The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 4

A fascinating anthology of speculative fiction from around the world. Not all the stories may be to your liking, but you will find interesting stories and new authors to discover. For me, I enjoyed the stories by Sabrina Huang, Chinelo Onwualu, Haralambi Markov, Yukimi Ogawa, Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Saad Z. Hossain, Dilman Dila and Isabel Yap in this collection.

• "The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family" by Usman T Malik (Pakistan): a tale of the horrors of living in Pakistan at the mercy of terrorists, mixed in with the tale of a woman who seeks to understand the strange behaviour of her own blood.

• "Setting Up Home" by Sabrina Huang (Taiwan) (Translated by Jeremy Tiang): a short-short story about pieces of furniture appearing at a home of a man. It is only when a message arrives with the final item that the nice twist in the story is revealed.

• "The Gift of Touch" by Chinelo Onwualu (Nigeria): a struggling space cargo crew is asked to ferry a suspicious group of travellers. As the journey continues, and we discover the relationships between the crew, we learn the deadly religious purpose of the group and what the crew must do to stop it; and discover new relationships among themselves.

• "The Language of Knives" by Haralambi Markov (Bulgaria): the story of grief and anger as a husband is prepared to be turned into cakes for the gods by one person whose daughter is angry that the person gave up a warrior's life for the life of a cake-maker. Yet, the process of turning body into cakes may yet provide a path for reconciliation.

• "In Her Head, In Her Eyes" by Yukimi Ogawa (Japan): a strange girl who wears a round pot on her head is apprenticed into a house which makes patterns with dyes. Her apparent past from a legendary island intrigues the household, and she is intrigued, in turn, by the patterns they create. Yet she is often bullied, and it would turn out to be this bullying that would enlighten her desire to create patterns like them; a desire that can drive people to madness when she finally reveals what she is like underneath the pot.

• "The Farm" by Elana Gomel (Israel): a horror tale about a land overrun by aliens known as Eaters who emulate various body parts. One day, a soldier who nurses a strong hatred for Eaters and others 'not like him' sees a farm that looks like it is full of food and free of Eaters. But things are not as they look, and he discovers why the Eaters, who hunt humans, have left him alone; but not for much longer.

• "The Last Hours of the Final Days" by Bernardo Fernández (Mexico) (Translated by the author): it's the end of the world. A boy and a girl cruise through the remains of civilization as they wait for it to end. But when it does, their experience of it does not go as planned.

• "The Boy Who Cast No Shadow" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Netherlands) (Translated by Laura Vroomen): a fascinating tale about two boys, one of whom casts no shadow and cannot be seen in mirrors (no, he's not a vampire) and the other appears to be made of glass. Bullying and standing out in school bring them together, becoming close friends and taking risks together. When they run off for the adventure of their lives, they learn things about themselves and about each other and become closer than friends. Brief sexual scenes may turn off some people, but the ending is wonderful.

• "First, Bite a Finger" by Johann Thorsson (Iceland): a very short and very uncomfortable story about a girl who become addicted to eating parts of her own body.

• "The Eleven Holy Numbers of the Mechanical Soul" by Natalia Theodoridou (Greece): a stranded man on a desert island on an unknown world makes mechanical beasts to keep him company.

• "Djinns Live by the Sea" by Saad Z. Hossain (Bangaldesh): A wealthy tycoon starts seeing a presence who claims to be from an ancient time. Thinking him to be a djinn, the man asks it to fulfil a wish. But as with all such tales, you have to beware of what you wish for: in this case, a wish to know about the mysterious origins of the djinn.

• "How My Father Became a God" by Dilman Dila (Uganda): a nice story about a girl who cares for her father and thinks he is destined for greatest despite his 'inventions' not working. But her brothers disown him and think him mad. One day, they go behind his back and announce the girl's wedding. The father, mother and girl desperately run to escape. And it is during this time that they discover the secret of a haunted place that will cement the father's reputation.

• "Black Tea" by Samuel Marolla (Italy) (Translated by Andrew Tanzi): a horror-tale about four people lured into a house inhabited by a hungry beast who looks like an old woman. Suspense is added by the men losing their memories upon entering the house, and the only hint of the horror within are notes they've written to themselves about the woman just before their memories are gone.

• "Tiger Baby" by JY Yang (Singapore): a girl living a humdrum life in Singapore yearns to be free of her human body and be like the tiger in her dreams. But when the change comes, the reality of living in a tiger-free country is still strong.

• "Jinki and the Paradox" by Sathya Stone (Sri Lanka): a confusing tale of an experiment with probability and destiny on a planet by three colonies, one inhabited by an only child with strange gifts.

• "Colour Me Grey" by Swabir Silayi (Kenya): in a place where light is muted and all things are grey, a boy who strictly follows the rules is invited by its ruler to his residence, when he shows the boy the consequences of letting colour be seen.

• "Like a Coin Entrusted in Faith" by Shimon Adaf (Israel) (Translated by the author): a story that mixes up AI development with a Hebrew tale of a midwife seeing monsters being born. Not knowing enough about the culture, the story did not make much sense.

• "Single Entry" by Celeste Rita Baker (Virgin Islands): a weird tale about an entity who expands and shrinks during entry to a fair; unless I'm complete misreading the story.

• "The Good Matter" by Nene Ormes (Sweden) (Translated by Lisa J Isaksson and Nene Ormes): a man and a women bargain over old garments and artefacts. Then the man discovers the woman has a gift like him; the ability to 'inhale' the presence that the artefacts belong to. This particular artefact interest him for it was worn by a person considered saintly.

• "Pepe" by Tang Fei (Translated by John Chu): two apparently created 'kids' escape into the world, somehow escaping prosecution by not automatically telling stories (which is what they do). But now it may be time for a parting of ways.

• "Six Things We Found During the Autopsy" by Kuzhali Manickavel (India): the title says it all, although how the items ended up in the body and what they mean are a mystery to me.

• "The Symphony of Ice and Dust" by Julie Novakova (Czech Republic): an expedition to a dwarf planet leads to the discovery of an earlier expedition, another discovery and an attempt to revive the expedition that may live on in song.

• "The Lady of the Soler Colony" by Rocío Rincón (Spain) (Translated by James and Marian Womack): a story about workers at a colony working (or worshipping) under a huge statue that appears from out of the sea. But the day arrives when the statue opens to reveal its contents, crushing the colony and affecting the survivors.

• "The Four Generations of Chang E" by Zen Cho (Malaysia): an update retelling of the Chang E legend of travelling and living on the moon and returning from it. Also features the rabbit.

• "Pockets Full of Stones" by Vajra Chandrasekera (Sri Lanka): on a deep-space station, one person remains in touch with her grandfather, who is on a distant ship travelling at relativistic speed. The grandfather suddenly sends a message about making alien contact. But as other messages arrive, strange things start to happen on the station, and it may be up to her to figure out why it is happening and, perhaps, stop a kind of alien invasion from happening.

• "The Corpse" by Sese Yane (Kenya): a rather confusing story centred around the inner thoughts of a doctor who moves an unusual corpse into his garden for unknown reasons.

• "Sarama" by Deepak Unnikrishnan (The Emirates): initially a tale by a grandchild about his grandmother, it takes a strange turn as the unusual grandmother starts telling a tale from the Ramayana about how she came to be there. It just ends without a proper conclusion.

• "A Cup of Salt Tears" by Isabel Yap (Philippines): an interesting tale of a Japanese woman whose husband is dying. While having a bath, she encounters a kappa, a river spirit, who tells her that it was the one who saved her in her childhood from drowning. But can she now overcome her revulsion of the kappa to ask it for help to save her husband and possibly tying herself emotionally to the kappa?