouse – ★★★★☆. Another story of intercepted communications, but this time one that really caught (hah, pun intended) my attention. The heroine has severe social anxiety, so much so that being the sole crew member on a space station is a dream job for her. One of the few social outlets she can tolerate is discussing her favorite anime shows via text. I liked that this story didn’t go the “time-honored” route of showing some whiz-bang techno way she could be “cured,” but rather focused on how important her boundaries were. Powerful stuff.

“Photosynthesis, Growth” by Devin Miller – ★★★☆☆. This story is about navigating a long distance relationship, where the scifi theme comes into play because one person in the relationship goes off to school somewhere dark and cold and the other can’t follow because she needs photosynthesis to survive. Interesting idea, but the execution didn’t work for me.

“No Pain but That of Memory” by Aimee Ogden – ★★★☆☆. It pained me to not like this one because I’ve liked the author’s previous work, but I found this story, about the machinations between two siblings on a world taken over by a mind-controlling dictator, overly gory and too hard to get in to.

“Go Where the Heart Takes You” by Anita Ensal – ★★★★☆. Super cute and heartwarming and a perfect ending to the “hands” section, in this case involving the remaining two elderly members of a plural marriage who decide to do the scifi equivalent of renting an RV and seeing the universe. What really sold me on this one was the way the two women interact with each other, how they anticipate the other’s actions and responses, just like an old married couple.

MINDS

“The receptacle for your histories,
mysteries, stories, poems.”

“Poem: Mars Conquest” by Jane Yolen – ★★★★☆. Yet again perfectly suited for the section.

“The Star-Crossed Horoscope for Interstellar Travelers” by Fran Wilde – ★★★★☆. Decidedly hilarious galactic horoscopes. “Be a little less extra, Leo” indeed.

“Canvas of Sins” by Mercedes M. Yardley – ★★★☆☆. I have no idea where this story was going, and no idea if it did what it wanted to, but I didn’t like it.

“If My Body Is a Temple, Raze It to the Ground” by Lauren Ring – ★★★★☆. The idea of being able to upload your consciousness isn’t a new one, and neither is the way that could be exploited, but I liked the thoughtful way it was handled here and the gentle romance.

“PerfectMate™” by Xander Odell – ★★★★☆. More hilarity, this time when attempts to find someone’s perfect match keep going badly wrong. This one also involves an asexual character, but I think it does it more skillfully while still resonating just as well.

“Etruscan Afterlife” by Rosemary Claire Smith – ★★★★☆. Adorably sweet. Another story exploring the uploading of consciousnesses, but this time framed around a couple, one of whom is afraid they’ll stop loving each other after being uploaded. An absolutely fascinating take.

“Our Savage Heart Calls to Itself (Across the Endless Tides)” by Justina Robson – ★★★☆☆. This was… fine. It took me a while to get my head around the characters, but I enjoyed the heist portion.

There were some definite standouts for me and some misses, but overall, I think this anthology did exactly what it set out to do. While I didn’t enjoy all of the stories, there were very few that I got actively bored reading, so I’ll give this four stars.

I received an advance review copy of this book from Book Sirens. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

[Beth Cato]

Not a review. Includes my story, "More Than Nine."

[Alan]

Rec. by: Rachel; theme; previous work by Rambo

[Clara Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the center of this anthology is a section titled “Hands” that deserves five stars all on its own. “The Shape of the Particle” by Naomi Kritzer is filled with found family, love of learning, and a shared sweater drawer—the definition of cozy! “No Want to Spend” is a debut story from Sophie Giroir that beautifully navigates a highly sexualized landscape in a personal search for peace. Other stories address issues from social anxiety to photosynthetic humans with representations of poly queer elders and fandom friends (along with incidentally diverse genders and sexualities).

But wait, there’s more… In the “Hearts” section I loved: “In Our Masks, the Shadows” by Sam Fleming—Come for the big thoughts on VR; stay for the detailed insights on animal avatars, mirrors, and drink choices. In the “Heads” section, “Etruscan Afterlife” by Rosemary Claire Smith explores the decision to upload oneself with a lover while interweaving the author’s archeological insights. For me, it’s like I found two bonus books within the anthology, either of which might be the perfect collection for another reader or for me in a different moment.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved most of the stories, and there wasn't a bad one in the bunch. The premise is love in the future, but not just romantic love and not just love between humans. Many of the stories are quite offbeat; I love the authors' ideas about what love might consist of. And what a great lineup of authors, including Jane Yolen, Seanan McGuire, Naomi Kritzer, and Justina Robson! I read the book because I'm trying to read all the Robson I can. Her story (the longest in the book, and the finale) was excellent, and gave another view of her Forged universe. I liked the stories (and Yolen's poems) from the authors I knew, and was delighted to see excellent stories, from authors who are new to me, and who I will look up.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jane Yolen’s contributions were both short poems, if that matters to you. The stories by other authors were all fairly good, often in solid four star territory, with only a small number of less stellar ones. But be forewarned, this is not a strictly or even mainly romance genre book. Many stories are about other forms of love and some do not have HEAs.

I had a good time, but it’s not going in my reread pile.

[Maurynne Maxwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed all but 2 of the stories; those two were a bit on the downer side for me, so I’m glad the editors kept things on the there-will-be-a-future side. I didn’t mark the book down for that, because not all relationships go well, so it’s gotta be represented.
All the stories made me stretch a little, and that’s usually what I prefer, especially in speculative fiction.
Well done!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a middling anthology for me. I felt like too many of the stories strayed from what I *thought* the prompt was and the stories that were given more pages were not my favorites. I'm glad I got to read the stories by the authors I enjoyed (like Seanan McGuire) but this will probably be a donation. I don't see myself rereading this collection multiple times.

[glitrbug · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book of short stories, and one longer one, with a great variety of characters.

[LaShawn]

For “Retrospect” by Sean McGuire
4 stars

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection and plan to check out other work by many of the authors in it. I especially liked Lockpick, Locked Heart and Sincerely Yours.

[MJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this collection of additional types of love the future might bring. Thought provoking.

[Sydney S]

I checked out this book from the library just to read the story by Premee Mohamed. It was good, I enjoyed it, but it didn’t feel like her writing style. I’d probably give it 3.5 stars.