"The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family" by Usman T. Malik

[[deleted user]]

This is the discussion of the 2014 Nebula Award nominated short story:


The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family by Usman T. Malik

You can read it free on-line @Medium.com.
Originally published in Qualia Nous.

This story was also reprinted in The Best SF&F of the Year, vol 9 (2014) .

This story is part of our 2014 Nebula Award-Nominated Short Stories Discussion.
It is also part of our The Long List Anthology — Nore from the 2014 Hugo Nominations discussion

[Andreas]

I've read it in John Strahan's Best SF&F 2014. (Review crossposted from my blog).

Synopsis: At the intersection of Pakistani religion and modernity, a brother wants to take revenge, a sister leaves her home to educate herself only to find out that suicidal terrorists threaten the city. She confronts the monster of her home - Annunaki, an old Mesoptamian god.

Review: The story's topic is justice and violence within the Pakistani culture. It is richly filled with literalized metaphors, phrase turns and a beautiful prose. Each chapter starts with a physics background about the state of matter reflecting what happens to the main protagonist. The weirdness circles around hard truths like a family's dissolving or terroristic suicides and a physics. I loved the story's structure and characterizations. An early Ted Chiang glimpses through. Malik tries to find his narration style and he is an author I'll watch out for - if you're in need of a second Malik story, read Resurrection Points online.

[[deleted user]]

Andreas wrote: "It is richly filled with literalized metaphors, phrase turns and a beautiful prose. Each chapter starts with a physics background about the state of matter reflecting what happens to the main protagonist. The weirdness circles around hard truths like a family's dissolving or terroristic suicides and a physics."

This is why I don't read litcrap. I read the first three sections, then went back and started over, trying to understand what was going on, Then read the entire thing to the end, and the only thing I was left with was, "huh?"

I was clearly aware that by prefacing each section with a description of a state of matter (all the way to the Bose-Einstein condensate), the author was groping for a metaphor, but I had no idea what was going on in between the fusion and boiling points. "Going to the mountain?" "Confronting Annunaki?" (Mesopotamian, huh? I never much cared for Gilgamesh, either.)

I think comparing this to anything by Ted Chiang is an insult to Ted Chiang. Chiang writes comprehensible stories populated by interesting characters, and if he feels the need to drop in a Mesopotamian deity, he'll do a much better job of explaining his purpose.


Andreas wrote: "if you're in need of a second Malik story..."

No, thanks. :)

[Bryn]

I don't like it either. Poor writing.

[Andreas]

G33z3r wrote: "blacrapblubb" :)
I see where our tastes differ :)

[Bryn]

@G33z3r On its 'litcrapness' (a word I can only use in inverted commas): obscurity isn't art. On the contrary, obscurity in this story means he hasn't got his ideas across. Or put another way, interesting setting and so on, but I'd say it needs more work, not least to clarify those metaphors.

[Ben]

I tried this story a while ago and struggled and put it down but with the intention to try again.

Should get to it over the next day or two.

[Steve]

I wanted to like this story. I did like the prefacing of each section with an explanation about different states of matter (I like stories from time time that explain some real science within the story). I enjoyed the glimpse into a different culture too. The first half of the story held real promise, I was intrigued and interested, wanting to learn more about Tara. The second half I lost the plot a bit, and ended up being very confused at the end. So overall a bit of a disappointment.