Archive for the ‘Vandana Singh’ Category
Someone on twitter (thank you, whoever you were!) recommended Vandana Singh’s short story “Ambiguity Machines: An Examination”, and offered a link to the story on Tor.com. I gave it a whirl, and was immediately hooked. In reminded me of Ken Liu’s short story “The Bookmaking Habits of Select Species”, and I recognized my favorite method of story telling, which at first glance can seem to be stories that dance around a plot and characters while resolutely refusing to be trapped by said plot. And yet, so much is communicated about what is happening and sometimes why those thing happen, and what those things mean to the people they are happening to.
I guess it’s more like a fantastical story telling version of future archaeology?
Let me unpack that a little.
In Liu’s short story, there is no plot, there is no characters, there is no conflict. If you’re zipping through the story, you won’t recognize the beginning, middle, or end, but if you read a little closer, it’s all there. It’s just a story that gives a few paragraphs about a bunch of space-faring alien civilizations, and how they make books – how they ensure others can access their stories and their thoughts. Within the story, there are no human interactions with the aliens, no earthly judgements of their societies. It is as if to put a human character in would a barrier between the reader and the records of these cultures. Singh’s “Ambiguity Machine’s” felt like that too – no barrier between the records of events and the reader, no “main character” to pass judgement or offer opinions, just records of what had happened, along with a request that someone interpret the records.
For my brain, these two stories, read 8 years apart from each other, were like hearing two pieces of music that were different, but seemed to be talking to each other, even though they had never met. (yes, I know I’m weird) (and i don’t know, maybe Signh and Lui are good friends? I have no idea)
Suffice to say, after reading Signh’s story, I immediately ordered a paperback copy of her collection, Ambiguity Machines and Other Select Stories. And when the book arrived, the first words out of my mouth were “oh, shit”.
You see, I like to read before bed. Usually, i’m already half asleep when I crawl into bed, so I’m looking to read something that if I find myself reading the same paragraph 5 times, or fall asleep halfway through, it won’t matter too much. A short-ish story, something 5-10 pages, out of an anthology or collection is perfect for this.
None of the stories in the Singh collection were short, and none of them looked like “easy reads”. As I got further into the collection I realized these were not stories to drift away to, while falling asleep at night, these were stories to read in the morning, with strong coffee, and to spend the day absorbing and thinking about them, so as to then dream about them at night.
Everything I have read so far in this collection has been heart achingly beautiful, each story requiring me some time afterwards to come back to myself. These stories are vistas.
(I feel really bad for whatever I read next. No matter how good it is, I fear it will be mediocre in comparison to this collection)
I’m going to tell you about “Ambiguity Machines: An Examination”, and about “Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra”, even though I have more favorites. Those others will have to wait for another blog post, I supposed. “Ambiguity Machines” had me globetrotting via googlemaps, and “Somadeva” had me falling down the world’s best internet rabbit hole.
Ambiguity Machines was original published at tor.com in 2015, here’s the link:
https://www.tor.com/2015/04/29/ambiguity-machines-an-examination-vandana-singh/
Somadeva: A Sky River Sutra was originally published in 2010 at Strange Horizons, here’s the link:
http://strangehorizons.com/fiction/somadeva-a-sky-river-sutra/
warning, if I interpreted something correctly, there are major spoilers ahead for “Ambiguity Machines: An Examination”, and I guess maybe spoilers also for Somadeva? so hey, click on those links and enjoy some gorgeous fiction before reading the rest of this blog post. 😉
the Little Red Reviewer 
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