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mollyhodg's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
This collection of short stories looked forward to 2048, 100 years after the nakba. All of the stories used looking into the future as a way to examine the present and past in regards to Palestine. I really liked most of the stories. A few focused on virtual realities, one was about the last living Palestinian, and one looked at what it would be like if Palestine hosted the Olympics.
whatadutchgirlreads's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.75
elenasquareeyes's review against another edition
4.0
Naturally there were some stories I liked more than others but I was always intrigued by what kind of sci-fi spin each story would have. Stories feature pretty much any sci-fi trope you could think of; virtual reality, drone swarms, aliens, AI. How they use these elements is often interesting. There are not only the sci-fi story elements but different genres of sci-fi in this collection too. There is almost a noir story with a sci-fi edge, (a journalist tries to find out the truth when an academic is murdered) as well as farce and dystopia.
While a few of the stories imagine a time where peace has been reached and Palestinians are content and thriving in this new peace, a lot of the stories aren’t happy. There’s a few out and out dystopian stories, ones where different parts of the country are walled off or there’s too much pollution so everyone has to wear gasmasks in order to survive. There’s a technical aspect to the dystopia too, whether it’s the AI going out of control or the realisation that what characters are experiencing isn’t real and they’re living inside a simulation where everything is fine and good.
While some stories seem to have more hope to them, others are more pessimistic (or maybe realistic) and show that in the future Palestinians will continue to suffer and the evolving technology will amplify that.
Some of the stories drop you right in with the characters and what they’re going through with little context of the kind of world they live in, so those can be a bit hard to follow – especially if you’re reading a few of the stories in a row. Others drop in things like a treaty of 2025 and how that’s changed their lives. I thought how some of these stories set 26 years in the future referenced both real historical events and fictional historical events was a lot of fun and made the time the story was set feel more concrete.
Palestine+100 is a great collection of sci-fi stories that often made me think. It was just interesting how these stories combined the real and imaginary to make stories that were sometimes weird but also believable. With the way the world is some of these scenarios aren’t too far out of the realm of possibility.
While a few of the stories imagine a time where peace has been reached and Palestinians are content and thriving in this new peace, a lot of the stories aren’t happy. There’s a few out and out dystopian stories, ones where different parts of the country are walled off or there’s too much pollution so everyone has to wear gasmasks in order to survive. There’s a technical aspect to the dystopia too, whether it’s the AI going out of control or the realisation that what characters are experiencing isn’t real and they’re living inside a simulation where everything is fine and good.
While some stories seem to have more hope to them, others are more pessimistic (or maybe realistic) and show that in the future Palestinians will continue to suffer and the evolving technology will amplify that.
Some of the stories drop you right in with the characters and what they’re going through with little context of the kind of world they live in, so those can be a bit hard to follow – especially if you’re reading a few of the stories in a row. Others drop in things like a treaty of 2025 and how that’s changed their lives. I thought how some of these stories set 26 years in the future referenced both real historical events and fictional historical events was a lot of fun and made the time the story was set feel more concrete.
Palestine+100 is a great collection of sci-fi stories that often made me think. It was just interesting how these stories combined the real and imaginary to make stories that were sometimes weird but also believable. With the way the world is some of these scenarios aren’t too far out of the realm of possibility.
2treads's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
‘Sometimes, home is simply a matter of changing your perspective.’
This collection features stories that run the gamut when it comes to extrapolating a future for the Palestinian people and each are unique yet similar in the technology that will be created and advanced, the new ways in which walls will be built, the evolution of containment and collaboration.
But what is at the heart of all of these stories is memory of place and time. What was and is being taken, when it started and a hope for when it will end. The authors have all utilised "advanced tech" and the myriad ways in which it can be used to perpetuate violence, dispossesion, and disregard for the humanity of a group of people.
The resilience and esteem for their heritage that the Palestinian people have is inherent in every story, with emphasis placed on the passing down of historical memory and the weight it bears. How the memories of grandparents and great grandparents fuel the drive of resistance of young Palestinians today.
What stuck with me is the ways in which each story depicted acts of passive and active resistance.
This collection features stories that run the gamut when it comes to extrapolating a future for the Palestinian people and each are unique yet similar in the technology that will be created and advanced, the new ways in which walls will be built, the evolution of containment and collaboration.
But what is at the heart of all of these stories is memory of place and time. What was and is being taken, when it started and a hope for when it will end. The authors have all utilised "advanced tech" and the myriad ways in which it can be used to perpetuate violence, dispossesion, and disregard for the humanity of a group of people.
The resilience and esteem for their heritage that the Palestinian people have is inherent in every story, with emphasis placed on the passing down of historical memory and the weight it bears. How the memories of grandparents and great grandparents fuel the drive of resistance of young Palestinians today.
What stuck with me is the ways in which each story depicted acts of passive and active resistance.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Violence, Death, Suicide attempt, and Confinement
thepoisonwoodreader's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
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? It's complicated
3.75
poppy31's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death of parent, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Death, Suicide, and Violence
Minor: Sexual content
moonandmadness's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.25
In some ways, picking up this anthology was a mistake: I don't typically enjoy Sci fi, and hadn't realised that all the stories would be in this genre. However, there are two stories which I genuinely think were great (Song of the Birds, N) and a third which I enjoyed a lot (The Association). Broadly speaking, I felt the stories were well constructed, with varying styles which will suit a wide range of people, but I can't say I really enjoyed it overall because its just not my preferred genre. Nice to discover new authors though - and the stories I enjoyed I would rate significantly higher (4*) than the anthology as a whole.
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3501510.html
Twelve Palestinian writers were asked to imagine life in their country in 2048, a hundred years after the displacement of half of their population. They are not very cheerful stories, some imagining a sclerotic peace process agreed between now and then that fails to deliver much improvement in the lives of those affected, but most expecting continued stalemate and corrosion. “N” by Majd Kayyal imagines parallel worlds, one Palestinian, one Israeli, controlling the same territory in adjacent universes. The black humour of “Application 39” by Ahmed Masoud sees the Olympic Games brought to Gaza. Sad and effective.
Twelve Palestinian writers were asked to imagine life in their country in 2048, a hundred years after the displacement of half of their population. They are not very cheerful stories, some imagining a sclerotic peace process agreed between now and then that fails to deliver much improvement in the lives of those affected, but most expecting continued stalemate and corrosion. “N” by Majd Kayyal imagines parallel worlds, one Palestinian, one Israeli, controlling the same territory in adjacent universes. The black humour of “Application 39” by Ahmed Masoud sees the Olympic Games brought to Gaza. Sad and effective.
3tteelia's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
For me, the concept of using sci-fi and other forms of imaginative fiction to envision Palestine 100 years after the Nakba was an amazing one and I really looked forward to this book. However, I was shocked to see that none of the authors chose to use fiction as a tool to imagine a liberated Palestine and what that would look like, but instead allowed it as a method of furthering Israel’s oppression and colonisation of Palestine. While I understand that it is a ‘realistic’ take on sci-fi in Palestine, I was looking for something outrageously hopeful and happy (perhaps because I use fiction as a way of getting away from the reality). Also, I didn’t enjoy the plots of most of the short stories and only 2 or 3 of them stood out to me as truly imaginative and interesting.
Overall, this book left me depressed and frustrated every time I read it, and I personally didn’t enjoy the stories.
Overall, this book left me depressed and frustrated every time I read it, and I personally didn’t enjoy the stories.
perfectplaces's review against another edition
3.75
“We would sometimes wonder to each other: if our grandparents had never been run out of their homes like cockroaches, would we have been neighbours? Would our personalities have been different without this weight inside our souls? What would it have felt like, to have a home and to belong to that home unquestionably?”
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this was such an insightful and interesting collection of ideas - while some were better than others, as it always goes when reading short story collections, all of them at least felt conceptually strong.
if you’re going to read this, keep an eye out for ‘The Key’, ‘Digital Nation’, ‘The Association’, ‘Vengeance’, and my personal favourite, ‘Song of the Birds’ (quoted above). but all the stories had something of importance to say and i felt enriched in some way by reading them.
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this was such an insightful and interesting collection of ideas - while some were better than others, as it always goes when reading short story collections, all of them at least felt conceptually strong.
if you’re going to read this, keep an eye out for ‘The Key’, ‘Digital Nation’, ‘The Association’, ‘Vengeance’, and my personal favourite, ‘Song of the Birds’ (quoted above). but all the stories had something of importance to say and i felt enriched in some way by reading them.