A review by katnortonwriter
The Heartbeat of the Universe: Poems from Asimov's Science Fiction and Analog Science Fiction and Fact 2012–2022 by Emily Hockaday

lighthearted reflective medium-paced

3.75

As a scifi nerd, I enjoyed myself. As a poetry nerd, I was a bit disappointed by the dearth of interesting poetic forms. There’s a lot of free verse — not that there’s anything wrong with free verse, but it’s a bit static in that regard.

Favorite entries are as follows:

Field Notes by Lola Haskins is an absolute banger, assuming one is comfortable referring to a prose-poem that buries political commentary in descriptions of ant colonies ‘a banger.’ I would assert that it is.

Taxi Ride by Ian Goh has some exceptional imagery of a city in the aftermath of a destructive flood.

Messaging the Dead by Betsy Aoki has a very unsettling take on the concept of AI and/or ghosts in the machine.

Wobble by Richard Schiffman does the thing I like in scifi where the science is an (in this case, directly stated) metaphor for some internal emotional parallel. It’s not particularly subtle but it’s well-phrased and bittersweet.

Overall, I found this to be an enjoyable collection. Pretty much what it says on the tin. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me read an advance copy.