Utopias of the Third Kind

PM's Outspoken Authors #28

by Vandana Singh

"Arctic Sky" tells of a young climate activist who discovers her own courage in the frozen depths of a Russian prison. "Palimpsest" is set on a bionic (living)space station that launches explorers into the farthest reaches of Time and Space. In "The Room on the Roof" an ancient culture meets modern mysteries with unexpected results. Our non-fiction title piece, "Utopias of the Third Kind," is a first look at actual utopias that are responding to our looming dystopian nightmare. "Hunger" is a short story that finds both understanding and forgiveness for humankind's original sin. Our Outspoken Interview and a bibliography round out this new collection.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Essays, Indian Literature, Collections, Fiction

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 4, 2022

About the author

Vandana Singh was born and raised in India and currently lives in the Boston area, where she is a professor of physics at Framingham State University, and a science fiction writer. Although her Ph.D. is in particle physics, in recent years she has been working on the transdisciplinary scholarship of climate change, focusing on innovative pedagogies. She has collaborated with the Center for Science and the Imagination three times, twice on climate change–related projects. Her first collaboration (a story for Project Hieroglyph) led to the start of her academic work in the area, resulting in a case study of Arctic climate change as part of a program award from the American Association of Colleges and Universities, for which she traveled to the Alaskan North Shore in 2014. She was also a participant in a re-enactment of “The Dare,” as part of the Year Without a Winter Project, and has contributed a story to the upcoming anthology (forthcoming from Columbia University Press in 2018). She has been an invited panelist for the National Academy of Sciences working group on interdisciplinarity in STEM, and has taught in and/or co-led summer workshops on climate change for middle and high school teachers.

Vandana’s short fiction has been widely published to critical acclaim, and many of her stories have been reprinted in Year’s Best collections. Her North American debut is a second short story collection, Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories (Small Beer Press) that was No. 1 on Publisher’s Weekly’s Top Ten in Science Fiction when it came out in February 2018, and earned praise from Wired, the Washington Post, and the Seattle Times, among others. Locus Magazine’s Gary K. Wolfe refers to her as “one of the most compelling and original voices in recent SF.”

Reviews

[Rachel (Kalanadi) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[cassia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hoped for more sci fi-y stories like those (“those” like Lifepod) in Ambiguity Machines, but I still enjoyed this nonetheless. In particular, the titular essay, Utopias of the Third Kind, felt as if Vandana Singh word for word articulated why I love science fiction so much: for its potential to imagine and dream up futures of human-ecological interdependence, unrestricted by “reality”.

“There is surely no more revolutionary a question than ‘what if things were not as they are?’”

[Howard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another entry in the excellent Outspoken Authors series by PM press. Like the other entries in the series, this short book has a few short stories and articles, an interview, and bibliography. Check out the whole series (it's how I discovered Joe Lansdale).

[Kevin Carson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories are good. Five stars for the title essay.

[Nitin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit inconsistent. The non fiction pieces were fine. From the fiction part, 2 of the 4 stories were great. The other 2 left me cold despite containing some interesting ideas.

Both the stories I enjoyed were slightly longer than the ones I didn't enjoy. They also used third person limited instead of the first person point of view used by the other two stories. And they were set in India unlike the other two stories which had an Indian protagonist but not set in India. Not sure which of the three things made those stories better. But the biggest success of the author was that she managed to capture life in India really well.

[Kab · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Elese · Rating 4 out of 5]

The short stories pulled me in, with a dash of other worldliness that didn't scream sci-fi but were still more than fiction. The non-fiction essay was academic and left me with a feeling of hopefulness. The essay about Ursula LeGuin was a grief love letter that gave me more reasons to appreciate LeGuin's gifts to writers and readers.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw a friend today and he asked what I’d read recently, and this came to mind. Science fiction is my absolute all-time favorite genre and I loooooved this collection so much. In addition to the stories the collection also has an essay about the nuances of utopia and an interview of Singh. She also included an essay on the impact Ursula K Le Guin had on her. It’s a very cool collection. Singh’s work fascinates me because it feels like commentary on how our current world is a sci-fi apocalypse. The sci-fi future we often write about is actually one that we’re already living. Octavia Butler explores this too, especially in the Parable series and Kindred. Science fiction is the greatest literary tool and genre we have in my opinion. It reveals and exposes the ugly truths of our realty and can help us imagine better futures. Singh does this so well. Her stories are potent commentaries on the grueling faults of humanity and the lengths we go to find justice and resolve. Truly just awed by her and her incredible mind …. Being a physicist and sci-fi writer is just too cool. She has inspired me so much. Thank you 💗

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Vandana Singh is a physicist who often incorporates culture from India into her science fiction stories, a few of which are reprinted here. What is also attractive about this volume is the title essay, discussing the ways that humans can moderate climate change by acting locally to use their own environment in a responsible manner.

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded up to four, for the stiffness of writing, for the cardboard-cutout emotions (sadly), for knowing what to say without quite feeling it (or at least being unable to express that feeling so that this reader could feel that, too). Still, not a bad 'un, just not as good as it could be.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Singh's prose is clear and easy to fall into, much like her mentor LeGuin's. I finished this slender volume in a blink.
Her essay on utopias intimidated me a little. It felt like the opening syllabus to a course, and now I have a lot of reading to do.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is what I wanted in this PM Press series- to be exposed to different speculative fiction writers challenging readers through moral imagination. Politics reimagined and articulated in both fiction and non fiction short pieces. Singh strongly delivers.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

The essays “Utopias of the Third Kind” and the tribute to Ursula K LeGuin were excellent, but as a collection of short stories I felt that it was rather forgettable and left a lot to be desired.

[Daniel T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent short stories but it is the non fiction that stands out.

[Naomi Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

So happy to have another Singh book in my collection <3

[Rhia · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories were great, the essays/interviews less interesting

[Stephanie Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

entirely worth reading purely for the title essay

[Akhil · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice short story and essay collection. The story “Hunger” hit especially close to home. I’m excited to read more by this author and scholar who clearly has a broad and deep set of ideas…