A review by cernuvid
The Gollancz Book of South Asian Science Fiction, Volume 2 by Tarun K. Saint

5.0

A well-curated collection that represents the diversity, power and elegance of voices in sci-fi from across South Asia. This anthology is a gateway to an entire genre retold in important and underrepresented voices.

Best stories:
-And Now His Lordship is Laughing (Shiv Ramdas)
-The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls (Senaa Ahmad)
-The Song of Ice (Soham Guha, transl. Arunava Sinha)
-Goodbye is the Shape of a Palm Pressed to the Sky (Lavanya Lakshminarayan)
-Almost Human (Kehkashan Khalid)
-A Different Sea (Vandana Singh)
-The List (Gautam Bhatia)
-Champollion’s Foot (Haris A. Durrani)
-The Arrival of the New World (Premee Mohamed)


———

The Traveller (Tashan Mehta) -
“wonder shared is wonder multiplied”

The Glow-in-the-Dark Girls (Senaa Ahmad) -
“Those were the old days. Now it is not the days that are old, but ourselves.”

The Ministry of Relevance (Arjun Raj Gaind) -
“the inevitable entropy of dreams”

The Song of Ice (Soham Guha) -
“The world was not ours to inherit - it was a loan from our children, with interest due.”

Champollion’s Foot (Haris A. Durrani) -
“consciousness without conscience is not consciousness at all.”

Shambhala (Salik Shah) -
“The sun and the moon and all the stars are out there. But they don't need us. They are simply there, being, existing.”