Harare Review of Books

33 pp. August 1, 2025, Storytime Publishing. Short SF.

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The Clarity of Ice drops us into the action, in media res and in first person: The narrator, a biofarmer, has made planetfall, and habitats were deployed successfully but something’s wrong with the control systems. Shortly after, they break down completely. And it’s a crisis, because the narrator and their partner need to figure out what’s gone wrong and also somehow still eventually rendezvous with their spaceship.

I loved this story—it’s my favourite in the ZamaShort series so far. It’s weird and futuristic: biotechnology, seeding stock for colonists, clearly the far future—quite high-concept. The story’s also about a stratified society: those Below, from the outer ring of their ship, and those Above, the elites, who are the source of the human stock they’re spreading throughout the universe. Theoretically, as in all stratified societies, those from Below can rise, through good behaviour and high credit; it’s meritocratic that way. There’s also a lottery, of course. But in truth—as in all stratified societies—only very few break out. And even when they do, that they’re from below is a stain they can never wash off.

The story works on both the level of the ongoing action and also intriguing glimpses into this society. The narrator needs this win, but so does their partner, a driven and ambitious fellow lottery winner and high achiever—so there’s tension there (and also for other reasons). For these two, mission failure is not really an option—for personal reasons, but also because they carry the burden of the reputation of their class on their shoulders. There’s an element of bleak futility in this struggle; as the narrator says, you can’t earn what others are unwilling to give.

I’m squeamish, but I find I’m growing increasingly intrigued by .. bioSF? (Here’s a cool link I just found.) Biology remains my jam and kind of my specialty, so I’m always interested, disturbed/unnerved/unwomanned (it’s a matter of degree) as I am by people walking through pulsating tubes or climbing into insectoid self-driving vehicles (see Zoi x Jane Mondrup and one I’ve just finished, New Dawn Fades by Kevin Rattan—both wonderfully imaginative books). The thing is—and that’s a central idea in this story too—if the whatsit is alive, it’ll be … unpredictable? No matter how many failsafes you code into the system, the whole thing about life is that it does imaginable things to protect itself and to proliferate. It tends to… mutate. Kind of do its own thing. At its core, life is mysterious and on some level unknowable, and that is truly unsettling. It does make for really good SF though.

I’ll instaread anything else Carmelo Rafalà writes in this universe or with similar themes; this was fascinating, and so well-written.

Many thanks to ZamaShort for the review copy.

• Check out an excerpt of The Clarity of Ice here!
• You can get The Clarity of Ice from most places ebooks are sold; more here.