Distances

by Vandana Singh

Distances is fascinating far-future science fiction, set in a desert city. For Anasuya, mathematics was experiential, a sixth sense that bared before her the harmonies, natural and artificial, that formed the sub-text of the world. So when mathematicians from the planet Tirana, 18-light-years-distant, ask Anasuya's help in solving a series of equations, she finds the new geometrical space they present her with intriguing. But as she explores the new space, she soon comes to suspect that it represents an actual physical system, and that the equations she is being asked to solve have a significance the Tiranis are concealing.

This is a story of intrigue, science, and art, rich with emotional and social exploration.

Genres: Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Novella, Short Stories

158 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2008

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

[Cheryl]

I've enjoyed the author's SF before, but this did nothing for me. I want to give it one star, but I'm fairly sure that the blame for my bad experience is in me, in my lack of imagination, in my distrust of anything akin to spirituality, in my inability to empathize with a young woman who understands nothing of herself or of either 'world' she's lived in. There's no actual plot here, just a certain intrigue - it's all about the ideas and the world-building... which means I should like, but, um, no, sorry.

[Alex MacFarlane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating far-future humans and human cultures! Mathematics as a sort-of-magic-like gift! Talented women! Mathematics as a part of worship! Many-dimensional reality as a part of worship! Poly relationships! An instrument made of bone!

Yeah, I really liked this one. :D

[Sue Chant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiptree shortlist 2009

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

The reason I think science fiction is so hard to appreciate (and this can be generalized to much of the genre-fictions: detective, romance, etc.) is that the author's focus is on the production of the theme inherent in the genre rather than a fidelity to literary craft(person)ship. That is the case of the fallibility of this novella. It seems Singh was more interested in including dense scientific and mathematical hypotheses rather than craft artistic literature. Moreover, I found said inclusions--despite these being her foci--as quite watery at best. There's no real science here in the fiction, just a pseudo-conception of scientific principals that guide what could have been an interesting plot if more direct attention was spent there.

Singh does create an interesting, though alien, world; and her plot has glimmers of intrigue. Space travelers (from a place that seems a lot like Earth, mostly because they're a$$holes) come to a distant land to convert a mathematical serum (ugh) into lightspeed travel technology, only to cheat the folks who help them find it. Meanwhile, earnest protag deals with loss of personal racial identity as she: sees math in all things (Cabal Judaism anyone?), has polyamorous orgies, and swims in math.

A lot of things left unexplored and not enough things carried through.

[John Devenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful novella. A unique tale of a talented female mathematician/artist in a far future post-human society. The world building is extremely well done and the narrative us equally good.