E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten
Lee / Zhao / Yuan-Innes Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy (Laksa Anthology Series: Speculative Fiction)
1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9939696-6-9
Verlag: Laksa Media Groups Inc.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
E-Book, Englisch, 352 Seiten
Reihe: Laksa Anthology Series: Speculative Fiction
ISBN: 978-0-9939696-6-9
Verlag: Laksa Media Groups Inc.
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)
Follow
twenty-three science fiction and fantasy authors on their journeys
through Asia and beyond. Stories that explore magic and science. Stories
about love, revenge, and choices. Stories that challenge ideas about
race, belonging, and politics. Stories about where we come from and
where we are going.
Nominated - 2018 (Canadian SF&F) Aurora Awards Shortlist (anthology/Best Related Work)
Nominated - 2018 Alberta Book Publishing Awards Shortlist (Best Speculative Fiction)
One story nominated - 2018 World Fantasy Awards Best Short Story finalist
One story selected for The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 3 (ed. by Neil Clarke)
Four stories on Tangent Recommended Reading List 2017
Two stories nominated - 2018 (Canadian SF&F) Aurora Award Short Fiction Shortlist
One story nominated - 2018 The Sunburst Award for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic -- Short Story category Shortlist
Nine stories - Honorable Mentions in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (edited by Gardner Dozois)
ALL EMOTIONS ARE UNIVERSAL. WE LIVE, WE DREAM, WE STRIVE, WE DIE . . .
Orphans
and drug-smuggling in deep space. Mechanical arms in steampunk
Vancouver. Djinns and espionage in futuristic Istanbul. Humanoid robot
in steamy Kerala. Monsters in the jungles of Cebu. Historic time travel
in Gyeongbok Palace. A rocket launch in post-apocalyptic Tokyo. A
drunken ghost in Song Dynasty China. A displaced refugee skating on an
ice planet. And many more.
Original Stories by Anne
Carly Abad, Deepak Bharathan, Joyce Chng, Miki Dare, S.B. Divya, Pamela
Q. Fernandes, Calvin D. Jim, Minsoo Kang, Fonda Lee, Gabriela Lee,
Karin Lowachee, Rati Mehrotra, E.C. Myers, Tony Pi, Angela Yuriko Smith,
Priya Sridhar, Amanda Sun, Naru Dames Sundar, Jeremy Szal, Regina Kanyu
Wang (translated by Shaoyan Hu), Diana Xin, Melissa Yuan-Innes &
Ruhan Zhao.
With Introduction by Elsie Chapman
Edited by Lucas K. Law and Derwin Mak
Anthologies in this series (Strangers Among Us, The Sum of Us, Where the Stars Rise, Shades Within Us) have been recommended by Publishers Weekly, Booklist (American Library Association), Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, School Library Journal, Locus, Foreword Reviews, andQuill & Quire.
Praise for Where the Stars Rise
'. . . this collection is essential for anyone interested in the diverse
and engaging possibilities of fantasy and science fiction.' -Booklist (American Library Association)
'. . . this fascinating collection addresses issues of immigration, dual
cultures, and ethnic issues through genre devices such as ghosts,
steampunk robots, and planetary exploration.' -Library Journal
'. . . a lot of good reading to be found in Where the Stars Rise.' -Locus (Gardner Dozois)
'. . . stories being either good or very good page-turners.'-Tangent
'A wealth of stories running the gamut from poignant to mind-blowing, rewarding journeys both faraway and familiar.' -Aliette de Bodard, Nebula Award-winning author of the Dominion of the Fallen saga
'Where the Stars Rise
is a hell of a lot of fun. Great writers, magnificent storytelling, and
worlds . . .' -Rob Boffard, author of the Outer Earth series
Weitere Infos & Material
The dataSultan of Streets and Stars
Jeremy Szal The alien slams me up against the station walls so hard I think he’s broken my spine. If I didn’t activate my arm-bands of my skinsuit in time to cushion the impact he might have. I try to squirm out of his grasp but it’s like pushing against an iron wall. I throw my hands up. “You win. Just let go off me.” His grip tightens. “Try to run again and I will snap your neck, Bohdi.” I’d planned on darting away as soon as he released me, but now I think the better of it. I’m a short, scruffy guy and it won’t be hard for him to catch me. He releases me, and I slide down the wall, raking in gulps of air. “Humans.” Zuqji Sma shakes his head. Like most Ghadesh, he’s two metres tall with a stocky body. Thick tubes snake in and out of his carapace-like armour, recycling oxygen to match the methane atmosphere of his Dyson sphere home. But we’re both far from home in Anacet Station, a place built in the mined-out husk of a metallic asteroid. Most of the folk here are humans, but there are a few Ghadesh wandering around. The cosmos rolls the dices, and of course I bump into him of all people. “Let’s have a talk, shall we?” Sma pokes me in the chest. He’s cut himself from the sharp edge of the metal wall, and a few droplets of his green-blue blood spatters on my chest. I shrug. We go to a Lebanese shop that sells Arab-style coffee. The turbaned owner does the physical work while his djinn performs the electronic activities, flipping the machine on and rotating the dispenser. Wispy smoke floats up to the mosaic ceiling. I can’t remember a time when we didn’t use djinns to assist us. A kilometre-long starship glides by our viewport, a testament to human engineering. Humans might have designed it, but djinns built it. The djinn-bot arrives with our cups of steaming liquid blackness. The stuff is overpriced, and somehow I doubt Sma’s going to be paying for it. “You wanted something?” There’s no way in hell I’m catching my ship now, so I might as well humour him. “Of course.” Sma doesn’t touch his coffee. From the way he sits, you’d think his spine was made of steel. For all I know about Ghadesh biology, it probably is. The one thing I do know about Ghadesh is that their armour shifts in colour to match their mood, and right now his is only starting to dial down from pitch black. “I hear they’re making new djinns on Earth, yes?” “They’re always making new djinns.” There’s no reason I have to make it easy for him. Sma’s rectangular pupils narrow to cold grey slits. I’ve never noticed just how grey they are. “I mean high-tier djinn. Ones that can pilot ships without any assistance. You would know about this, yes?” “They are,” I respond. “They won’t be on the market for years.” You can almost see the I’ve got you now twinkle in Sma’s eye. “Now that is where you come in.” “I’m not going back to Istanbul,” I tell him. “Not after what happened.” “What exactly happened down there? The GalaNet has been rather quiet.” He probably knows, but I tell him anyway. We’re always attempting to improve the djinns, raise their tier so they can juggle together activities and for longer. We were so, so close to crafting djinn capable of deep space asteroid mining. We’d unveiled them in a conference room to investors in the business. Only there’d been a malfunction and the djinns had gone rogue, killing a dozen people. I’d been the dataSultan, one of the lead programmers. We shushed it up afterwards, but my superiors recommended I skipped Earth and waited for things to cool down. The families of the deceased were powerful people with deep pockets and shallow mercy. Still, it’s unlikely they’d chase me across space. Sma leans back on his seat, the divan creaking under his weight. “Hmm. Fascinating. Very fascinating. You really did mess up, didn’t you?” “With a dozen people dead and a bounty hanging over me? You could say so,” I respond. “Well, I have a proposition for you.” The sarcasm seems to have gone over his head. “I want you to go back to Istanbul and get me one of those djinn-7s. They should be sorted out by now, yes?” “Probably, but I won’t be going back there,” I tell him. His eyes narrow again and his armour darkens. “You act as if you have a choice in the matter.” “I’ll damn sure say I do.” A sudden blur and I glance down to see a pistol folding out of his metal sleeve. Thousands of miniscule metallic bits scramble over each other like glossy black ants, coalescing to form a revolver pointed straight at me. Unnervingly, from this angle he’s got it aimed at my crotch. I make it my goal of never having pointy things prodded in this general direction. “Never had a coffee date go this badly.” I do my best to smile as I pretend to inspect my drink. “Say, what exactly did you put in this?” Sma is not amused. “You’re going to get that djinn, regardless if you want to or not.” “Why me?” I demand. He taps the veins on my forearm. It’s a challenge not to recoil from his blood-warm touch. “The djinn-7s are synced to your DNA. You have those implants that allow you to enter the systems. Do not try to fool me; we both know you’re the only one who can do it.” It’s scary how much he knows about the whole thing. I was stupid to underestimate him. “Do so and I’ll forgive your debt.” “No debt is worth that much!” “After everything I have done for you and your brother, I am letting you off lightly.” The knot in my chest tightens. These people don’t come after you, they come after your family first. I’d turned to Sma to put us into hiding and steal me across space safely. You wave the right card to the right people and they can’t get you through fast enough. I always knew he’d come calling in my debt, but not here, not now. “Perhaps I can give your friends a call.” Those grey eyes flicker like water slipping through sand. He leans so close I can see his hacksaw teeth. “Maybe I can tell them where to find your brother.” I haven’t seen my brother in years, not since he turned to a life of poverty as a dervish man. It happened after Father had been killed in an anti-Muslim pogrom, leaving both of us orphans. I think my brother couldn’t handle the responsibility. But it doesn’t matter where he is; I know Sma will kill him. He’ll do it. I know he will. A single call and we’re smeared out of existence. My throat’s filled with concrete, nerves electric. I can only play along. I take a sip of my insanely overpriced coffee, far too bitter for my liking, and smile. “I suppose I can reconsider.” “It looks like you have nowhere to go.” Sma readjusts his grip on the gun, still pointing toward my groin. “Do we have a deal?” The sticky heat presses down on the shoulders—the sort that only comes from the worst a Turkish summer can offer. Hulking starships slice through the sky, fashioned like the old Phoenician ships. If I look closely, I think I can see the one that dropped me here a few hours ago, shooting off to the Dubai and Cairo spaceports. I wish I was back on that ship. I should be on the ship. But I’m not: because I’m an idiot. My head sways and my legs wobble; after spending so much time in artificial gravity and in space stations; coming down to terra firma makes me want to throw up. I walk through the streets of Istanbul. The city’s a patchwork, skyscrapers and apartments merging with ancient minarets and mosques: the muezzin call almost being drowned out by the whine of djinn-bots. Dolmuses shuttle through mosaic bazaars of spice shops and computer workshops. There’s no border of where the old ends and the new begins. They all bleed and twist into each other, people packed into buildings like seeds in an urban pomegranate. I watch the djinn peeling a starship apart at the shipment yard. I’m guessing that these djinn are medium-tier, careful to avoid collision and only taking equipment they can carry. Like all djinn they’re bound to a single physical bot, so there’s only so much they can do. Human assistance is still required. We made certain of that. Further down the road, a mosque rubs shoulders with a freelancing hub where ifrit hackers purge software daemons from computer systems. Their veins pulse with dark blue nanoImplants that allow their bodies the capacity to hook up to the computer systems, otherwise the acceleration will fry your brain. They strap you into a chair and pump nanoImplants directly into the vein. It’s like a fingerprint on a molecular level. I’m out of my skinsuit now and wearing normal clothes, doing my best to merge with the fabric of the city. Me and my brother Omar used to live on this street as boys. I even spot our old house, fashioned from old Ottoman wood, converted into a café where old men chug away at hookahs, complaining about all the immigrants from Greece and Lebanon. Me and Omar had formed a gang of sorts, trying to nick as many lokums as possible. We even managed to capture a djinn-bot and used it to transport our sweets from place to place. It’s incredible we lasted as long as we did—all of five days—before we were caught and taken to our parents. Omar fell on his own sword—claiming that it was his...
