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chelsea_mcgill4 's review for:
The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet and Other Stories
by Vandana Singh
The first Zubaan book I picked up, this collection of short stories is a brilliant addition to the Indian speculative fiction genre. The stories in this collection fall everywhere in the speculative fiction spectrum, including magical realism, hard science fiction, and anthropology-based science fiction, as well as a few that don't seem to have much to do with speculative fiction at all!
The Stories
"Hunger"
A housewife who would rather be reading science-fiction novels is stuck preparing for a fancy dinner party (ostensibly her daughter's birthday party but actually a networking event with the higher-ups in her husband's company). Meanwhile, she worries about the next-door neighbor's ill and neglected father-in-law.
"Delhi"
Aseem has the strange gift of being able to see through time: as he walks around Delhi, he catches glimpses of the people and buildings from the past and from the future. One day he is contacted by an organization purporting to tell him the meaning of his life, which apparently has something to do with a picture of an unknown girl.
"The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet"
Ramnath Mishra's retirement is rudely interrupted when his wife suddenly announces one morning, "I know at last what I am. I am a planet."
"Infinities" (available online from Clarkesworld)
An old math teacher, Abdul Karim, is obsessed with understanding the infinite, a dream encouraged by the angels that he sees out of the corner of his eyes.
"Thirst"
Susheela is a housewife with all the accompanying responsibilities and a small son. But there is a history of madness in her family - her mother and grandmother both disappeared, and now she herself is dreaming of snakes.
"Conservation Laws"
Gyanendra Sahai, a new addition to a run-down Lunar boarding house, announces his true identity as a member of an early Mars exploratory team.
"Three Tales from Sky River"
A collection of three legends from human civilizations spread throughout the galaxy, including one about the Medusa, a parasitic organism that looks like hair.
"The Tetrahedron"
A strange object appears in the middle of a busy road in Delhi. No one can explain what it is, and strange things keep happening around it.
"The Wife"
After 23 years of marriage, Padma's husband has left her alone in rural America. Her thoughts go back to an inexplicable childhood experience.
"The Room on the Roof"
When the room on the roof of the 13-year-old Urmila's house is rented by a sculptor, the girl expects her life to magically change.
Home and life in India
One theme that repeats in a majority of these stories is the idea of home: whether home is a place that exists, and whether you can ever really return to it. In "The Tetrahedron," for example, people enter the strange structure and are found months later, wandering in the desert with no memory of what happened. In "Infinities," the main character is at home, but because of communal violence home is no longer what it used to be. So is it still home if it has changed so much? What is home, really?
Read the rest of my review here: http://thegloballycurious.blogspot.in/2015/10/the-woman-who-thought-she-was-planet.html
The Stories
"Hunger"
A housewife who would rather be reading science-fiction novels is stuck preparing for a fancy dinner party (ostensibly her daughter's birthday party but actually a networking event with the higher-ups in her husband's company). Meanwhile, she worries about the next-door neighbor's ill and neglected father-in-law.
"Delhi"
Aseem has the strange gift of being able to see through time: as he walks around Delhi, he catches glimpses of the people and buildings from the past and from the future. One day he is contacted by an organization purporting to tell him the meaning of his life, which apparently has something to do with a picture of an unknown girl.
"The Woman Who Thought She Was a Planet"
Ramnath Mishra's retirement is rudely interrupted when his wife suddenly announces one morning, "I know at last what I am. I am a planet."
"Infinities" (available online from Clarkesworld)
An old math teacher, Abdul Karim, is obsessed with understanding the infinite, a dream encouraged by the angels that he sees out of the corner of his eyes.
"Thirst"
Susheela is a housewife with all the accompanying responsibilities and a small son. But there is a history of madness in her family - her mother and grandmother both disappeared, and now she herself is dreaming of snakes.
"Conservation Laws"
Gyanendra Sahai, a new addition to a run-down Lunar boarding house, announces his true identity as a member of an early Mars exploratory team.
"Three Tales from Sky River"
A collection of three legends from human civilizations spread throughout the galaxy, including one about the Medusa, a parasitic organism that looks like hair.
"The Tetrahedron"
A strange object appears in the middle of a busy road in Delhi. No one can explain what it is, and strange things keep happening around it.
"The Wife"
After 23 years of marriage, Padma's husband has left her alone in rural America. Her thoughts go back to an inexplicable childhood experience.
"The Room on the Roof"
When the room on the roof of the 13-year-old Urmila's house is rented by a sculptor, the girl expects her life to magically change.
Home and life in India
One theme that repeats in a majority of these stories is the idea of home: whether home is a place that exists, and whether you can ever really return to it. In "The Tetrahedron," for example, people enter the strange structure and are found months later, wandering in the desert with no memory of what happened. In "Infinities," the main character is at home, but because of communal violence home is no longer what it used to be. So is it still home if it has changed so much? What is home, really?
Read the rest of my review here: http://thegloballycurious.blogspot.in/2015/10/the-woman-who-thought-she-was-planet.html