Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls

Back in 2017 the movie The Shape of Water was released to box office success and critical acclaim. In November of that same year, this novella, originally published in 1982 and long out of print, was republished. It then found its way onto my list of books. This past week I had some longer than usual drives to scholastic soccer matches that I officiated, so I listened to it on audiobook.

An amphibious creature escapes from a lab where it was being tested on, tortured, and abused. The titular Mrs. Caliban hears about it on her radio as she does her housework. She and her husband are somewhat estranged though still living together. They lost a son to an operation gone wrong and another to a miscarriage. While Mrs. Caliban is preparing and serving dinner for her husband and a co-worker, the monster shows up in her kitchen. She befriends him, hiding him in her son’s old room as her husband never goes to that room or even that part of the house. Mrs. Caliban and the monster have an affair and work on a plan to get him back to his own home in the sea.

Numerous themes and ideas are explored in this short novella. Naturally relationships and fidelity, but also what it means to be a monster and the treatment of non-human animals, including the ethics of eating meat. None of this is heavy handed but occurs in the natural course of the storytelling. Despite being written over forty years ago, it feels surprisingly contemporary. What I appreciate most is that it doesn’t really give answers, though these are implied. Instead, it is a book that questions many things that we often take for granted without even thinking.

My rating: 4/5

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

Every year, Locus magazine does a review issue in February. In it, their editors and reviewers list their favorites of the year. One of those reviewers this year was Alexandra Pierce. She recommended this novella. I picked it up on her recommendation as a well-written story that explores deeper issues.

The story is that of an unnamed boy and woman. The boy lives below decks on a sort of chain gang about a generation ship. The woman is a professor aboard that same ship in a caste that is just slightly above that of the boy. She gets the boy out of the Hold and brings him to the university. He struggles to adapt there while relying on the Practice that he was taught in the Hold by an old man.

This is a tale of class and hierarchy in society. It moves rather slowly and the writing is dense. It borders on being for English teachers only but never quite tips into that territory. Clearly the author is not just talking about space. This is a metaphor for all human societies. And what the author has to say in her exploration is well worth reading this short book.

My rating: 4/5

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, Translated by Eric Ozawa

Once again, I was on the road for a soccer tournament. And once again, I was on the hunt for an audiobook to listen to during my drive. I dug into my list of novellas and came up with this one. It is has been on my list so long now, I have no record or recollection of why I added it.

A young woman’s boyfriend casually mentions that he is getting married… to someone else. The young girl is so devastated and embarrassed, that she quits her job where she works with her ex. Shortly after that, her uncle invites her to live in a small room over his used bookshop in Tokyo. Having nowhere else to go, she accepts. Naturally, her experience there and the space she has from her past mistakes gives her the room to grow.

As an American, there was a lot that I struggled to relate to. The main character feels a little too naive. But perhaps that is cultural. It certainly wasn’t enough to ruin a wonderful story. Between books and the love of her family, she starts to overcome her past. She also learns about her uncle’s past and their relationship grows. This is a sweet and relatable coming of age story set in another culture.

My rating: 4/5

Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor

I came across this gem on the Patreon member feed of the *What Should I Read Next?* podcast. It was their “One Great Book” segment. These are short episodes where one of their staff members gives a quick review of a book they liked. Based on Shannan’s review, I immediately added to my list of books to read.

This short novel (more of a novella or short story, really, at just over ten thousand words long) was originally published in 1938 in Story magazine. It is the story of two good friends who are partners in an art gallery. One of them returns to Germany while the other remains in San Francisco to mind the store. Max, the one who stays, is a Jew. Once he arrives in Germany, Martin writes back to Max about the wonders of a revitalizing Germany in the early 1930s. As their correspondence continues (this is an epistolary novel), their relationship deteriorates.

Wow! This one is a real gut punch. It shows how people who were once so close can be alienated from each other so quickly. It feels very contemporary in our divided times. The change is slow and realistic. The two main characters come alive in their different writing styles. And the slow change in Martin is haunting as he succumbs to Nazi propaganda. It shows how any one of us, liberal or conservative, can find ourselves alienated from those we love when we give up and let others think for us.

My rating: 5/5

Termush by Sven Holm, Translated by Sylvia Clayton

I learned about this short book from a review in the September issue of Locus magazine. The story was originally written in Danish and published in 1967. I was interested because of its premise, both the background of the story and the human dilemma it addresses.

The book takes place in a future where a nuclear holocaust has occurred. It centers on a hotel populated by residents who saw it coming and spent a lot of money to prepare this hotel to shelter them in the aftermath. Soon, refugees looking for food and in need of medial assistance begin to arrive. The residents have to decide whether they should allow these folks in or keep them out.

I am a big fan of these kinds of thought experiments in fiction. It is handled fairly well here. Both perspectives are presented and the issue is explored. However, no definitive answer is given. I also really appreciate it when authors acknowledge the complexity of issues in this way. The text is a little stilted at time, perhaps due to the translation or the source material. I still felt the impact of this deeply human story.

My rating: 4/5

Spill by Cory Doctorow

As I am sure I have said before, I am a big Cory Doctorow fan. I read his blog. I also have alerts that notify me when he publishes anything new. This book came up on one of those alerts, so I grabbed it right away and read it soon after.

The story takes place in the world of his previous series of novels that start with Little Brother. This one centers around a group of indigenous protesters trying to prevent an oil pipeline from being built through sacred land, potentially fouling the people’s water supply. This intersects with a cyber attack on a large company. Two main characters from the Little Brother universe working on these separate issue learn how they are related.

This novella is a quick and interesting read. Like all of Doctorow’s work, it includes simple descriptions of complex technical issues. Then he spins a story that shows you how that technology affects characters that could be anybody. This book is both entertaining and educational. Highly recommended.

My rating: 4.5/5

Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo

Last year was my year of short fiction. In addition to all the short stories I read, I collected a number of novellas to read. This was one of them. I was drawn to it because part of its premise is a scientist who figures out how to share the experience of a wolf. It did not disappoint.

As the story opens, the scientist and her team are performing surgery on a wolf in the wild to implant a device in her brain that will broadcast to a corresponding device in the scientist’s brain. When the connection is turned on, the scientist is able to experience all that the wolf sees, hears, smells, and feels. Naturally this experience is in many ways quite foreign for a human and begins to affect the scientist. At the same time, the scientist is experiencing relationship difficulties with her wife.

I loved this short novel! It deals with so many complex topics in ways that really connected with me. It didn’t feel heavy handed or like it was trying to give particular answers. It was more of an exploration of the complexity of human relationships as well as relationships between human animals and the rest of the animal kingdom and the natural world. I found it incredibly moving and a rich reading experience.

My rating: 5/5

Foster by Claire Keegan

A 2D drawing of a farm house in the distance with fields in the forground in black and white and blue

I got a little turned off to literary short fiction when I read Cathedral by Raymond Carver. That book is highly rated, but the stories just didn’t click with me. Somewhere along the way I was referred to Foster by Claire Keegan. I felt like it might be time to give that a go, but I was hesitant due to my experience with Carver. I need not have been concerned.

Foster pulled me in from the beginning and would not let me or my heart go. It tells the story of a young girl in rural Ireland whose mother is expecting yet another baby. As she approaches delivering that baby, her father takes her to neighbors to watch over her to give her mother a break. At first, the girl is nervous and scared, not knowing what to expect. Over their short time together, both the her foster parents and she grow close until, after the new sibling is born, she has to return home.

The atmosphere is overpowering in this story. I really felt as if I was there. I was drawn into the rural Irish community as well as the smaller world of the little girl who is telling the story. There is quite a contrast between the life she lives in her parents’ home and her short time with her foster parents. But there is no outward judgment one way or the other. Instead the author allows the characters and their feelings and emotions to communicate the complicated world of adults as experienced by a young girl.

My rating: 5/5

Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire

An open doorway stands in the middle of a field at sunrise seeming to go nowhere

Here is another winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novella. It is a portal fantasy where children return from their world to parents frantic about their missing children. When the kids tell mom and dad about where they have been, the parents naturally think them traumatized by whatever experience they actually had. In their pursuit of help, they come across a woman running a school for just such children. What they don’t know is that the headmistress was herself a child who traveled to another world and understands that the children are telling the truth.

The story follows one girl as she arrives at the school desperate to get back to her other world. As she starts to settle in, terrible things begin to happen. The children help the headmistress to figure out what is going on. We learn what is going on as the children do.

This book is both dark and funny. It deals with issues of adolescence and sex and gender in sympathetic ways while still feeling true to how children treat and relate to each other. I found the ending rather abrupt but otherwise thoroughly enjoyed the book.

My rating: 4.5/5

Exploring Human Challenges

A Psalm for the Wild-Built book cover

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is exactly my kind of science fiction–the kind that explores ideas. Like her longer novels, in this novella Becky Chambers shares a vision of a future that is both positive and optimistic. The story takes place on a verdant moon where humans have confronted what they were doing to the environment and corrected their activities. One of the catalysts for this was the rise to sentience of their robots. The story takes place many years after that.

The novella tells of a young monk who has a crisis of purpose and decides to change their vocation. At first they find their new work quite a challenge. Eventually they become very good at it and find that the hole they felt inside is not filled after all. At this point they take drastic measures to address this personal crisis. And throughout the descriptions of the countryside and outdoors in general nearly give the same feeling one gets from walking in the woods oneself.

I love it when science fiction addresses both the outward and inward challenges that humans face. This book does a masterful job of addressing both. It shows a positive future (though not a utopia) where humans have successfully and collectively navigated past a challenge that faced them all. But the core of the story is about one person trying to figure what their purpose in life is.