Harare Review of Books

294 pages. Published December 19, 2023 by Apex Book Company. SF anthology/Fiction and SF Poetry.

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Ada Hoffman’s collection of short stories and poems is divided into four sections thematically: Dusk, Midnight, The Small Hours, and Dawn—because, the author says, they were exploring ‘underworlds’: “How we descend into them, how we try to find or comfort each other within them, and how we eventually find our way back out.” (Yay for story notes from the author!) There’s wonderful variety here, and so much honesty and human connection. And in most of these stories, there’s strong disability rep, especially for autism.

My favourite stories. Transitional Chords is a spooky story about the power of music, with a very cool, very grim ending (ikr). Back Room is also excellent, about a child with hypersensitivity to sensory stimulation who gets lost in a store. It’s sad, but lovely. The unsettling Harmony Amid the Stars is set on a spaceship, and all the crew are slowly going mad because the stars are speaking to them. Wonderful. As Hollow as a Heart imagines a kind of Stockholm Syndrome situation, to my mind. A Spell To Retrieve Your Lover From the Bottom of The Sea is soo sad on the grief of trying to rescue a loved one from themselves. So’s The Herdsman of the Dead, a very similar idea. Fairest of All is about abuse in relationships, set in fairytaleland. It’s vividly imagined, and I loved it, although it’s a pretty hard read. (It also has a polycule.) Five Songs and a River is about doomed love, and also finding yourself.

There are two stories about avenging angels of gods, from the Outside trilogy; Melting like Metal, and Minor Heresies. The angels are wildly, incredibly cool and scary, as angels should be. And the ‘failed’ angel in Minor Heresies still manages to be really cool. Although the author says religion is “complicated” for them, the exploration of it in these two stories is fascinating. And religion pops up elsewhere in the collection, like in The Scrape of Tooth and Bone, which is about spiritism (well, Spiritualism) and archeology and fossils, and in the poems Prayer: A Cautionary Tale, and The Raising of Lazarus. (The author explains in the story notes at the back that they had thought of using Easter as the theme of the collection, so it’s a strong throughline.)

Other poetry: I liked and laughed at Married Men, because it’s so relatable: They make these dipsh_ts in a factory in Milwaukee/Carve ‘em out of fancy-grade tin, draw the eyes/just so, round and mournful or cunning or merry. … You can collect the damn things. Brilliant.

No one is as interesting as someone who’s faced their demons/is grappling with them and uses that battle for art. I don’t mean to be trite at all, but Hoffman is honest about their struggles as driving their work, and it’s beautiful, and powerful, and resonant. This is an excellent collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Apex Book Company for access to a DRC.