A review by beefmaster
Love Beyond Body, Space & Time by Hope Nicholson

3.0

Love Beyond Body, Space, and Time was our queer bookclub pick this month and it was a mixed bag. Three of the stories I outright hated, two I was indifferent, and only two did I actually like. The anthology is Indigenous-written and queer-focused and perhaps if the anthology had been left in the realm of realism, I might have found it more successful. However, the theme is science fiction and therein lies the problem. Many of the stories felt as if their science fictional elements tacked on, after the fact, without much thoughtfulness. "Legends Are Made, Not Born" by Cherie Dimaline depicts a young Indigenous person being brought into the world of Two Spirit by Auntie Dave, a memorable character unto themselves. However it's not until the end when Auntie Dave clumsily reminds the protagonist and therefore the audience the setting is New Earth, as Old Earth was abandoned. What's the point? The first story, "Aliens," is over-written, didactic, and diagrammatic to a fault. It's awful. The worst story is the most science fictional, "Imposter Syndrome", by Mari Kurisato. Imagine somebody who doesn't read science fiction trying to write a parody of all the worst tropes of science fiction. That's this story. It made me think of Raymond Chandler's famous dismissal of science fiction:

Did you ever read what they call Science Fiction? It's a scream. It is written like this: "I checked out with K19 on Aldabaran III, and stepped out through the crummalite hatch on my 22 Model Sirus Hardtop. I cocked the timejector in secondary and waded through the bright blue manda grass. My breath froze into pink pretzels."...They pay brisk money for this crap? (here)

That's what reading "Imposter Syndrome" felt like. However, not all is terrible. Gwen Benaway's "Transtions," a very lightly science fictional story, weighs the scientific method against the traditional methods. It's the story most accomplished and most writerly. Benaway, of whom I've only read some poetry, writes professionally, writes expertly, knowing how to pace a story, which details to include and exclude, and how to end. It's terrific. The other story I liked was "Néle," by Darcie Little Badger, an extremely fluffy F/F romance set on a Seed Ship taking dogs to the new colony on Mars. The protagonist is a vet, woken up from stasis to take care of the dogs, an extreme luxury item. She falls in love with one of the pilots. It's cute and it has zero dramatic stakes. Wonderful stuff. It's also the only story in the entire anthology which needs science fiction in order to tell its story. The premise and setting completely depend on the Fantastic. A mixed bag but those two stories were great.