Book Review: Adventures in Space: Short Stories by Chinese and English Authors, edited by Patrick Parrinder and Yao Haijun
Science Fiction/Short Stories: Adventures in Space: Short Stories by Chinese and English Authors, edited by Patrick Parrinder and Yao Haijun
When you’re in the throes of a reading slump (as I am), sometimes the perfect remedy is a book of short stories. For those who love science fiction (as I do), Flame Tree Press has a new collection by a group of English and Chinese authors. Adventures in Space pulls together works from fifteen authors, originally published in English and Chinese (translated into English for this volume, translated into Chinese for its counterpart in Asia).
Although no overarching theme beyond “space” binds these stories, I was struck by how many of them explore the space of the human mind and imagination. Obviously the vast reaches of solar and interstellar space factor significantly in these stories. But several of them are also stories of the human mind unbound. Minds merged with AI both willingly and unwillingly. Posthumously–though sometimes the act of the merger is what leads to the person’s death(?). Other stories explore the complete loss of one’s mind, or at least memory. Questions of what it means to be truly human, to be essentially immortal, to confront one’s gods, all arise in the course of these adventures.
One of the fundamental questions science fiction asks is essentially, “Have we learned anything from our mistakes?” After brutally conquering far away lands at an awful cost to the native inhabitants, can we do better on other planets? After polluting and despoiling and heating this planet, will we be better on other worlds? Removing all context from our memories, do we aspire to goodness or resort to barbarism? Likely there is no single answer to any of those questions: some will turn one way, others will turn another. I want to believe that humanity carries the seeds of goodness that have the potential to transform the future. Some of these writers, though, seem to doubt that the better angels of our nature have that much power over our choices.
Short story collections let you skip around and read in any order you choose. They let you take a bite, then come back for more. They plant the seeds of ideas then let them germinate in the reader’s mind. They are an ideal treatment for a reading slump. Adventures in Space has done exactly that for me. I highly recommend it.
Our thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things for our copy of the short story collection Adventures in Space, provided so we could write an honest review of the book. The opinions here are solely those of Scintilla. For other perspectives, check out the other bloggers on this tour–especially the ones who actually published their reviews on time!
Book Review: Adventures in Space: Short Stories by Chinese and English Authors, edited by Patrick Parrinder and Yao Haijun