Between Worlds - The IF Anthology of New Indian SFF Vol 1 edited by Gautam Bhatia
Publisher – Westland Books
Published – Out Now
Price – £9.69 paperback £4.39 ebook
BOLD INDIAN SF LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN-RADICAL, RAW AND ORIGINAL.
Between Worlds is the introductory IF anthology of new SFF writing. Eschewing the model of commissioning stories to collect a 'best of, this anthology seeks to ask, with curiosity, what's out there? Thoughtfully curated and shepherded by Gautam Bhatia, it showcases the vibrant and diverse voices shaping Indian speculative fiction today.
Blending the surreal with the urgent, these original stories traverse memory and identity, rebellion and love, from queer inter-species romance to interplanetary sleuthing. Alongside the fantastical, the collection confronts the very real-climate catastrophe, AI, surveillance and capitalism-offering bold, unexpected visions from the liminal spaces of Indian SF.
A good anthology can give you a sense of theme such last year’s World Fantasy winner Heartwood edited by dan Coxon playing with the idea of mythical worlds alongside our own. But they can also give you a sense of a genre such as my recent delve into the Big Book pf Cyberpunk edited by Jared Shurin but sometimes, we get an anthology that gives us the picture of the current scene and what themes and styles are prominent at a specific moment in time or even in an part of the globe. In Between Worlds – The IF Anthology of New Indian SFF Vol 1 edited by Gautam Bhatia we get a really interesting mix of tales and for me new voices to explore what is happening in one of the increasingly fascinating parts of the SFF world.
In this collection the stories I really enjoyed were
The Last Projectionist by Ajay Patri – The title suggests the end of cinema, but this is a fascinating alternate history world that imagines a skill that briefly took the world by storm where individuals could project their thoughts onto a screen. It came and went in a hundred years but Patri’s tale takes the form of a magazine style article exploring the faired attempt to make a move over the last well know Projectionist’s life. What fascinates me in this one is how Patri weaves in themes of modern politics, censorship, a changing set of attitudes to colonisation and a media firestorm to create a world for the ‘present’ and the ‘past’ that feels very real and at the same time has something to say about how everyone has their own version of history they want to say is true for their own agendas. An excellent story.
Heartland by Anushree Nande – This isa lovely piece of fantasy here we meet a young woman who can travel into someone’s memories. The personal mystery is how did she get this power and how does this tie into he being adopted. This feels in the vein of a classic SFF mystery, but the resolution is quite emotional and neatly pulls the threads of the story together and leaves us on the cusp of a big change for our lead character.
Muniyamma by Prashanth Srivasta – This is a really interesting story holding a lot of ideas within it. Our lead character here is a elderly woman who has died and been resurrected in machine form due to her skills at midwifery. From Earth she is then taken to another world to serve an Emperor. The story delves into an area SFF has often ignored so we get scenes of how Muniyamma’s skills and traditions help people and this is a role she carries on now in her cybernetic form but it also gets into issues of society that praises male births above all others and here our main character’s reaction to that has big consequences for the future of the world. A subtle exploration of a issue still affecting many parts of the world.
Dilli, Circa 50 N.E. by Shubham Mamgain – One of my favourites in the collection is this story that for me fits in the world of cyberpunk. Our main character is an incredibly stressed office worker who constantly uses multiple anxiety patches to get through his exacting working day, his fraying personal relationships and as we see the wider world he is part of is quite oppressive. This story explores theme of losing yourself to corporate life, a lack of personal freedom, censorship and spying but has some excellent reveals. I do love a good fight back and there is quite an innovative approach to fighting the system going on here.
A Rough-Edged Confection by Suchitra Sukumar – Another favourite is this tale of a middle-aged woman who pays to a goddess and doesn’t quiet expect to be blessed in the way she wanted. Narrated by our Goddess this story explores women becoming more than mothers, wives and homemakers. It’s a woman discovering she can swear, tell her family what to do and discover her own power. That re-awakening of our main character is delicious and even as we feel she is incredibly uncomfortable our Goddess’s mischievous delight in what she sees happen gives the story a lot of energy and intelligence.
CMD:Reset by Purnima Bala – This adds to the collection’s growing theme we see across the stories of people working out their relationships with their past and future generations. Here we have a ruined earth where our main character and their mother have moved to a very corporate environment that is all about people being ultra-productive and now embracing cybernetics to get that ever-needed score to have a better more productive life. Their mother however refuses any more treatments and as age creeps up on her productivity score drops. The story has a sense of horror as we feel our main character is quite unsympathetic to their mother’s age and indeed is blocking it out. We have a story exploring how people are feeling their need to embrace corporate productivity takes over their life and in this story at the cost of memories, emotions and actual happiness gets explored. There is a beautiful moment of rebellion in this story, but I also liked how Bala leaves us on a knife-edge as to what happens next.
Tomorrow’s Ancestors by Srividya – This is for me the best story I the collection. We start off with an elderly woman working for two very uncaring employers. What though becomes a revelation is this woman is also known in the future as an accomplished poet that she keeps hidden from the world. One of her descendants travels through time when reading her moment and there eis a meeting of generational minds. Srividya’s story is elegantly told and what for me makes it stand out is how the story explores social issues such as the lack of a welfare state, changing attitudes to sexuality and how SFF is often about having the need to give hope for the future. It has moments of joy, sadness and rebellion that really pack a punch. A gorgeous story.
We Are All Mayflies by Amal Singh – An elegant and bittersweet SF medical mystery as our main character a doctor is asked to investigate why a planet is experiencing a devastating disease that kills people quite horribly when they turn 44. What makes this story work is how Doctor grieving the breaking up of his relationship forms a new bond with his test study who seems to recognise this man too is in pain and he seeks to help him too. I love the two men’s voices here as they share their thoughts and insights into one another and while the mystery is satisfying explained I think this story is also about how a world can again require their population to be so great it can lead to literal burnout.
Luna Hortus by LA Nolan– the final and longest story is in many ways the most traditional mainstream story in the collection with a sharp noir style detective visiting his sister on the moon and discovering a murder. Throw in a cult, politics, AI and an interesting cast this feels like a big fun and intriguing romp to end the collection on. Sometimes reading for pure fun is all you need in a story.
What strikes me is the title Between Worlds is actually very well used here as one of the constant themes in the stories is how people are finding their world changing around them and also in the process changing themselves. There are regular themes of how our workplaces are taking us over; how we are losing connections with the people we love and a desire to reconnect with our loved ones. But there is also a strident theme that this cannot last, and people will seek to push back. The times are indeed always a’changing and that is something we always need SFF to give us hope for especially int eh current world we are in at the moment. A collection for fans of our genres that I highly recommend
