The Cure for Everything

by Severna Park

Finding the cure for all diseases comes with a heavy price.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction

288 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2013

Reviews

[Jenny Yates · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an intriguing collection of short stories. Two of them are set in the Brazilian jungle, and have to do with indigenous people. In the title story, the people of an isolated tribe carry a substance in their blood that cures almost all diseases. In another, women of a tribe are able to spirit themselves out of time before the rubber industry finishes laying waste to their land.

One of the stories, The Breadfruit Empire, involves a girl who is kidnapped from school by her father. She sees him as a crazy guy, a conspiracy nut fighting against alien invasion, but he turns out to be actually right about the aliens. I also loved the story called The Three Unknowns, about a feud between two ambitious archeologists, each of whom is exploring ruins on a different planet. It also has a great ending.

One of the most diverting stories is Call for Submissions, in which a couple of college students put together a magazine of sensational sci-fi stories. It’s set in the 30s, and the narrator is a woman studying physics. With so few women in the field, she’s pretty much seen as an alien herself. The pacing in this story is great.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

People are always talking about how the Amazonian rainforest contains so many plant and animals species that it may be hiding the cure for, well, everything but Park here takes that literally in the form of a lost tribe whose blood indeed hides those cures in its genetics. Great concept. The plot isn’t bad either, centering around a woman who has a genetic disease that caused her albinism and is so desperate for healthy children that she is willing to throw away her job and current life for it. Park makes the story even more difficult by depicting how the native tribes are being displaced (if not killed), and how that affects this particular tribe. I’m not sure what the ending needed to be, but what it is felt somewhat incomplete—in some ways, Park wrote herself into a dead end and decided to what the hell leave it hanging. I wanted something more to wrap up what had been near perfection before.

[Rubery Book Award · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the Rubery Book Award Short Fiction Category

Science Fiction short stories, each one unrelated to the others, except the first two, which are linked. The plots take the reader into convincing alternative worlds with confidence and a vivid sense of place. They are clever and intriguing, presented with style and originality.

[NaTaya Hastings · Rating 2 out of 5]

to come