Ten Planets - Paperjale.eus

Azal biguna, 112 orrialde

English hizkuntza

2023ko mar. 21a(e)an Graywolf Press(e)n argitaratua.

ISBN:: 978-1-64445-223-3

(berrikuspen 1)

A collection of fanciful, philosophical science fictions by “one of Mexico’s finest novelists” (Vulture).

The characters that populate Yuri Herrera’s surprising new story collection inhabit imagined futures that reveal the strangeness and instability of the present. Drawing on science fiction, noir, and the philosophical parables of Jorge Luis Borges’s Fictions and Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, these very short stories are an inspired extension of this significant writer’s work.

In Ten Planets, objects can be sentient and might rebel against the unhappy human family to which they are attached. A detective of sorts finds clues to buried secrets by studying the noses of his clients, which he insists are covert maps. A meager bacterium in a human intestine gains consciousness when a psychotropic drug is ingested. Monsters and aliens abound, but in the fiction of Yuri Herrera, knowing who is the monster and who the alien is a tricky proposition.

In Ten …

A collection of fanciful, philosophical science fictions by “one of Mexico’s finest novelists” (Vulture).

The characters that populate Yuri Herrera’s surprising new story collection inhabit imagined futures that reveal the strangeness and instability of the present. Drawing on science fiction, noir, and the philosophical parables of Jorge Luis Borges’s Fictions and Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, these very short stories are an inspired extension of this significant writer’s work.

In Ten Planets, objects can be sentient and might rebel against the unhappy human family to which they are attached. A detective of sorts finds clues to buried secrets by studying the noses of his clients, which he insists are covert maps. A meager bacterium in a human intestine gains consciousness when a psychotropic drug is ingested. Monsters and aliens abound, but in the fiction of Yuri Herrera, knowing who is the monster and who the alien is a tricky proposition.

In Ten Planets, Herrera’s consistent themes—the mutability of borders, the wounds and legacy of colonial violence, and a deep love of storytelling in all its forms—are explored with evident brilliance and delight.

3 edizio

Runciter (e)k Yuri Herrera(r)en Ten Planets liburuaren kritika egin du

Mini Puzzles, Intriguingly Told

3 izar

Unfamiliar with Mr. Herrera's previous output or literary / academic pedigree, I picked up this collection of short (1-2 pages, most of them) on the strength of its bold design, cover blurbs, and (honestly) brevity: who says science fiction collections have to be five-pound bricks?

The stories themselves are slightly oblique and off-kilter: vaguely-anatomied aliens pitch story treatments to one another, economically-opposed Terran settlers vie for linguistic dominance on their adopted planet, a literal "smart house" herds its human occupants from one room to another and in- and out-of-doors. It's all very quirky and Borgesian and gratifying. The humor lands, and by the time the stories have outlived their welcome - they're over. How frequently are we granted that gift?

The book loses a potential fourth star for its self-important afterword by translator Lisa Dillman who admits to her previous prejudice against science fiction as the province of the "maladapted …

Unfamiliar with Mr. Herrera's previous output or literary / academic pedigree, I picked up this collection of short (1-2 pages, most of them) on the strength of its bold design, cover blurbs, and (honestly) brevity: who says science fiction collections have to be five-pound bricks?

The stories themselves are slightly oblique and off-kilter: vaguely-anatomied aliens pitch story treatments to one another, economically-opposed Terran settlers vie for linguistic dominance on their adopted planet, a literal "smart house" herds its human occupants from one room to another and in- and out-of-doors. It's all very quirky and Borgesian and gratifying. The humor lands, and by the time the stories have outlived their welcome - they're over. How frequently are we granted that gift?

The book loses a potential fourth star for its self-important afterword by translator Lisa Dillman who admits to her previous prejudice against science fiction as the province of the "maladapted Dungeons & Dragons crowd." Skip her superfluous coattail-riding and move on to the next entry in your to-be-read pile.