Take a Seat at the Cosmic Campfire: A Collection of Science Fiction Stories by Dhara Parekh
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I had the pleasure of meeting the author of this book at my local Renaissance Faire last month, and her passion for writing was clear when talking to her. That same passion was present in every page of Take a Seat at the Cosmic Campfire; it's just a shame that I didn't connect with the book more.
I'll start with what I really liked about the book. As a science fiction enthusiast, I enjoyed the grab-bag of subgenres contained in the short stories of this book, spanning from time travel to generation ships to steampunk adventures. I also really loved the injections of Gujarati culture into many of the stories - they added a personal flair and representation that was a treat to read. I also think that the author really excels at writing about discussions of philosophy and ethical/moral dilemmas. The moments when characters slowed down to just speak about the problems in front of them were my favorite parts of these short stories.
What held me back from really connecting with this book is that it is decidedly soft science fiction, to a degree that it was almost distracting to me. I will concede that I do tend to gravitate more towards hard science fiction, so this very well could be a me problem. While the author did excel in those aforementioned discussions of philosophy, it seemed like the sci-fi aspects of each story almost took a backdrop to act more as a vector to facilitate those conversations. Which on one hand is a perfectly valid way to move a story along, but I could help but get caught on wanting more explorations about *how* these sci-fi aspects actually worked.
To use an example from the book, one story (one of my favorites in the collection) followed three generation ships hauling colonies of humans in cryosleep, discussing whether or not they should restore their humans' memories upon delivering them to their destination. A very interesting premise, but one that I think was held back by a lack of scale. These ships were hauling entire colonies of people presumably meant to continue the human race, and yet the ships were described as only being two stories tall, and small enough to fly around the planet at ease. I think that the story could have benefitted from scaling itself up - instead of having the ships be these small things presumably only hauling a few hundred humans, size them up until they're these city-sized structures orbiting the planet hauling hundreds of thousands of humans. At least from my hard sci-fi bias, I feel like putting just a little more focus on the technical aspects of the science fiction in these stories would really add to the settings and keep them from distracting from the real meat of the stories, which are their philosophical discussions.
So to round it all out, I think this author really does have a talent for writing about philosophy, and her ability to bring a unique cultural perspective to her work makes them a treat to digest. But I think that this book would have really benefitted from a little more development on the hard science in the background, just to flesh out each setting a little better. While the interpersonal moments and discussions were a treat to read, I often found myself distracted from them when I was trying to wrap my head around the very soft sci-fi happening around them.
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