32 | New Scientist | 14 November 2020
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“Every birth is a battlefield, a
war between the life that exists
and the life coming into being,”
says the midwife who narrates
Kameron Hurley’s “Citizens of
Elsewhen”, the opening story
in the Escape Pod anthology.
Asa is not just a midwife, but
also a time-warrior who shapes
the future. She intervenes in the
past to save influential women
from dying in childbirth and thus
protect the matriarchy 3000 years
in the future. But Hurley could
just as easily be talking about the
revolutionary times to which we
have front-row seats. If we are in a
battle between the future and the
past, science fiction is the midwife.
Before there were 1.5 million or
so podcasts, there was Escape Pod.
The sci-fi short story podcast turns
15 this year, and to mark this, its
editors have curated a book with
a mix of 15 new and previously
commissioned works, including
some from seriously big names like
N. K. Jemisin and Cory Doctorow.
In her foreword, Serah Eley,
the podcast’s founder, lays out
her vision of science fiction
as the literature of change inrevolutionary times. It is those
midwives of the future again.
Following Hurley comes
“Report of Dr Hollowmas on
the Incident at Jackrabbit Five”
by T. Kingfisher. It is about a group
of pregnant women on a colony
planet whose difficult pregnancies
are saved by a midwife space
marine corps.“Midwifing” the future is a
basic play on the old cliché about
sci-fi being the blueprint for what
is to come, even if it does subvert
the notion of which gender is
responsible for shaping the future
(think terraforming, rockets and
so on – all very macho).
If this was the best insight
in this anthology, it wouldn’t
be that astute. More promising
is another theme that pops out
of the curated mix: don’t do the
thing you are expected to do.Flipping the narrative Whatever you are expected to do, don’t. That’s a key theme
in Escape Pod, a major new anthology featuring such luminaries as N. K. Jemisin,
Ken Liu, Kameron Hurley and Cory Doctorow, says Sally Adee“ If we are in a battle
between the future
and the past, then
science fiction is
the midwife”Book
Escape Pod: The
science fiction
anthology
Editors: Mur Lafferty
and S. B. Divya
Titan BooksSally also
recommends...Book
The Light Brigade
Kameron Hurley
Simon & Schuster
If you enjoy Hurley’s
“Citizens of Elsewhen” in
the Escape Pod anthology,
definitely don’t miss The
Light Brigade. In fact, don’t
miss it anyway – Hurley is
so good at military sci-fi.Podcasts
Escape Pod
Escape ArtistsClarkesworld
Clarkesworld MagazineFlipping the expected narrative
is a major motif as the anthology
progresses. In Tim Pratt’s take on
the multiverse genre, “A Princess
of Nigh-Space”, a young heiress
rejects a fight with a monster,
instead making a cool-headed
business deal.
And in “Give Me Cornbread or
Give Me Death”, N. K. Jemisin’s
protagonist refuses to accept the
inhumanity of the things sent to
destroy her and her people. In so
doing, she thwarts the ruling caste
in a way no amount of valiant
fighting could have accomplished.
In many of the stories,
rather than choosing combat,
the protagonists rethink
their strategy, with surprising
consequences but similar endings.
Enemies are unmade, not killed.
The myriad events that will
unfold over the next few months
are premised on many narratives
about enemies. You know who
you are expected to see in that way.
But if we are to avoid more of the
horrors of 2020, this won’t work.
As the events of the past few
years bear out, true stories and
fiction work the same way in
our minds, warns Eley. We are
beginning to understand that
in a world of competing truths,
there is a battle to carefully curate
those that shape our world.
The same understanding is
needed for fiction. The image of
the future we form in our minds
shapes that future. So we must
take care about the images we
choose. If we choose fighting
and enemies, the future will
involve fighting and enemies.
If we choose a cleverer, more
subtle and humane way to deal
with each other, maybe a better
future can be born. ❚GREMLIN/GETT
Y^ IMAGESThe image of the future
we form in our minds
shapes that futureThe sci-fi column
Sally Adee is a technology
and science writer based
in London. Follow her on
Twitter @sally_adee