

Jaymee Goh's "The Freedom of the Shifting Sea" brilliantly rewrites the mermaid tale in terms both of white/Asian colonial relations, and of some rather unusual (but actual) facts of biology. Steven Barnes' Come Home to Atropos goes along well with Buckell's story, as it is a sarcastic take on the tourist economy of poorer, post-colonial countries seeking to attract dollars from the affluent white world in this story, even suicide becomes a fancy and "exotic" experience. Minsoo Kang's "The Virtue of Unfaithful Translations" is a witty parable about surviving the stupidity of the powerful, and about the limitations of scholarly and historical reconstruction, in an Asian-based fantasy world. Kathleen Alcala's "Deer Dancer" shows how indigenous ways might give the best hope for survival in a decayed post-climate-catastrophe landscape. This story brings home post-colonial dependency to American readers who might well themselves be on the other side of the equation (as tourists in poorer countries themselves). Tobias Buckell's "Galactic Tourist Industrial Complex" gives a satirical and very funny description of a future in which the entire Earth has become a backwater that subsists entirely on tourism from wealthier and more technologically powerful species from other planets. I cannot write about all the stories individually in this comment, but I will mention the ones I particularly loved.

Much of the most dynamic and powerful speculative fiction at this point in time is being written by people of color, and this book gives an excellent sampling.
