The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 1

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By Lavie Tidhar

Publisher Description

The Apex Book of World SF, edited by Lavie Tidhar, features award-winning science fiction and fantasy short stories from Asia, Eastern Europe, and around the world.

The world of speculative fiction is expansive; it covers more than one country, one continent, one culture. Collected here are sixteen stories penned by authors from Thailand, the Philippines, China, Israel, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, and other countries across the globe. Each one tells a tale breathtakingly vast and varied, whether caught in the ghosts of the past or entangled in a postmodern age.

Among the spirits, technology, and deep recesses of the human mind, stories abound. Kites sail to the stars, technology transcends physics, and wheels cry out in the night. Memories come and go like fading echoes and a train carries its passengers through more than simple space and time. Dark and bright, beautiful and haunting, the stories herein represent speculative fiction from a sampling of the finest authors from around the world.

Contains the following stories from around the world:

S.P. Somtow (Thailand) — "The Bird Catcher"
Jetse de Vries (Netherlands) — "Transcendence Express"
Guy Hasson (Israel) — "The Levantine Experiments"
Han Song (China) — "The Wheel of Samsara"
Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji) —"Ghost Jail"
Yang Ping (China) — "Wizard World"
Dean Francis Alfar (Philippines) — "L'Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)"
Nir Yaniv (Israel) — "Cinderers"
Jamil Nasir (Palestine) — "The Allah Stairs"
Tunku Halim (Malaysia) — "Biggest Baddest Bomoh"
Aliette de Bodard (France) — "The Lost Xuyan Bride"
Kristin Mandigma (Philippines) — "Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang"
Aleksandar Žiljak (Croatia) — "An Evening in the City Coffehouse, With Lydia on My Mind" (Read for free in Apex Magazine issue 5)
Anil Menon (India) — "Into the Night"
Mélanie Fazi (France, translated by Christopher Priest) — "Elegy"
Zoran Živković (Serbia, translated by Alice Copple-Tošić) — "Compartments"

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The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 1 Reviews

3.5

S Klotz

Created over 6 years ago

Dana 🌙🪞✨

Created over 7 years ago

Krista

Created almost 9 years ago

Rick Muller

Created over 11 years ago

Amadan

Created over 15 years ago

“This is a collection of 15 short stories from non-US/UK writers. While several stories fall into the traditional SF category, some are straight fantasy/horror, and a couple are hard to describe. Reading this collection is sort of like sampling from a buffet of foreign dishes you've never tried before: some of the offerings are familiar, some are unfamiliar but delicious, and a few are just odd and unappealing. There are a couple that probably read much better in the language from which they were translated. Below is a quick summary of each: The Bird Catcher: Set in Thailand, about a serial killer. Transcendence Express: A teacher introduces biological quantum computers to African school children. (There's a bit of the "white savior" cliche here; white Europeans bring high tech enlightenment to poor, grateful Africans.) The Levantine Experiments: Very weird story about a child used as a scientific experiment. Not really horrific, but strange. The Wheel of Samsara: Another strange story that's hard to describe. A scientist studies a prayer wheel in a remote Tibetan monastery. Ghost Jail: Journalist seeks out corruption in Fiji, discovers literal corruption in the form of ghosts. Wizard World: I think this Chinese story suffered most in translation. A denizen of an online world vs. hackers. L'Aquilone du Estrellas: This is more of a fairy tale, about a girl who goes on a lifelong quest to win the attention of the man she is in love with, accompanied by a boy who is in love with her. Cinderers: An arsonist with psychoses; hard to describe further without spoilers. The Allah Stairs: One of my least favorite stories in the collection. A couple of childhood friends discover that a classmate's fantastic stories weren't so fantastic. The Biggest Baddest Bomoh: Not so original, but well written: a Malaysian clerk seeks out a shaman to help him win the heart of a woman he's in love with. The Lost Xuyan Bride: One of my favorites. A PI takes on a job to find a missing girl, set in an alternate history where the Chinese colonized western North America and the Aztecs still occupy southern Mexico. Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-Realist Aswang: Very short but amusing letter from a Filipino Marxist vampire, with some meta-commentary on the sci-fi genre. An Evening in the City Coffeehouse, with Lydia on my Mind: A futuristic pornographer films the wrong subject. Into the Night: An elderly, traditional Tamil man has trouble adjusting to his daughter's world of science and virtual reality. Elegy: A woman's children go missing; you have to draw your own conclusion as to whether she's right about who the culprit is, or if she's simply gone mad with grief.”