Charles Payseur Reviews Short Fiction: Cast of Wonders, Fantasy, The Book of Beijing, and F&SF

castofwonders.org/
Fantasy 8/23
The Book of Beijing, Bingbing Shi, ed. (Comma) July 2023.
F&SF 9-10/23

Cast of Wonders ranged from poignant to bitingly sarcastic in its July originals, but I was most taken with its first August story, Dani Atkinson’s “The Raven Princess”, which quickly introduces read­ers to a classic fairytale setup – a princess trapped in the body of a raven, trying to help a hapless prince free her from her feathery captivity. Clar­inda knows the rules of her situation, and, along with her raven friend Notchbeak, is stuck hoping that the prince will be able to outsmart the witch who has the power to change her back into human form. Playing by those human rules of fairy tales, though, doesn’t seem to be working, and when Clarinda and Notchbeak decide it’s time to play by the raven rules instead, things get interesting indeed. Atkinson subverts fairytale tropes while maintaining a clear regard and skill with them, using them to craft a very fun romp through magic and fictional royalty while recognizing that many of the values and structures fairy tales were originally designed to reinforce belong to an older rulebook we’ve long since moved past.

Davida Kilgore presents a moving story of friendship, family, and the tradition of names in “My Dear, My Love” in the August Fantasy. Told as a kind of legend – and as a kind of confession – the story unfolds from Liene’s perspective, watch­ing her best friend (and the woman she loves) Medea, also called Ma’Dear, make her messy way through life. The daughter and granddaughter of Chicago crime royalty, Medea is powerful in personality as well as magic, something that takes a toll on her but that she uses from time to time to punish those who try to hurt her. Like the Greek story of Medea, who helped Jason and his Argonauts, this tale takes the shape of a tragedy, setting this Medea on a parallel course as the woman who revenged herself on her un­faithful husband by murdering his lover and her own children. Kilgore complicates the narrative, though, avoiding the easy heartbreak and lead­ing readers in a different direction – one no less tempestuous but decidedly less gruesome, and it makes for a fantastic reading experience. In the issue’s poetry, Marie Brennan explores the power of the written record in “Damnatio Memoriae: A History of the Past That Used to Be”. Stepping off from the idea that history is written by its “vic­tors,” the piece laments the ways that some men did their best to erase women from their pasts, reducing them to relations of men – wives, sisters, daughters, mothers – rather than as full people themselves. The result is a past that is incomplete, twisted by a narrative that’s very difficult to push back against without the evidence that here has been destroyed. What’s left are holes that can’t be filled, as the poem outlines the loss and great weight of the absence we have been taught to be­lieve is historically accurate. It’s a haunting read.

Comma Press is closing in on 30 anthologies focused on different cities around the world, and their latest is The Book of Beijing, edited by Bingbing Shi and featuring ten stories that paint a complex and nuanced picture of the place. And while most of the stories in the anthology aren’t speculative in nature, there are two that look not at the past or present of the city, but into its futures. “The MagiMirror Algorithm” by Gu Shi (translated by Florence Taylor) follows Chuchu as she begins to use an augmented reality program through smart contact lenses that analyze the facial expressions of those around her to let her know what people might be thinking, and how best to possibly get them to think well of her. The story explores the wall of artifice such technology creates, where it’s more important to project what people want than to be authentic. Chuchu uses the technology as a hidden weapon, and it works beautifully for that, all while leading her down an avenue of missed connections and a crumbling self of self. It’s an almost haunting story about the transparency we all desire from others and how far that is from the vulnerability we wish to experience ourselves. Han Song peeks into a pos­sible future of the Beijing West Railway Station in “Reunion” (translated by Carson Ramsdell). With a more surreal aesthetic, the story follows a human assisting the robots in charge of the station track down a person who wants to lose themself in the ever-changing, ever-growing labyrinth of hallways, hotels, platforms, and passages. Identi­ties bleed together and fall apart as the narrator begins to see the pattern of the station, the secret it is keeping, the longing it is feeling, and that is being reflected across the city and beyond – for connection. For true companionship and understanding, which is made difficult, nearly impossible, thanks to the constant movement, efficiency, and transience demanded by the sta­tion’s function and the values of the society that created it. It’s a sharp way to close out the project, leaving readers faced with the city’s long history, complicated present, and possible tomorrows.

The September/October issue of F&SF lingers on distinctions and divisions between people, between classes, between worlds. In Maricar Macario’s F&SF debut, “Bayanihan”, a child is moved from Earth to Mars as part of a great opportunity for their family – an escape from the dead end Earth is viewed as. Leaving their planet behind, though, means leaving a part of themselves and their culture across a divide that is very difficult to cross. Luckily the family has their aging droid, Nanay, to keep some of their past alive, but even Nanay tires, growing old and, to most people at least, obsolete. The narrator, a second person “you,” must face their past andtheir future as they see the prejudice and entitle­ment of people living on Mars, as they must find for themself who they are and where they come from before it’s too late to really learn. Macario does a beautiful job imagining a future that feels all too present, where home is something you carry with you, something you make, and something you leave behind. Continuing with the theme, Tessa Yang’s F&SF debut, “Upstairs” keeps the distance traveled a little smaller, but no less profound, as Sadie and her family move to the upper city from the lower – a move that’s supposed to be random but seems always to find those who “fit” into the up and coming group favored by corporations. For Sadie, who has always been something of a radical, the move rankles, even as she finds herself appreciating the comforts and ease that come in Upstairs. When her former life threatens to unravel her family’s trajectory, though, it puts her ethics on a collision course with the crush of corruption and the desire to do right by those she loves. Yang is careful not to cast what happens as a triumph, but a sharp look at selling out and rising up, when the keys to the elevator are firmly controlled by those who benefit most from the unequal and exploitative status quo. It’s a wonderful story.

Kel Coleman’s F&SF debut shifts focus only a bit, looking not at the divides between humans, but that between human and nonhuman, with “On the Matter of Homo sapiens”. The story follows three sentimechs (sentient mechanical beings) who are out doing a bit of geocaching in a world where humans no longer exist. Or, well… it’s complicated. But the focus is between how the sentimechs view humanity – as valuable in their own right, as deeply flawed and destruc­tive, and as possibly vital to sentimechs because of the human capacity for creative thought and innovation. Having almost destroyed the planet once, what aspect of humanity should weigh the most, when the result could be a kind of human rewilding or de-extinction. Coleman keeps this fun and light, conversational even as the impli­cations of the story are largely deep and grim. Still, there is a warmth and hope to the story that is infectious, and I do love the inclusion of geocaching as a way for the sentimechs to relate to humanity in all its confusing, terrible, beautiful complexity. Finally, moving to poetry, Alexandra Elizabeth Honigsberg makes a F&SF debut with two poems, including the strange and compelling “Shapeshifter”. The piece speaks to me of destruc­tion and catastrophe as the narrator witnesses something they fear – something shattering and strange – and yet out of it comes not the oblivion they expected, but something lovely and wild. The piece has a strong ambiguity to it, the destruction literal or figurative, fire or extinction, animals or angels. Through that there is a sense of change, of expectation meeting something new, transfor­mative, and not perhaps as bleak as anticipated. There is an airy quality to the imagery, feathers and smoke – ethereal elements that come together powerfully and evocatively through Honigsberg’s language and flow. It’s well worth checking out.

Recommended Stories
“The Raven Princess”, Dani Atkinson (Cast of Wonders 8/23)
“My Dear, My Love”, Davida Kilgore (Fantasy 8/23)
“The MagiMirror Algorithm”, Gu Shi (Book of Beijing 7/23)
“Upstairs”, Tessa Yang (F&SF 9-10/23)

This review and more like it in the October 2023 issue of Locus.

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