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saradluffy's review against another edition
3.0
This is a collection of 12 short stories envisioning Palestine 100 years after Nakba. It has many sci-fi and tech elements like hyperloop, simulation, virtual realities, parallel worlds, and robots. While some use these elements heavily for the plot, some others just use them as futuristic world-building in the background. We see different versions whether it is under-occupation or free or in the process for independence.
I was heavily reminded with the hashtag #tweet_like_its_free and was hoping some would have the level of wholesomeness in that trend.
Overall the stories had diverse setups and it was a good read. Some quotes from my favorite ones
Introduction Basma Ghalayini
Song of the Birds - Saleem Haddad
Digital Nation - Emad El-Din Aysha
Vengeance - Tasnim Abutabikh
I was heavily reminded with the hashtag #tweet_like_its_free and was hoping some would have the level of wholesomeness in that trend.
Overall the stories had diverse setups and it was a good read. Some quotes from my favorite ones
Introduction Basma Ghalayini
It is perhaps for this reason that the genre of science fiction has never been particularly popular among Palestinian authors; it is a luxury, to which Palestinians haven’t felt they can afford to escape. The cruel present (and the traumatic past) have too firm a grip on Palestinian writers’ imaginations for fanciful ventures into possible futures.
Everyday life, for them, is a kind of a dystopia. A West Bank Palestinian need only record their journey to work, or talk back to an IDF soldier at a checkpoint, or forget to carry their ID card, or simply look out their car window at the walls, weaponry and barbed wire plastering the landscape, to know what a modern, totalitarian occupation is – something people in the West can only begin to understand through the language of dystopia.
Song of the Birds - Saleem Haddad
We are at the frontier of a new form of colonisation. So it’s up to us to develop new forms of resistance.
Digital Nation - Emad El-Din Aysha
It’s that mental clutter that turns Utopia to dystopia. Too many people fighting for what they think is right, and can’t imagine to be wrong, blotting each other out. It was bound to catch up with us, sooner or later. We no longer speak with one voice, even in the privacy of our own homes.
Vengeance - Tasnim Abutabikh
Can’t you see? I’m not your enemy; we only have one enemy, you and I, the same one: the people who turned us against each other and now control every inch of our lives down to the oxygen we breathe.
We shall reclaim the air we breathe, if not the land we stand on, one mask at a time.
samalsha's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Blood, Death, Violence, Colonisation, Gun violence, Grief, and War
tishtashtosh's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
3.5
'When Palestinians write, they write about their past through their present, knowingly or unknowingly. Their writing is, in part, a search for their lost inheritance, as well as an attempt to keep the memory of that loss from fading.'
domreadsb00ks's review against another edition
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
nsaphra's review against another edition
3.0
An anthology of Palestinian sci-fi, set in 2048: close enough to project current Palestinian fantasies and fears onto, far enough to accommodate technological and political divergence. I found the perspectives in it interesting, but I'm only reviewing this collection on the quality and creativity of the stories.
Don't be put off by the uninspired first story, which reads like overwrought dystopian YA. The second story, "Sleep It Off, Dr Schott", immediately recovers in presenting a cynic's fantasy of Palestinian prosperity, an areligious scientific community in independent Gaza with a surveillance apparatus to ensure that even exclaimed profanity is totally secular. I liked the third story even more: "N" is beautifully written and translated, suggesting the isolation of parallel Israel and Palestine through conversations presented jarringly with only one side of the dialog.
"The Key" introduces with distaste a common Israeli belief that, if Palestinians in Israel and the territories could be made a bit more prosperous and integrated into the economy, they would lose the political will to mount internal threats to current power structures. The naively utopian "Digital Nation" plays straight a parallel belief among Palestinians that, if they could only do enough damage to the Israeli economy, its spoiled citizens would eagerly submit to full Palestinian rule to retain their material wealth.
The collection is uneven, as expected of any anthology. Most of the worst stories are tedious in their premise: "what if same but more technology". Most of the best stories, like "Sleep It Off" and "Final Warning", find a bitter comedy in their cynicism, while others like "N" and "Curse of The Mud Ball Kid" are mournfully poetic.
Don't be put off by the uninspired first story, which reads like overwrought dystopian YA. The second story, "Sleep It Off, Dr Schott", immediately recovers in presenting a cynic's fantasy of Palestinian prosperity, an areligious scientific community in independent Gaza with a surveillance apparatus to ensure that even exclaimed profanity is totally secular. I liked the third story even more: "N" is beautifully written and translated, suggesting the isolation of parallel Israel and Palestine through conversations presented jarringly with only one side of the dialog.
"The Key" introduces with distaste a common Israeli belief that, if Palestinians in Israel and the territories could be made a bit more prosperous and integrated into the economy, they would lose the political will to mount internal threats to current power structures. The naively utopian "Digital Nation" plays straight a parallel belief among Palestinians that, if they could only do enough damage to the Israeli economy, its spoiled citizens would eagerly submit to full Palestinian rule to retain their material wealth.
The collection is uneven, as expected of any anthology. Most of the worst stories are tedious in their premise: "what if same but more technology". Most of the best stories, like "Sleep It Off" and "Final Warning", find a bitter comedy in their cynicism, while others like "N" and "Curse of The Mud Ball Kid" are mournfully poetic.
erraticeldandil's review against another edition
One of the more tonally consistent anthologies I've read which is appreciated.
filaughn's review against another edition
3.5
Overall, this anthology was a bit disappointing, but I am not sure how much of that was due to my expectations vs. the actual book. There were more duds than memorable short stories here, though I really liked the novella that closed the book (The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid).
oleksandr's review against another edition
3.0
This is a collection of short stories plus a novella, written by Palestinian authors, but in English and translated. They are all linked by a common theme, “what Palestine should be like in year 2048, a hundred years after the Nakba (or ‘catastrophe’)?”, when eighty percent of Palestinians (over 700,000 people in total) were expelled from their lands but the newly founded Israel. I read it as a part of monthly reading for October-November 2021 at Speculative Fiction in Translation group.
I usually go story-by-story in my reviews, but here the general theme is already set and an approach of each individual story may spoil it. So, instead I mention overall ideas: Palestinians living in a virtual reality; in a parallel universe; in their sleep; inviting Olympic games to one of the ghettos; Israelis building a perfect defense but going mad because of their internalized fear…
Almost all stories are by the very setup are local, it is not Earth in 2048, just Palestine in 2048 and Israelis are mostly presented in a negative light, either as an uncaring military-industrial complex, which more than in one story, kills Palestinians, who are innocent, or as some arrogant individuals.
The final (translated) novella maybe the most weird The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid – a collection of stories linked by the last living Palestinian (others are killed by guess who) and people around him, and I liked it for quite an unusual storytelling.
I usually go story-by-story in my reviews, but here the general theme is already set and an approach of each individual story may spoil it. So, instead I mention overall ideas: Palestinians living in a virtual reality; in a parallel universe; in their sleep; inviting Olympic games to one of the ghettos; Israelis building a perfect defense but going mad because of their internalized fear…
Almost all stories are by the very setup are local, it is not Earth in 2048, just Palestine in 2048 and Israelis are mostly presented in a negative light, either as an uncaring military-industrial complex, which more than in one story, kills Palestinians, who are innocent, or as some arrogant individuals.
The final (translated) novella maybe the most weird The Curse of the Mud Ball Kid – a collection of stories linked by the last living Palestinian (others are killed by guess who) and people around him, and I liked it for quite an unusual storytelling.