Harare Review of Books

230 pages.

First published Nov 6, 2023 (Interstellar Flight Press).

SF.

I love it when I finish a sci-fi read and feel sated, and William Ledbetter (Level Five, Level Six) is becoming one of my favourite SF authors. I didn’t completely love every single story in this collection, but there are soooo many good ones here. And he writes the only kind of sci-fi that matters—that is, hard SF (:

One small criticism before I talk about everything I loved: body differences are dealt with somewhat awkwardly in a couple of the stories. I don’t know many authors who get it right (and even “right” is still in question), but I do want to see more disability rep in SF that isn’t so explainey or excusey.

But to some of my favourite stories in this collection: What I am, about the cutest smart sweater (I totally want one, and also the smarts to reconfigure it); Last House, Lost House which is sad and lonely, and ends in the nicest way; Bridging, which, I mean, space elevator!; Steal From the Sun, which has a cool scene that reminds me of the 2018 film, Aniara; How to Fix Discarded Things, which reminds me of Cory Doctorow’s Unauthorized Bread, and which is cool in all of the same ways (you should read both); The Beast from Below, which is really funny; That Other Sea, which has persons but no humans, is absolutely beautiful and possibly my favourite; Medic!, because I love Military SF; The Rings of Mars, because, well, Mars, and KSR messed me up in good ways for good; and In a Wide Sky, Hidden, because it’s so wonderfully imaginative.

So, that’s a lot of good stories in one collection, and it is a very good collection. If anything I said in the previous paragraph makes no sense to you, this may not be the book for you… But if it does, you must read it. Highly recommended.

Thank you to Interstellar Flight Press and to NetGalley for access.

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