The Best of World SF: Volume 3

The Best of World SF #3

by Lavie Tidhar (Editor, Introduction), Diana Rahim (Contributor), Daniela Tomova (Contributor)

The third annual instalment to the 'excellent, lovingly curated ( Financial Times ) The Best of World SF series

The Best of World SF series is a fixture on the global science fiction scene. If you want to find the most exciting SF authors writing today, look no further.

In this third instalment, you'll discover alien artists, rioting dinosaurs, shape-shifting rabbits, heartbreak-harvesting cafes and one robot on a quest for meaning. You will be transported to the stars and back down to Earth and sideways, with the order of the world turned upside down.

Featuring authors from Austria, Bulgaria, China, Finland, Ghana, Greece, India, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, the Philippines, Portugal, Russia, Singapore and South Africa, this collection's stories have been selected by award-winning writer, editor and World SF expert Lavie Tidhar.

The most exciting science fiction on the planet comes from all corners of the globe. And it's all in the Best of World SF series.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Collections, Fantasy

672 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2023

About the author

Lavie Tidhar was raised on a kibbutz in Israel. He has travelled extensively since he was a teenager, living in South Africa, the UK, Laos, and the small island nation of Vanuatu.

Tidhar began publishing with a poetry collection in Hebrew in 1998, but soon moved to fiction, becoming a prolific author of short stories early in the 21st century.

Temporal Spiders, Spatial Webs won the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury competition, sponsored by the European Space Agency, while The Night Train (2010) was a Sturgeon Award finalist.

Linked story collection HebrewPunk (2007) contains stories of Jewish pulp fantasy.

He co-wrote dark fantasy novel The Tel Aviv Dossier (2009) with Nir Yaniv. The Bookman Histories series, combining literary and historical characters with steampunk elements, includes The Bookman (2010), Camera Obscura (2011), and The Great Game (2012).

Standalone novel Osama (2011) combines pulp adventure with a sophisticated look at the impact of terrorism. It won the 2012 World Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the Campbell Memorial Award, British Science Fiction Award, and a Kitschie.

His latest novels are Martian Sands and The Violent Century.

Much of Tidhar’s best work is done at novella length, including An Occupation of Angels (2005), Cloud Permutations (2010), British Fantasy Award winner Gorel and the Pot-Bellied God (2011), and Jesus & the Eightfold Path (2011).

Tidhar advocates bringing international SF to a wider audience, and has edited The Apex Book of World SF (2009) and The Apex Book of World SF 2 (2012).

He is also editor-in-chief of the World SF Blog , and in 2011 was a finalist for a World Fantasy Award for his work there.

He also edited A Dick and Jane Primer for Adults (2008); wrote Michael Marshall Smith: The Annotated Bibliography (2004); wrote weird picture book Going to The Moon (2012, with artist Paul McCaffery); and scripted one-shot comic Adolf Hitler’s I Dream of Ants! (2012, with artist Neil Struthers).

Tidhar lives with his wife in London.

Reviews

[Johan Haneveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

8- Of course reading an anthologie will (almost) always result in a mixed reading experience - as however the selection was done, there is always a subjective element, and ones taste might not aline with the jury or editor. Also, often anthologists want to represent as much of a field as possible, and present the reader with a wide variety of genres, interpretations, writing styles and themes - only hemmed in by the theme of the anthology itself. In this case the theme is as the title proclaims: 'The best of world SF' - sciencefictional stories (in as broad an interpretation of the term SF as possible) from all over the world, outside of the usual English or American authors. So, this results in a diversity of national and literary backgrounds. Then Lavie Tidhar is an editor with an eclectic taste - he loves literary experiments and slice of life stories more than I do, for example. On the other hand he loves exploration of themes like nationalism, the refugee crisis, climate change and capitalism, which I appreciate.
It results in, to me, a very diverse collection that had stories I absolutely unreservedly adored and tales that left me bored or scratching my head in incomprehension. So, yes, it's a mixed bag, but it's a bag that contains treasures, so it's worth searching for them in it. And on the whole this anthology will expand your view - of the SF-genre and the possibilities included in that nomer (seeing how SF-nal concepts are stretched outside of the anglophone community) and of the world - stories are (it's often said) a way of learning empathy and in these stories authors from Africa, Southeast Asia, Mexico and China write about the same concerns that I have, the same experiences of anxiety, love, hope and alienation, underlining the fact that under it all we are all human and the divisions we put up amongst ourselves are artificial and hurtful. As the world in in the grip of multiple crises: climate change, war, the upcoming far right and erosion of democracy and late stage capitalism hollowing out individual freedoms outside of the freedom to consume, it follows that the stories collected herein do not always have a positive outlook. Be prepared to be confronted with the dark parts of our world ... But there's community and hope in these stories too.
Maybe 640 pages of stories was a bit much - at the end I noticed I no longer read with patience for each story but rushed them, wanting to finish the book. This is possibly a flaw of me as a reader having set reading goals for myself (or at least a quite impressive TBR-pile) and not of the book itself, but it may be advisable to not read 28 short stories one after another and read something else in between to keep the experience as fresh as possible.
It is impossible for me to here review all seperate stories. I will call out some that I enjoyed a lot, but remember: you might love different stories in here all together.
'The EMO Hunter' by Mandisi Nkomo - there are a few cyberpunk stories from Africa in here and I liked them a lot. I start to appreciate the African approach to SF - rooted in family structures, and with an open view to spiritual components of life (at least acknowledging they are there and not pre-supposing a fully secularized future) - often technology is infused with an almost religious significance. Here too.
'The Walls of Benin City' by M.H. Ayinde - a post apocalyptic story that turned out to be quite hopeful in the end.
'The Day the World Turned Upside Down' by Thomas Oldeheuvelt - I have to call out the Dutch author in here. I read this story before in Dutch. It deals with the alienation caused by grief by turning the world upside down.
'Now you feel it' by Andrea Chapela - tampering with memories can lead to unexpected consequences. Well told and with emotional depth. Shows how seemingly 'small' stories can be quite impactful.
'Act of Faith' by Fadzlishah Johanabas - an android learns the Koran.
'Godmother' by Cheryl S. Ntumy - another story with a decidedly African look at artifical intelligence. How can it help us feel connected to one another again?
'Proposition 23' by Efe Tokunbo - and here another one, a novella, that has a seeming utopia dealing with outsiders. A great story, tense and leading to an emotiona conclusion. Well worth reading!
'Root rot' by Fargo Tbakhi - this is one of the stories that usually I don't like that much, but I was blown away by the rawness of the prose and the emotions, like prodding into an open wound. You don't like it, but you can't stop and the message comes home in the end.
'Two Moons' by Elena Pavlova - this is my kind of SF. Another planet with a weird ecology and a protagonist who discovers something new!
'Symbiosis Theory' by Choyeop Kim - also great SF that explores a truly novel idea. I don't think the structure worked very well and the writing style was a bit impersonal, but it shows SF as the literature of ideas is still viable, all over the world.
'Old People's Folly' by Nora Schinnerl - a touching post climate change story, about a bitter old woman who finds a 'blast from the past', something that threatens to inspire her to involve herself with the lives of people around her again.
'Echoes of a Broken Mind' by Christine Lucas - a cyberpunk story about a woman with a brain impland who is kept from her daughter while she works to pay of der debt.
'An excerpt from A Door Opens: The Beginning of the Fall of the Ispancialo-in-Hinirang (EmprensaPress: 2007) by Salahuddin Alonto, Annotated by OmarJahad Moududi, MLS, HOL, JMS' by dean Francis Alfar has an original story structure that worked quite well.
The editor compared 'Ootheca' by Mário Coelho with the early works of China Miéville and rightly so. It concerns a man with cockroaches for teeth.
'Where the Trains Turn' by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen - closes the anthology with an interesting novella about a mother concerned about her sons imagination. He fixates on trains ... I won't spoil the story except to say that I was transfixed like someone looking at the lamps of a train coming closer ...

[Kalin]

A meaty, diverse anthology.

I skipped the pieces that were too dark for my taste. Here are the ones that resonated with me the most:

https://choveshkata.net/forum/viewtop...

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good anthology of World SF, featuring authors from around the world. As in any anthology with such a wide range of styles, there will be some stories that I didn't like, but it is still valuable by exposing the reader to writers they may never have encountered before. The stories I found interesting were by Diana Rahim, M.H. Ayinde, Luo Longxiang, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Andrea Chapela, Fadzlishah Johanabas, Efe Okogu, Chen Qian, Choyeop Kim, Eugenia Triantafyllou, Christine Lucas and Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen.

- “A Minor Kalahari” by Diana Rahim (Singapore): on an island turning dry and grey, a watermelon suddenly appears from the ground. The reactions of the person whose garden it appeared in, the neighbours and the local town council form the heart of the story.

- “Behind Her, Trailing Like Butterfly Wings” by Daniela Tomova (Bulgaria): a reporter interviews one of many travellers on a road who are following in the path of a mysterious lady, in a world where 'mouths' that may be wormholes can suddenly open and 'feed' on humans: but not those on the road.

- “Cloudgazer” by Timi Odueso (Nigeria): rumours of clouds spotted in the sky send a girl chasing after them, for she needs the water from the clouds to save her grandfather. But there comes a time when she has to stop dreaming to really save her grandfather.

- “The EMO Hunter” by Mandisi Nkomo (South Africa): on another world, a Mother Earth Knight (bounty hunter) faces a challenge from an unexpected enemy who wants more from him than he can emotionally give.

- “Tloque Nahuaque” by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (Mexico), translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: at attempt to recreate the origin of the universe leads to an unexpected manifestation.

- “The Walls of Benin City” by M.H. Ayinde (UK): a survivor of an alien attack makes his way to Benin City, the last surviving city on Earth. On the way, he is rescued by a robot with artistic flourises, who shows him the role of art in surviving the attack, and how he can relearn to live with himself, and others, at the city.

- “The Foodie Federation’s Dinosaur Farm” by Luo Longxiang (China), translated by Andy Dudak: think Jurassic Park in space, only here, the dinosaurs (some intelligent) are harvested for food. When they inevitably rebel, the last surviving human on the ship has to work with them to survive as the dinosaurs work to survive tribalism to unite and overthrow the rest of humanity.

- “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (The Netherlands), translated by Lia Belt: one day, the world literally turns upside down and things tumbled down into the sky. For one survivor, who days before suffers through a relationship breakup, it is at least of his problems, as he makes his way back to his ex, bearing a gift and hopes at getting things right.

- “The Worldless” by Indrapramit Das (India): two people living on a world that survives by providing service for spaceships docked at the planet yearn for more. What they yearn for is a place to call home, and that place might be Earth.

- “Now You Feel It” by Andrea Chapela (Mexico), translated by Emma Törzs: an interesting story about a woman who can illegally manipulate the emotions of clients. Now, she has been asked to manipulate the emotions of a teenager who did a horrible thing to a girl so that an investigation would find him innocent of the action. The results show that people should be careful what they want, and she also reconsiders whether she wants to continue doing those jobs.

- “Act of Faith” by Fadzlishah Johanabas (Malaysia): an old man is given an android to take care of it. The man asks the android to act more human. When it does, the man goes further and introduces the android to the Quran, which leads to an argument with the local Iman over whether the android can become a Muslim. In the end, an event causes all involved to reevaluate when it means for an android to become religious.

- “Godmother” by Cheryl S. Ntumy (Ghana): an officer whose job is to make sure people only tell the truth is assigned to investigate an AI medical diagnostics system, nicknamed Godmother, which is popular with people. He is to determine whether the AI is deceiving people into following it by deceiving people. But what he discovers instead is the human need to be acknowledged and to communicate with each other.

- “I Call Upon the Night as Witness” by Zahra Mukhi (Pakistan): in a world where physical Lines are drawn by the powerful on the earth, dividing people from their properties and turning them into refugees, one person wants to find a way out of a land that all refugees eventually end up in: a land where there be dragons.

- “Sulfur” by Dmitry Glukhovsky (Russia), translated by Marian Schwartz: an interrigator questions a woman over the murder of her husband. It gradually turns into a critique of the sulfur mining town, the way people live and the hold the dead there have over the living.

- “Proposition 23” by Efe Okogu (Nigeria): a fascinating tale set in a future where 'citizens' live in a city with implanted nanosensors that cater to their needs; but there are also the 'undead', outcasts whose sensors have been disable and left to survive the best they can. Into this situation are thrown a police office out for revenge against a terrorist who has perpetrated an act of terrorism against the city, and a hacker who discovers somebody or something flitting through the city's system. They would all be thrown together over Proposition 23, whose ramifications would overturn their way of life and entrench the rulers of the system.

- “Root Rot” by Fargo Tbakhi (US): even on Mars, the inequalities between Palestinians and Israelis still fester, as one man tries to keep on living.

- “Catching the K-Beast” by Chen Qian (China), translated by Carmen Yiling Yan: a funny tale about two people sent to a planet to catch the K-Beasts. Problem is, how do you catch beasts that can see twelve minutes into the future? The solution may involve paradoxes about cause and effect.

- “Two Moons” by Elena Pavlova (Bulgaria), translated by Kalin M. Nenov and Elena Pavlova: on an alien world that is mostly uninhabitable, a voyager encounters a living travelling city. Her exploration of it would reveal some answers about the origins of the world, but also more questions.

- “Symbiosis Theory” by Choyeop Kim (Korea), translated by Joungmin Lee Comfort: the story starts with an artist who is obsessed with bringing an imaginary world to life through art, which often moves people emotionally when seeing it. The mystery deepens when a planet is eventually discovered, after her death, that matches the artist's description. A possible, and intriguing, solution is presented when the story switches tracks to look at the work of people trying to neurologically decode the thoughts and speech of babies. It turns out that babies have very sophisticated thoughts, and it is also related to the alien world.

- “My Country is a Ghost” by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Greece): in a world where ghosts of the dead can accompany the living and provide guidance, one lady feels lost when she is forced to give up the ghost of her mother when she moves to another country. She is fearful of losing the memory of her mother and her culture; until another migrant with a familiar looking ghost comforts her and provides a way for her to recall her memories of her mother.

- “Old People’s Folly” by Nora Schinnerl (Austria): an old lady with a crippled leg finds a disc that contains the personality of a person from an earlier age from before the flood. The person is aghast at the changes climate change have caused and tries to rally the old lady into helping a young boy who is suffering abuse. The lady is reluctant to get involved, in a time when pollution is still causing environmental damage. But perhaps the personality can encourage her to start making small changes for the better.

- “Echoes of a Broken Mind” by Christine Lucas (Greece): a person with a brain implant scavenges for a living, hoping to make enough to send a message to her child, taken away at birth. And one day, she does: but the repercussions of the message would change her world view and make her realize the danger she is in from the person she thought was her child. But her implant, suddenly working better than ever, may be the key for her to fight back against people who deceived her and many others.

- “Have Your #Hugot Harvested at This Diwata-Owned Café” by Vida Cruz (Philippines): on an unusual café that serves both humans and mythic people with food containing an emotional ingredient that can only come from humans.

- “Order C345” by Sheikha Helawy (Palestine) — translated by Raphael Cohen: an unusual order about replacement body parts that can awaken would grant their owners an unusual liberty.

- “Dark Star” by Vraiux Dorós (Mexico) — translated by Toshiya Kamei: possibly a metafictional tale about fiction (and rabbits?) told in verse form.

- “An excerpt from ‘A Door Opens: The Beginning of the Fall of the Ispancialo-in-Hinirang (Emprensa Press: 2007)’ by Salahuddin Alonto, Annotated by Omar Jamad Maududi, MLS, HOL, JMS.” by Dean Francis Alfar (Philippines): a very short tale with long annotations about how the opening of a magical door lead to the rise of a country that had been colonized.

- “Ootheca” by Mário de Seabra Coelho (Portugal): in a city where people survive after the reality of the world has been overturned by an unstated entity, a man whose teeth have been replaced by cockroaches (in the story, this means they have been 'hagged' by a Hag) starts up a relationship with an old friend. As the story progresses, we discover the girl's guilt over another hagged person, and he struggles to keep her safe from the Hag as well.

- “Where The Trains Turn” by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen (Finland) — translated by Liisa Rantalaiho: a narrated story by a woman who tells the story of her strange son who grows up alone and fascinated by trains. Until one day, when he is suddenly horrified by an event involving a train. From then on, the mother tries to prevent his interest in trains and fantasy elements, keeping him (and herself) rooted in reality by only studying 'real' things. As the son grows up, it appears to work: until another incident with a train causes a crisis that will throw both together on a journey to confront an evil that is housed in a particular train. But the journey would change both their futures and their pasts.

[ReadBecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This particular volume had fewer stories that hit with me personally, than the previous two volumes. However, I continue to adore the intent of Tidhar in collecting wide ranging works representative of actual world SF, that may not be breaking through into the western world's readership as much. There were a couple of names I knew (I didn't adore the stories from Indra Das & Thomas Olde Heuvelt, but both did pique my interest in trying their novels I know of, based on liking their writing styles), but mostly new voices here. The biggest standouts for me were really Choyeop Kim doing anthropological/linguistic scientific discovery story that has a certain beauty and melancholy, as well as Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen with a sort of nuanced atmospheric looming dread horror featuring trains.

[Shaz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two and a half stars

Sadly this anthology did not work for me even though I am quite invested in the concept of reading more stories that are written by authors from all over the world. The selection here is eclectic and diverse both on topics and on forms. There are quite a few experimental stories and multiple sub-genres. And for me many of these variants were not well aligned to my tastes and preferences. So there are some stories in here that I think are reasonably well done and effective but I don't personally like them for one reason or another, and some other stories that I actually don't think are well done or interesting.
Here are a few that kind of worked for me on some level, but even in these there is usually a weak point or two.

“Cloudgazer” by Timi Odueso: This was kind of fun as it was setting up almost a classic fantasy quest in a very sci-fi setting, but it's actually not very satisfying.

“The Walls of Benin City” by M.H. Ayinde : The level of details and imagery makes for an absorbing read and there are possibilities implied that make for good speculations, but the ending is not very satisfying.

“Now You Feel It” by Andrea Chapela: This was effective and compelling, for the most part and has some interesting ideas.

“Symbiosis Theory” by Choyeop Kim: This really should be two stories or something, there are two distinct stories and I don't think they work together very well, but there are some depictions of art and creativity that I found absorbing to read.

“Echoes of a Broken Mind” by Christine Lucas: I enjoyed reading this one and I like the setting and story, though the ending is a bit too easy for the rest of it.

[Βιβή Κανάρη · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing anthology, writers from all over the world. Many favorite stories, like My country is a ghost, Echoes of a broken mind, Where the trains turn.Catching the K beast.

[Max Rohde · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to like anthologies and short stories, but often the execution leaves much to be desired. I frequently find myself somewhat lost. There are a few good stories, but about 80% do not captivate me.

For instance, I read "Broken Stars" by Ken Liu, an anthology of Chinese science fiction. Some stories were enjoyable, but many were too far out for my taste. Recently, I also read another anthology, "New Adventures in Space Opera" by Jonathan Strahan. I liked it a bit more, but there were still quite a few misses.

However, with "The Best of World SF: Volume 3" by Lavie Tidhar, things were different for me.

I loved almost every story, each one captivating me more than the last. I was quite impressed by the wide range of stories and the high quality throughout. Even the more bizarre and strange tales were engaging.

For example, there is one called "The Foodie Federation’s Dinosaur Farm" by Luo Longxiang. It features an advanced human civilisation on a planet where they farm dinosaurs. These dinosaurs eventually revolt and build their own civilisation. Despite the strangeness of the setting, the story is told in a way that kept me from getting lost and stay invested in the characters.

Additionally, there are beautifully poetic stories, such as "The Walls of Benin City" by M.H. Ayinde". This story is about people in a desolate world who want to reach the city of Benin, a place of refuge. It explores how advanced automatons assist humans in their journey. It was quite a nice story.

When the last of my water ran out, I knew I’d never reach Benin City. It was almost a relief to lie down on the parched earth knowing I’d never have to rise again. Never have to worry about food or bandits or infected feet again. At the end, I was almost content. So I curled up, closed my eyes, and gave myself to my death.

I also enjoyed "Act of Faith" by Fadzlishah Johanabas. It depicts an old man who receives a robot caretaker. The man is a Muslim preacher who helps the caretaker, an android, to find religion. The story raises the question of whether a robot or artificial life form can be a Muslim. I found it really interesting.

Another notable story was "Proposition 23" by Efe Tokunbo. It was one of the longer stories, offering a blend of energetic, deep, philosophical, and cyberpunk elements. It was action-packed and thought-provoking, making it very good.

Inside was a mix of artmen, vidmakers, and musos, still waiting for their big break, hanging on to the bland words of others enjoying their fifteen seconds of fame, as if blind luck were transferable.

We may live in the same city but we walk on different planes, like housemates sharing a house but living and working on opposite schedules, rarely meeting, aware of each other’s existence only via the mess we leave behind.

Overall, I really enjoyed the anthology. Many stories left me with thoughts lingering after I finished, which is, I believe, one of the most rewarding experiences one can have from reading short stories and anthologies.

[pastiesandpages - Gavin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This anthology captures the sci-fi scene around the world right now. With 28 stories & writers from 21 countries this is a diverse read with many pieces of translated literature and covering all aspects of the science fiction genre.
At over 650 pages it has room for short stories of varying length including a couple of novellas.

As with all anthologies it comes down to how much the taste of the individual reader matches up to the editor. A small number didn't work for me, one or two being either too experimental or confusing but the vast majority were hits for me and not having come across this series before it's a good sign that I want to get hold of the first two volumes and start tracking down some of the books or other stories from a number of the authors. In fact the last story, Where The Trains Turn by Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen from Finland was such a good novella to end the collection that I immediately added his novel The Rabbit Back Literature Society to my tbr for next year.
And that's what a collection or anthology does best. Introduces you to new writers and ideas.

Several of the stories include themes of climate and immigration showing how the current political situations around the world can be reflected in the literature looking at the future or other worlds.

[Shannon (That's So Poe) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting collection of SF short stories from across the world. This volume focused especially on authors that aren't as well known internationally. Some of these stories were just a bit weird for me (Tidhar definitely has a taste for strange fiction) or just didn't quite land, but I really appreciated getting a taste of all these different works. I'll definitely pick up any future volumes Tidhar edits since I always enjoy seeing what stories he curates.

[Anthony Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

18.05.25
A gigantic anthology that while occasionally brilliant (cockroach teeth, homeless dude in space, holes in the road all excellent), is also littered with an unreasonable amount of dross.