Review by Booklist Review
The range, inventiveness, and creativity among these 26 tales make a definitive case for why the doors of science fiction should be thrown open to international and translated stories. The stories range from focused and weird to vast and complex, but all of them are grounded in emotional cores and an inventive fervor. An antiquated robot starts writing fan fiction for anime Hyperdimension Warp Record in "Fandom for Robots" by Vina Jie-Min Prasad. An incredible interstellar chess game whirls around a love story in R.S.A. García's "The Sun From Both Sides"; an imugi is determined to become a dragon in Zen Cho's uplifting "If At First You Don't Succeed." A young woman with dreams of Mars struggles just to pay rent in a dystopic Mexico City in Silvia Moreno-Garcia's novella "Prime Meridian." Refugees settle on a traveling micronation; Ever-Typhoid causes strange delusions; a young boy befriends a man with a hand growing from his back; a survivor returns home to Igbo state New Biafra for her father's funeral; multiple revolutions are fought on a continent made of stars. All of these stories come together to create a rich and well-curated collection full of surprising narratives and vast worlds that will delight any sf fan.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This excellent anthology proves editor Tidhar's assertion that science fiction should no longer be thought of as "white, male, and American" with 26 exemplary stories from 21 countries. French author Aliette de Bodard draws on her Vietnamese heritage in the Nebula Award--winning "Immersion" to examine the strain of keeping one's culture alive within a dominant interstellar civilization. Francesco Verso's "The Green Ship," translated from the Italian by Michael Colbert, sees a boatload of refugees crossing the Mediterranean from Benghazi in the near future. In the poignant "Delhi" from Indian author Vandana Singh, a young man copes with a barrage of glimpses into the past, present, and future of that ancient city. Cuban author Malena Salazar Macia shows how post-human technology can recreate the primitive past in "Eyes of the Crocodile," translated by Toshiya Kamei. "Xingzhou" by Singaporean author Ng Yi-Sheng energetically whips mythic and literary tropes into a witty souffle. And the Hugo-winning "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again" by Malaysian author Zen Cho is an amusing and moving tale of a larval dragon's millennium-long wait to ascend to its true form. Worthwhile both as a survey of international sci-fi and on a story-by-story level, this wonderful anthology should be a hit with any sci-fi fan. (June)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
