If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light

Short Fiction anthologies generally don’t get much mainstream traction. Most genre fiction readers, myself included, tend to not pick them up. I never read them until I started participating in r/Fantasy’s bingo challenge and discovered that they can be really incredible. If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light had been getting mentions in both genre fiction and short form circles. It’s a translated work from Korean, and I’m trying to read more work not published in English, admittedly in a very unfocused way. This collection won’t rank in my favorites, but I think people who are more ardent science fiction fans will enjoy it, while people who primarily see themselves as fantasy people – like me – may resonate less with it. 

Review by Story

Symbiosis Theory: an artist captivates audiences with her paintings of unnatural landscapes. Later it is discovered these were of an actual planet that humanity had not yet discovered. This plotline mixes with some neural tracing techniques that allow humanity to communicate with pets, dogs, etc. I thought a lot of the ideas here were interesting, but it didn’t have much emotional intimacy, and it largely lacked conventional plot structures. This isn’t bad, but I never quite felt connected to the ‘so what’ of the story. Very imaginative though.

Spectrum: an astronaut returns from a 40 year journey with stories of an alien planet she discovered, but will provide no proof for. The species communicates highly visually and had some interesting xenobiology elements. I didn’t see how the framing narrative benefitted the story, as Cho-yeop didn’t do much with the ‘modern’ storyline to provide a foil for the actual story, or to enhance the themes. There was an entire aside about how humanity had discovered a separate alien species which was more warlike, but that chunk of story didn’t really intersect with the main story at all. I like where the framing narrative went at the end (wanting to protect this species from humanity’s violence), but wish the whole story had been worked more cohesively around that idea. 

If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light: at an abandoned space station, an elderly woman who worked in cryogenics tells her life story. The focus is on how the rapid development of technology, and abandonment of old technology, can cause isolation and abandonment. A whole planet is stranded because it’s too far from wormholes, and older FTL tech is too expensive in the modern age. As with the others so far, I felt like the emotional impact of this story was hampered by the writing and characterization.

The Materiality of Emotions: this is the first one that really worked for me. A company has developed items that prompt intense emotional reactions, and it turns out the best sellers are the negative ones. Why would people want to own hate and depression? What is the allure of physicality and concrete ownership? When are emotions in control of you vs the other way around? Thematically, this was a very disparate story, flitting from idea to idea while focused on a single item in the story’s world. I left this one with plenty to think about, and thought it was the type of short story I’m happy to read. 

Archival Loss: in a world where humans can have their consciousness uploaded after their death, a daughter discovers that her mother’s mind has gone ‘missing’. She wasn’t particularly close with her mother, but the lack of ability to connect with her after death consumes her. This one did succeed at pushing at the emotions of characters, but with how much Cho-yeop has focused on technical details so far, the plot holes here annoyed me. The core problem is that her mind was in the library, but all index tags had been deleted. Yet I struggled with the idea that there wasn’t simply a search function for any minds that had … no search tags at all. It was tough to let go of my disbelief and enjoy the story. 

Pilgrims: this is a story that gets (eventually) into gene editing and its potential ramifications, especially for those who do not or cannot participate in it once it becomes the norm. I enjoyed this one quite a bit, but I enjoy the topic. I think I’m probably going to integrate gene editing/fetus selection into my high school Ethics class, as they (unsurprisingly) did not end up getting very invested in surrogacy as a topic. I don’t think this was the most revolutionary story in the world, but it was well written and constructed.

Conclusion: Not my favorite anthology in the world, but potentially worth a look if you’re interested in translated science fiction, or works that hew closer to earlier works in the genre.