Made of Stardust and Stubbornness – Page 5 – a blog of book reviews and the occasional essay on disability

“Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse And Other Possible Situations” Review

Posted on September 1, 2024October 8, 2024 by Jen

“Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse And Other Possible Situations” by S.B. Divya

A sickly biologist shuts herself off from the world and its deadly pollutants to research her beloved microbiota in peace – until a chance encounter drives her to venture out into an unlivable Bangalore. In a dystopian Arizona, a couple performs forbidden life-saving abortions amid the threat of tanks and drones, the strict report of automatic weapons and the spying eyes of neighbors. A young woman competes in a grueling challenge, determined to win a place in a world where body modifications equal class and grant people the privilege of transcending gender.

In this collection of 14 layered stories featuring dying cities, undying humans, amorphous bodies, cyborg racers and magic beetles, internationally acclaimed writer and data scientist S.B. Divya treads the line between the present and the future, while exploring the eternal conundrums of identity and love in speculative worlds.

Review

I’ve read (and reviewed) S.B. Diva’s two Alloy Era Novels “Meru” and “Loka” so I knew what to expect from her writing and the short stories were no surprise. I really enjoyed them all and how the author handles everything from disability to gender to various technologies and how it can be used for good or bad. I really enjoyed all of these stories though with any short story there are a couple I wish had been longer.

LOSS OF SIGNAL – This is an interesting story about a dying teenager whose consciousness was uploaded into a spaceship – the first test flight of such ships as an alternate way to explore space. It’s a lot of internal thoughts as the teen is flying the ship towards the moon and thinking about his previous years and the choices he’s making.

CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR THE APOCALYPSE – A dark story about surviving after being attacked for performing lifesaving abortions in Arizona. The surviving spouse (who always expected to be the one killed) has to get their children out of the state. One might wonder if the cost of staying was too great but the help they gave was also vital.

MICROBIOTA AND THE MASSES: A LOVE STORY – This one would not be my usual cup of tea since it’s a love story but it’s got an interesting premise. The main character, who is also a biologist, has been isolated in their home because of the pollution making them sick. So their house is completely contained with clean air and water. The way they end up making various choices was interesting and I liked the way they end up helping everyone while falling in love with a repair man who came to their home.

AN UNEXPECTED BOON – This was an interesting story of a young girl who has ODC or Autistic traits (though it’s never named as such) and her older brother. The brother is a bit of a jerk but it’s actually an understandable issue because he’s been left to take care of her temporarily by his parents and he insisted he could do it without considering what it would mean. I like the way it plays out though with the girl being stronger than he thinks despite everything that happens.

NAVA – I’m pretty sure this is a story set in the author’s Alloy Era series (probably an early version since this book was published before both “Meru” and “Loka”). Or it’s different take on that universe. It has an interesting concept with a living ship having been created and needing to learn how to function as its maker intended.

BINARIES – Interesting glimpses in time of a person’s long life. The method for which they live their long life isn’t explained but it seems like it has to do with being converted to digital signals. But in the end though it has to do with family and finding someone who was lost.

THE EGG – This one is really short on details and the ending is a little vague but it’s a look at choices people make and consequences. The vague unknown ending is actually the point given what happens. The looming unknown after a death changes everything.

DUSTY OLD THINGS – Cool story about someone talking to an alternate version of themselves through a light board. It’s not clear exactly how the technology worked as the version that discovered the technology is the one in the alternate universe. I liked the way it played out and that the differences in their lives was an important part of the story.

THE BOY WHO MADE FLOWERS – In a world where superpowers are real a boy develops the power to make flower. He of course hates it at first but soon learns what his power can mean for others. I really enjoyed how this one ended up.

SHIPS IN THE NIGHT – A very brief look at the life of someone who can see the future and what happens when they meet an immortal. Interesting story and I liked the way it plays out. Probably not what you’d expect but it makes sense when you think about it.

GAPS OF JOY, AND A KNOT FOR LOVE – This one is a little weird as I’m not sure what the ending is saying about the persons powers vs reality. He has the power to collect and share happiness but it’s not all that his family needs.

STRANGE ATTRACTORS – this one is an interesting look at a couple who marries and divorces and then meets again centuries later (no explanation other than technology being available). I actually liked the ending of this one because it felt very realistic for people who keep meeting up again despite everything.

SOFT WE WAKE – A person tries to adjust after waking up in the far future without the person who was supposed to be there with him. Everything is so different and he’s not comfortable with all the changes. I liked the way it played out and the friendship he ends up developing with another person who was revived at the same time. Her situation is different but with similar ideas of not being sure how to live again in such a changed world.

RUNTIME – I believe this one is the longest of the short stories in the book but it has a lot to say. I’m not entirely sure how the postnatal licensing works but naturally it’s yet another way to keep poor people poor since they can never afford to pay the fees and without it they can’t get jobs or better educations. Anyway the main character attempts a race to earn more money to get out of their situation. The way things go down was exciting and naturally it doesn’t go as planed. I did like how it worked out though.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse And Other Possible Situations”.

Book Details

Two people are standing on the surface of a planet holding hands while looking upward at a sky filled with greens and blues and purples of a nebula and another planet at the top right of the cover. The title of the book is in the center of the cover with the authors name below that.

Author’s Website: S.B. Divya
Publisher / Date: Hachette India January 1, 2019
Genre: Science Fiction, Short Stories
Page Count: 264
Completion Date: August 31, 2024

“Buffalo Is the New Buffalo” Review

Posted on August 31, 2024October 8, 2024 by Jen

“Buffalo Is the New Buffalo” by Chelsea Vowel

Powerful stories of “Metis futurism” that envision a world without violence, capitalism, or colonization.

Inspired by classic and contemporary speculative fiction, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo explores science fiction tropes through a Metis lens: a Two-Spirit rougarou (shapeshifter) in the nineteenth century tries to solve a murder in her community and joins the nehiyaw-pwat (Iron Confederacy) in order to successfully stop Canadian colonial expansion into the West. A Metis man is gored by a radioactive bison, gaining super strength, but losing the ability to be remembered by anyone not related to him by blood. Nanites babble to babies in Cree, virtual reality teaches transformation, foxes take human form and wreak havoc on hearts, buffalo roam free, and beings grapple with the thorny problem of healing from colonialism.

“Education is the new buffalo” is a metaphor widely used among Indigenous peoples in Canada to signify the importance of education to their survival and ability to support themselves, as once Plains nations supported themselves as buffalo peoples. The assumption is that many of the pre-Contact ways of living are forever gone, so adaptation is necessary. But Chelsea Vowel asks, “Instead of accepting that the buffalo, and our ancestral ways, will never come back, what if we simply ensure that they do?”

Indigenous futurisms seek to discover the impact of colonization, remove its psychological baggage, and recover ancestral traditions. These eight short stories of “Metis futurism” explore Indigenous existence and resistance through the specific lens of being Metis. Expansive and eye-opening, Buffalo Is the New Buffalo rewrites our shared history in provocative and exciting ways.

Review

I really enjoyed reading all of the stories in the book! The Locating Myself, Preface and Conclusion chapters are important to read as they give a lot of context for the kind of stories that are included. Something that is often ignored is that all of the stories about world ending invasions have already happened to many Indigenous populations. The stories in this book play on that concept in different ways. The introduction gives a short explanation for the stories included. Each story also includes an explanation of the story and several footnotes which are interesting to read as they give additional context for the story and the inspiration for them.

BUFFALO BIRD – I liked the way it played out though it was tricky keeping track of the story as it jumped between different times in the life of the shapeshifter character. Though I did think the different time and situations had a common thread that made it work.

MICHIF MAN – This one was interesting as it was split between a modern day academic presentation of whether or not Michif Man actually existed or was just a metaphor and then actual scenes from the character’s life. Interesting story!

DIRTY WINGS – This one is a dream / stream of consciousness story so it’s a bit tricky to get. It’s interesting though and I really enjoyed the explanation section for this one.

MAGGIE SUE – This one takes some work to get through because it’s a detailed story that the POV character is telling about an event that happened. The character isn’t the main character of the story but actually a side character who encounters the main character as they head off on a quest (basically). There’s a lot going on in the story with a few side stories as the character explains things and it does take work to follow along. Worth it though.

A LODGE WITHIN HER MIND – A pandemic story! Interesting take in the idea of being uploaded into a virtual reality and what it can mean for you afterwards. The ending of it is neat.

ÂNISKÔHÔCIKAN – This one has an interesting idea – using nanites to force all language heard by a person into Cree, from birth, in order to create more native speakers of the language. The story is short and it’s intended to raise more questions than answers as we only see the beginning years of the child’s life without a lot of detail. How will it work as the child grows up? There’s hints of the idea of how we claim that technology will save us but it never works without consequences.

I, BISON – This story takes the idea of digital uploads and expands on what it would mean in the context of spiritual connections to the body. It also explores the idea of disability or mental illness and what actually disabled us. I really liked the ideas presented and the explanation is after the story is interesting.

UNSETTLED – And this is the story that deals with the idea that Indigenous populations are already postapocalyptic. They’ve had their lands stollen and their people enslaved or killed. What would happen if they were given control back? What would it take for them to decide that it was worth whatever cost they had to make? It’s an interesting idea and makes an interesting point. The explanation afterwards is great too.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Buffalo Is the New Buffalo”.

Book Details

Author’s Website: Chelsea Vowel
Publisher / Date: Arsenal Pulp Press, June 2022
Genre: Science Fiction, Short Stories
Page Count: 341
Completion Date: August 31, 2024

Additional Thoughts About Murderbot

Posted on August 30, 2024October 5, 2024 by Jen

Note: This was originally posted along with my review of “Artificial Condition”, before I decided to move it to a separate post.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the first two books in “The Murderbot Diaries” by Martha Wells I have to say I have mixed feelings with the way intelligence is talked about in these books. Murderbot thinks of itself as superior to all other AIs because it hacked its governor unit and is no longer being controlled by the company. It also thinks itself superior to all humans. It has a lot to say about the intelligence of everyone – AI and human alike. Sometimes going as far as making judgements about the usefulness of those who are less intelligent. Since the books are from Murderbot’s POV the bias can be interpreted as bias on the character’s part more than the narrative suggesting it but it was something I noticed.

I also made note of how humans a categorized as human and augmented humans and it’s not clear who is augmented. Can anyone be augmented or are most of them previously disabled humans who need assistive tech like hearing aids or glasses? If most of them are in fact disabled humans then there’s some negative implications about the distinction. Though again it’s Murderbot’s POV and if it categorizes people that way because it feels closer to augmented humans than humans that’s different.

I do feel the way Murderbot feels superior to everyone and free to call everyone unintelligent (the word stupid is used a lot) is a problem. The idea that one is better than someone else just because they’re smarter is not the greatest idea to hold. It’s the root of eugenics and the reason people with intellectual disabilities are treated badly by everyone including people with physical disabilities who often try to distance themselves from the idea they may be unintelligent. “I may be physically disabled buy my brain is fine” ableism is rampant. People with varying degrees of intellectual disabilities have been categorized in the past with their level of usefulness for jobs and I see hints of that in how Murderbot talks about the various AIs it has worked with in the past and encounters on its journey. The idea of dumb vs smart technology may be a thing that is common in Science Fiction and talking about AIs but we should all be aware of where it comes from and what it means when applied to people.

It’s true the humans Murderbot encounters are putting themselves at risk and making choices that would have gotten them killed if not for Murderbot being there to protect them. But is that really a lack of intelligence? Are they really stupid or merely young and inexperienced with how bad things can be? Should they “know better” or have they not yet had the opportunity to learn because they are young? Even for those who should “know better” the choice is still theirs to make. We may think those choices are wrong but if they know the risks and make them anyway are they really “stupid” or just reckless with their lives? While it’s true people use “stupid” as a short cut for a lot of flaws, that is in fact the problem. We make these kinds of judgements all the time and feel superior because we apparently smarter than those who make “poor choices” but I’m sure somewhere along the line we go out and make a choice someone else would question us about.

Previously I wrote an essay called “The Problem of Intellectual Ableism” that I think is relevant to this post. Give it a read. I don’t believe the problems I see in this book are entirely intentional, and I don’t have anything against the author for any of this. The issues I see in the Murderbot Diaries are present everywhere to varying degrees as they are systemic issues. People often use intelligence based insults whenever they judge others – which is the whole problem. These books just seemed to emphasis that a lot because of Murderbots superiority complex. At least in this book Muderbot learns that it can be wrong in its assumptions – it originally assumes ART is a “dumb bot” before it learns better. Still… the assumptions were made, as they often are about intelligence and worth.

“Artificial Condition” Review

Posted on August 30, 2024October 8, 2024 by Jen

“Artificial Condition” (The Murderbot Diaries No. 2) by Martha Wells

It has a dark past–one in which a number of humans were killed. A past that caused it to christen itself “Murderbot”. But it has only vague memories of the massacre that spawned that title, and it wants to know more.

Teaming up with a Research Transport vessel named ART (you don’t want to know what the “A” stands for), Murderbot heads to the mining facility where it went rogue. What it discovers will forever change the way it thinks…

Review

Note: Murdebot refers to itself with it/its pronouns so I will use those when referring to Murderbot. It does not consider itself human and does not want to be considered a person.

I enjoyed this one as much as the previous story. I really liked the sort of friendship Murderbot develops with ART – I don’t think Murderbot would call it a friendship but it approaches that level. Murderbot does a lot to help ART figure things out by sharing the media it has watched and ART ends up helping Murderbot figure out what happened in the past. I also enjoyed how Murderbot ends up helping the group of humans it encounters while traveling back to where the massacre occurred to do its research to find out what happened to it in the past. There’s a lot to be said about Murderbot learning from its past and how it interacts with people and other AIs.

As much as I’ve enjoyed the first two books I have to say I have mixed feelings with the way intelligence is talked about in these books, and I had some addtional thoughts written here that I’m moved to another post called Additional Thoughts About Murderbot if you would like to read it.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Artificial Condition”.

Book Details

Murderbot is depicted on the cover and is in the shape of a human with grayish armor that covers it entirely including a helmet with face shield. It is standing on the edge of something that looks like a metal platform with yellow and brown clouds behind it. Above is spaceship mostly hidden in the clouds but visible. The author's name is at the top of the cover with the title at the bottom.

Author’s Website: Martha Wells
Publisher / Date: Tor.com, May 2018
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 117
Completion Date: August 29, 2024

“All Systems Red” Review

Posted on August 28, 2024October 8, 2024 by Jen

“All Systems Red” (The Murderbot Diaries No. 1) by Martha Wells

In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn’t a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied ‘droid — a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as “Murderbot”. Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is.

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it’s up to the scientists and their Murderbot to get to the truth.

Review

I really enjoyed this novella. Murderbot is a very interesting character and I liked the way they things developed over the course of the story. I liked what we learned about Murderbot along with the humans it was protecting. There are some world building details that I wish had been explained in more depth, but it’s not a dealbreaker. The ending is a little abrupt, but not a surprising choice by Murderbot given their new found freedom to make that choice. I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the series.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “All Systems Red”.

Book Details

Murderbot is depicted on the cover and is in the shape of a human with grayish armor that covers it entirely including a helmet with face shield. In the background are rows of trees on either side and above are what looks like the rings of a planet. The author's name is at the bottom along with the title.

Author’s Website: Martha Wells
Publisher / Date: Tor.com, May 2017
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 150
Completion Date: August 27, 2024

“Beacon 23” Review

Posted on August 25, 2024October 8, 2024 by Jen

“Beacon 23” by Hugh Howey

For centuries, men and women have manned lighthouses to ensure the safe passage of ships. It is a lonely job, and a thankless one for the most part. Until something goes wrong. Until a ship is in distress.

In the 23rd century, this job has moved into outer space. A network of beacons allows ships to travel across the Milky Way at many times the speed of light. These beacons are built to be robust. They never break down. They never fail.

At least, they aren’t supposed to.

Review

This was an interesting read. It starts out as one type of story but slowly expands into something else. The main character is complicated as he deals with combat related PTSD and the loneliness of being on the beacon without anyone nearby. As a result it’s not always clear if the things that are happening are real or not. The reader is in his head for the story so really just has to go along for the ride and hopefully understand everything that the story is about in the end. The book was originally published as 5 short stories and then collected into one novel. Each story does its own thing but continues the overall plot of the main character being in charge of running the beacon. There is a vague ending and then an epilogue that concludes what happened. I believe I prefer the vague ending because it fit better with the overall concept of figuring out what is really going on.

Warnings and additional reviews are available on the StoryGraph page for “Beacon 23”.

Book Details

The background of the cover is the vastness of space with many stars showing in the distance. In the center of the cover is a red circle possibly a view port with the figure of a person looking outwards. The book title is at the top with the authors name at the bottom.

Author’s Website: Hugh Howey
Publisher / Date: NLA Digital, December 2015
Genre: Science Fiction
Page Count: 258
Completion Date: August 25, 2024