A Tower for the Coming World
And Other Stories
ISBN 9798366015554
ASIN B0C7WHNJLB
I have waited for a collection like this to come from Clark for several years. I have obtained copies of most of the volumes she contributed to, but to have all the works in one place, is truly a blessing. This collection contains pieces that have all been published in more traditional magazines and collections. Which is a pity for a few stories I am aware of, I consider missing from this collection, particularly Fat of the Land. It was amazing to finally read these stories as a collection.
The description of this volume is:
“Who said restorative justice would be easy?
In these 18 speculative stories, novelettes, and novellas, M L Clark explores near and far-flung futures where the struggle to do better is messy, incomplete, and no less urgent than our own today.
Some of these pieces were first published in Analog, Clarkesworld, and F&SF, among other SF magazines. All have been refined, and are paired with reflections on the author's growth over more than a decade of publication, along with questions about how speculative fiction can help us to imagine better worlds.”
The sections and the stories in the volume are:
Introduction
Family
Saying The Names
A Plague Of Zhe
Hydroponics 101
Seven Ways Of Looking At The Sun-Worshippers Of Yul-Katan
Belly Up
Society
We Who Are About To Watch You Die Salute You
The Stars, Their Faces Uplifted In Song
Mercy And The Mollusc
Love Unflinching, At Low- To Zero-G
Partnership
To Catch All Sorts Of Flying Things
Leave-Taking
Nine Words For Loneliness In The Language Of The Uma’u
Lost And Found
Community
And You Will Know Us By Our Monsters
Seeding The Mountain
The Pool Noodle Alien Posse
Aspiration
A Tower For The Coming World
Proximity Games
Prior to each story is a piece by Clark on the context of that story. These pieces are well worth reading and I encourage you not to skip over them. I greatly enjoyed reading these stories. I had only read about half of them prior to reading this collection. Some were still very familiar and others less so. Seeding The Mountain brought to mind Frank Herbert’s The Green Brain. A few of the stories brought to mind Alfred Bester’s works. There is not a story in the collection I did not appreciate. I plan to go back and reread the stories but this time in chronological order, to read them and see the progress in Clark’s writing. That order is:
Saying The Names
Lightspeed Magazine, March 2011
A Plague Of Zhe
Lightspeed Magazine, June 2012
Hydroponics 101
Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine, June 2013
We Who Are About To Watch You Die Salute You
Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine, March 2014
The Stars, Their Faces Uplifted In Song
GigaNotoSaurus, November 2015
Seven Ways Of Looking At The Sun-Worshippers Of Yul-Katan
Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine, February 2016
A Tower For The Coming World
Clarkesworld Magazine, December 2016
Belly Up
Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine, July/August 2017
To Catch All Sorts Of Flying Things
Clarkesworld Magazine, September 2019
And You Will Know Us By Our Monsters
The Future Fire, 2019
Leave-Taking
Clarkesworld Magazine, March 2020
Nine Words For Loneliness In The Language Of The Uma’u
Clarkesworld Magazine, June 2020
Seeding The Mountain
Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine, September 2020
Mercy And The Mollusc
Clarkesworld Magazine, February 2021
Love Unflinching, At Low- To Zero-G
Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2021
Lost And Found
Clarkesworld Magazine, October 2022
Proximity Games
Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine, Jan/Feb 2023
The Pool Noodle Alien Posse
The Future Fire, April 2023
In the introduction Clark states:
“My stories also routinely involve a mystery of some sort: a puzzle that the protagonist must work out, even if the solution gives rise to a whole new set of much more difficult problems. (Open-ended closers, inviting the meatier work of social change beyond the page, are common.)
And these tales consistently reflect my own struggle, too: to find a way through personal setback and insufficient agency, towards a vocabulary that at the very least speaks to what keeps so many of us from dreaming better worlds.”
Those elements of mystery and of struggle are clear through these stories. And sometimes the mystery is the character understanding themselves. Further in the introduction, in fact, the concluding words of it, she states:
“They’re the ones that highlight how much we need each other—to keep from losing ourselves, our time, and our ever-fleeting agency to self-recrimination, shame, and fear.
On and off the page, the path to a healed world is never easy. We will mess up. We will always make mistakes.
And if we’re lucky, we will also grow: into a better understanding of our worlds—and also, of ourselves.
That’s where the real activism begins.”
These are stories of grappling with who we are, and finding our place. They are stories with mystery, and strife, and yet a continued will to push on. They are stories that will entertain, and also challenge the reader. And as the end words of the title story states:
“And from those roots the rest of us move up, somehow, and on.”
And so these stories and the stories or context behind them will inspire us to do so. So ML Clark, we who have read your stories salute you, and look forward to future offerings from your pen in both short and long form fiction.
p.s. I preferred the original concept cover art seen below.
Books by M.L. Clark:
Children
The Bitter Sweet Here and After - Short Story
Uncle Remy's Whizz-Bang Circus
Game of Primes
Fat of the Land
The Shape of Things to Come
The Stars, Their Faces Uplifted in Song
Then Raise the Dead Man High
The Shadow & The Shadow
…
The Stars, At Last CountWildly Runs The Dying Sun
K-City Kink Sisters:
Lacing Up To Reality - Short Story
One For The Team - Short Story
Contributed to:
Bastion Issue #6 September 2014
Lightspeed: Year One
Lightspeed Magazine, March 2011
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2017
…
Analog:
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2013
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2014
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2015
…
Clarksworld:
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 199
The Menagerie Mysteries:
…
K-City Kink Sisters:
Lacing Up To Reality - Short Story
One For The Team - Short Story
Contributed to:
Bastion Issue #6 September 2014
Lightspeed: Year One
Lightspeed Magazine, March 2011
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2017
…
Analog:
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2013
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, March 2014
Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2015
…
Clarksworld:
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 199
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 193
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 181
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 173
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 165
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 162
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 156
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 123
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 92
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 86
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 80
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 74
…
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 92
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 86
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 80
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 74
…
Works translated by M.L. Clark:
The Marquise of Yolombo - Tomás Carrasquilla
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