Asakiyume mita

If the three stories I've read so far are any indication, this issue of Clarkesworld is crackerjack, but the story that's really blown me away is "Embracing the Movement," by Cristina Jurado, translated by Sue Burke (who writes a little about her process here).

It's the story of a powerful, intelligent collective alien species trying, with increasing frustration, to communicate with a lone explorer who, as described and seen by the aliens, reads very human. The communication issues and disjunction between the lone "sister sojourner" and the alien collective reminds me of China Miéville's Embassytown.

Most beings who detect our presence shy away, fearing the reach of our offensive capacity: the destructive power of our attack system is legendary throughout the galaxy. And yet you drew near in your mediocre artifact and initiated an amazing dance.

The aliens invite (detain?) our lone sister sojourner for a visit and attempt to show her their grandeur:

Few have visited our refuge: consider yourself regaled.

We find out plenty about the aliens as they do their regaling. For example. . .

Despite our reputation, I assure you we are sensitive. How else could we have prospered if not by caring for each of our sisters? The union of our swarm is only possible through the concern and attention with which we treat every one of our members

But then too...

We are the sentries of our hives, porters of justice, and exterminators of hideous, pillaging, corrupt, squandering vermin.

Our morality is impeccable, although that may be hard to see except from our viewpoint.

The aliens describe their communication method--patterns and formations:

If anger inundates us, we compose an undulating surface, a flowing liquid force that manifests itself as breaking waves and even as tides. At times sadness possesses us, and our organisms pulsate in a fractal of fluorescent scales.

If you would like to see how this first-contact ends, click on the link at the top of the entry, or, what the hell, here it is again.

So far I've also read two other stories, also worthy of your time:

Yukimi Ogawa, "The Shroud for the Mourners."
In a society stratified by body patterns and colors, as well as andoid/non-android status, a mysterious medical condition has arisen. The solution to this mystery involves honoring personhood and the dead, and finding ways to make society a little more humane.

Jiang Bo (trans. Andy Dudak), "Face Changing," a cat-and-mouse story in which financial police officer Xu Haifeng is always one step behind cybercriminal Huang Huali. You may, like me, be a little exasperated by Xu's unjustified self-confidence and dubious decisions, but the financial cybercrime aspect and the dystopic all-present state was very interesting to me (LOL), and I found the end very satisfying.

I read Semiosis because, like Children of Time, it promised to deal with alien intelligences—and it did: several, in fact. But where it really spoke to the other book, where I sense a zeitgeist thing maybe going on, was in how it raised and dealt with the questions of violence and free will. Lest that makes it sound too much like a philosophy or ethics treatise, let me quickly add that it’s also absorbing, imaginative, occasionally horrific, and occasionally hilarious. It kept me hooked even through moments where I had grave doubts, and I felt the end was well worth it.

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