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asianamlitfansWritten by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Lina Jiang
I missed this wonderful collection when it originally debuted three years ago, but now I’m here to rectify that oversight in my review of Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories (Small Beer Press, 2018). The publisher’s page gives us this marketing description: “Abbey Mei Otis’s short stories are contemporary fiction at its strongest: taking apart the supposed equality that is clearly just not there, putting humans under an alien microscope, putting humans under government control, putting kids from the moon into a small beach town and then the putting the rest of the town under the microscope as they react in ways we hope they would, and then, of course, in ways we’d hope they don’t. Otis has long been fascinated in using strange situations to explore dynamics of power, oppression, and grief, and the twelve stories collected here are at once a striking indictment of the present and a powerful warning about the future.”
I absolutely love that the description engages the issue of power and oppression because these themes are at the heart of practically every story. I’ll focus on a couple of my favorites, though all were well worthy of their own mini-reviews. Most of the stories are told in the first person, and Otis absolutely shines using this narrative perspective. The quirky nature of the stories is made evident in the first offering, “Alien Virus Love Disaster,” in which the protagonist of a part of a community exposed to some sort of alien infection that has caused bumps to develop on parts of their bodies. This story strikes as a way of thinking about the problematics of labor in dangerous locations and brings to mind the perils faced by the working poor, as they take jobs that might put their health at risk. My absolute favorite was “Moonkids,” which focuses on a group of dispossessed and exiled young adults, who have been expunged from the lunar colony because they are unable to pass an exam. Much like “Alien Virus Love Disaster,” the central characters in this story are on the fringes: these so-called “moonkids” aren’t like their Earth-raised counterparts, having had their bodies change due to a lower gravity environment. At the same time, they have the knowledge to understand the way of life they have lost: the highly exclusive life they might have lived on the moon had they been able to stay. These characters wrestle with their melancholia, as they struggle to make lives on Earth. In “blood, blood,” humans must wrestle with alien life forms which have discovered a way to leave their bodies and live their lives via their consciousness. The story comes at a point where humans are beginning to find out that they too can split from their bodies, so the narrative considers the ethical dilemma of what it means to be human if you don’t have a physical body. The weirdest story in the collection, if I could pick one, is definitely “If you lived here, you’d be evicted by now,” which unveils a fictional world in which people must kill someone in their own home in order to retain their residency! If any of these descriptions peak your interest, then you should pick this collection up. Otis’s work always retains a dark humor and unique narrative sensibility; there are consistently shocking turns, and these stories often end in unexpected ways. Definitely a standout collection, one well worth revisiting for future reads.
Buy the Book Here
Edited by Lina Jiang
I missed this wonderful collection when it originally debuted three years ago, but now I’m here to rectify that oversight in my review of Abbey Mei Otis’s Alien Virus Love Disaster: Stories (Small Beer Press, 2018). The publisher’s page gives us this marketing description: “Abbey Mei Otis’s short stories are contemporary fiction at its strongest: taking apart the supposed equality that is clearly just not there, putting humans under an alien microscope, putting humans under government control, putting kids from the moon into a small beach town and then the putting the rest of the town under the microscope as they react in ways we hope they would, and then, of course, in ways we’d hope they don’t. Otis has long been fascinated in using strange situations to explore dynamics of power, oppression, and grief, and the twelve stories collected here are at once a striking indictment of the present and a powerful warning about the future.”
I absolutely love that the description engages the issue of power and oppression because these themes are at the heart of practically every story. I’ll focus on a couple of my favorites, though all were well worthy of their own mini-reviews. Most of the stories are told in the first person, and Otis absolutely shines using this narrative perspective. The quirky nature of the stories is made evident in the first offering, “Alien Virus Love Disaster,” in which the protagonist of a part of a community exposed to some sort of alien infection that has caused bumps to develop on parts of their bodies. This story strikes as a way of thinking about the problematics of labor in dangerous locations and brings to mind the perils faced by the working poor, as they take jobs that might put their health at risk. My absolute favorite was “Moonkids,” which focuses on a group of dispossessed and exiled young adults, who have been expunged from the lunar colony because they are unable to pass an exam. Much like “Alien Virus Love Disaster,” the central characters in this story are on the fringes: these so-called “moonkids” aren’t like their Earth-raised counterparts, having had their bodies change due to a lower gravity environment. At the same time, they have the knowledge to understand the way of life they have lost: the highly exclusive life they might have lived on the moon had they been able to stay. These characters wrestle with their melancholia, as they struggle to make lives on Earth. In “blood, blood,” humans must wrestle with alien life forms which have discovered a way to leave their bodies and live their lives via their consciousness. The story comes at a point where humans are beginning to find out that they too can split from their bodies, so the narrative considers the ethical dilemma of what it means to be human if you don’t have a physical body. The weirdest story in the collection, if I could pick one, is definitely “If you lived here, you’d be evicted by now,” which unveils a fictional world in which people must kill someone in their own home in order to retain their residency! If any of these descriptions peak your interest, then you should pick this collection up. Otis’s work always retains a dark humor and unique narrative sensibility; there are consistently shocking turns, and these stories often end in unexpected ways. Definitely a standout collection, one well worth revisiting for future reads.
Buy the Book Here
