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Future Science Fiction Digest #7
Future Science Fiction Digest, Issue 7, June 2020
This issue features fiction from Canada, Pakistan, and Sweden, as well as reviews of media from Belgium and Spain.
Original Fiction:
"Cousin Entropy" by Michèle Laframboise and translated by N. R. M. Roshak
"Sunstrewn" by Murtaza Mohsin
"Twenty-Seven Gifts I Saved For You" by Filip Wiltgren
with Forward by Alex Shvartsman and new international film/TV review column, “The Other Reel” by award-winning writer, academic, and journalist Paul Levinson.
Original Fiction:
"Cousin Entropy" by Michèle Laframboise and translated by N. R. M. Roshak
"Sunstrewn" by Murtaza Mohsin
"Twenty-Seven Gifts I Saved For You" by Filip Wiltgren
with Forward by Alex Shvartsman and new international film/TV review column, “The Other Reel” by award-winning writer, academic, and journalist Paul Levinson.
ebook
First published June 13, 2020
3 people want to read
About the author
Alex Shvartsman
158 books143 followersAlex Shvartsman is a writer, editor, and translator from Brooklyn, NY. He's the author of The Middling Affliction (2022) and Eridani's Crown (2019) fantasy novels. Kakistocracy, a sequel to The Middling Affliction, is forthcoming in 2023.
Over 120 of his stories have been published in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, and many other venues. He won the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a two-time finalist (2015 and 2017) for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction.
His collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories and his steampunk humor novella H. G. Wells, Secret Agent were published in 2015. His second collection, The Golem of Deneb Seven and Other Stories followed in 2018.
Alex is the editor of over a dozen anthologies, including the Unidentified Funny Objects annual anthology series of humorous SF/F.
Over 120 of his stories have been published in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, and many other venues. He won the 2014 WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction and was a two-time finalist (2015 and 2017) for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction.
His collection, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories and his steampunk humor novella H. G. Wells, Secret Agent were published in 2015. His second collection, The Golem of Deneb Seven and Other Stories followed in 2018.
Alex is the editor of over a dozen anthologies, including the Unidentified Funny Objects annual anthology series of humorous SF/F.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 23, 2020
The summer 2020 issue of ‘Future Science Fiction Digest features three original short stories from Canada, Pakistan and Sweden and a film and TV review column titled ‘The Other Reel’ by Paul Levinson.
The fiction starts strongly with ‘Cousin Entropy’ by Michèle Laframboise, translated by N. R. M. Roshak. In the tradition of Olaf Stapledon, it tells the story over a long, long span of time, from the beginning of the universe to the end of our galaxy. The narrator, a human intelligence that developed after we had rid ourselves of weak, fleshy bodies, doesn’t remember the beginning of time but narrates it amusingly by anthropomorphising natural forces as Cousin Enthalpy and Cousin Entropy. Later, Aunty Gravity merits a mention. This is a wonderful piece of Science Fiction, full of physics and feeling.
The next narrative takes you back to Earth with a bump. Well, not back to Earth exactly but to the planet Sunstrewn in another star system where a pair of mineral prospectors continue their lifelong contest and a centuries-old racial conflict. One is a Hindu, the other a Muslim and they compete to find new resources for space mining companies, staking claims. They also fight, often, but not to the death. On Sunstrewn, another force intervenes. Can they work together to survive despite all those ancestors demanding revenge? ‘Sunstrewn’ is by Murtaza Mohsin, his first published story but probably not his last.
‘Twenty-Seven Gifts I Saved For You’ by Filip Wiltgren takes the odd form of a list of gifts. It’s written by the widow of a missing astronaut, presumed dead. At a steady rate of one gift per year on the anniversary of his disappearance, the widow/wife buys a gift to keep for when he comes back. The gifts both paint a picture of the world she lives in, one on the verge of ecological catastrophe and her own life with her daughter, Kira. It works well. I once reviewed a great horror story told in shopping lists. This is the kind of experiment you can do with short stories and part of their attraction.
All these fictions have first-person narration which is often the best method, depending on the story but seems to be prevalent now. None of them actually give the narrator a name. Oh well. Despite this niggle, they’re all excellent Science Fiction and recommended. Editor Alex Shvartsman wants to expand the magazine and bring us more international works but needs more funding. Meanwhile, he’s going for quality over quantity. I hope it works out.
The fiction starts strongly with ‘Cousin Entropy’ by Michèle Laframboise, translated by N. R. M. Roshak. In the tradition of Olaf Stapledon, it tells the story over a long, long span of time, from the beginning of the universe to the end of our galaxy. The narrator, a human intelligence that developed after we had rid ourselves of weak, fleshy bodies, doesn’t remember the beginning of time but narrates it amusingly by anthropomorphising natural forces as Cousin Enthalpy and Cousin Entropy. Later, Aunty Gravity merits a mention. This is a wonderful piece of Science Fiction, full of physics and feeling.
The next narrative takes you back to Earth with a bump. Well, not back to Earth exactly but to the planet Sunstrewn in another star system where a pair of mineral prospectors continue their lifelong contest and a centuries-old racial conflict. One is a Hindu, the other a Muslim and they compete to find new resources for space mining companies, staking claims. They also fight, often, but not to the death. On Sunstrewn, another force intervenes. Can they work together to survive despite all those ancestors demanding revenge? ‘Sunstrewn’ is by Murtaza Mohsin, his first published story but probably not his last.
‘Twenty-Seven Gifts I Saved For You’ by Filip Wiltgren takes the odd form of a list of gifts. It’s written by the widow of a missing astronaut, presumed dead. At a steady rate of one gift per year on the anniversary of his disappearance, the widow/wife buys a gift to keep for when he comes back. The gifts both paint a picture of the world she lives in, one on the verge of ecological catastrophe and her own life with her daughter, Kira. It works well. I once reviewed a great horror story told in shopping lists. This is the kind of experiment you can do with short stories and part of their attraction.
All these fictions have first-person narration which is often the best method, depending on the story but seems to be prevalent now. None of them actually give the narrator a name. Oh well. Despite this niggle, they’re all excellent Science Fiction and recommended. Editor Alex Shvartsman wants to expand the magazine and bring us more international works but needs more funding. Meanwhile, he’s going for quality over quantity. I hope it works out.
Displaying 1 of 1 review