This is a short-story sci-fi collection that covers a range of subjects. Going in I was a little hesitant. The foreword was a little too smug and name-droppy for my taste, and the first story, about a world in which fetuses run the world and life begins at conception and ends at birth, made me a bit apprehensive that the whole book might substitute interesting ideas for controversy-stirring political fables. Happily, this was not the case.
I liked some of the stories over others. "Her Husband's Hands," about a woman whose soldier husband returns home as a pair of hands attached to a back-up memory, had a great deal of emotional resonance, and Castro did a wonderful job of portraying the woman's struggle to adjust to her husband's new life.
"Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs" is quite possible the best story in the collection, about a paradise in which all residents truly love and value life—but at a great cost.
"Cherub," however, is my personal favorite of the lot. In this story, everyone is born with a demon clinging to them, revealing their bad traits for all to see. Rapists, murders, the lazy, all are marked from birth. And then a child is born with not a demon clinging to him, but a cherub. Although a short story, the world-building was well done and convincing, and I was genuinely surprised by every turn the story took. I was still thinking about the ending for days afterward. B
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