Launch Pad

by Shelly Bryant, Tina Kanagaratnam (Introduction)

A science park creates synthetic life to repopulate the oceans, but to ruinous effect. A local retelling brings the tragic story of Sweeney Todd to colonial Singapore. And a far-future heiress falls in love with an alien life form and has to make an existential decision.

“In this gem of a short story collection, Shelly Bryant explores the trajectory of Singapore as a launch pad—a bridge between worlds, a crossroads—taking the reader on a journey of discovery from the earliest days of Singapura to the far future. It is a journey into our past, present and future, one that seems at once astonishing and yet totally real, totally plausible.” –Tina Kanagaratnam, from the introduction

200 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2017

About the author

Shelly Bryant divides her time between Shanghai and Singapore, working as a poet, writer, and translator. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry, a pair of travel guides for the cities of Suzhou and Shanghai, and a book on classical Chinese gardens. Shelly’s poetry has appeared in journals, magazines and websites around the world, as well as in several art exhibitions. Her translation of Sheng Keyi’s Northern Girls was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012. Launch Pad (2017) is her first fiction collection.

Reviews

[Jericho Eames · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it. Her stories, though grounded from the science fiction point of view, all tell of how and what humanity is. I love how I am able to experience all of the emotions even if they are from another species of being. It is interesting because most of the characters are not human and sometimes are thought to be unable to experience emotions like we do, and yet it is through this third-person view that I saw what it means to be human.

[Adan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fun collection of sci-fi shorts. My favorites were "The World, A Stage", "Case Study: Training Programme", "In Situ", "Sila", and "Terminus". My only real complaint is that some of these stories were too short. Bryant created such interesting worlds and concepts, and I did not get to spend enough time in them.