In this collection of science fiction stories, a diverse array of Canadian authors including Spider Robinson, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Robert Sawyer, Terri Favro, and Jeremy Hull explore worlds of the future, where humans look and act differently – or perhaps they just look different and act the same as humans always have. They interact with alien beings, and they must learn to live with the other creatures that inhabit Earth. Sometimes funny, often poignant, frequently ingenious, and always thought-provoking, these works spark questions and challenge our ideas about how the future might look – and how creatures of every kind and species will live in it.
In the opening story, “Star Light, Star Bright,” by Robert Sawyer, a translator of ancient documents discovers children can see things in the sky that are not visible to him. What does this mean for their society, rebuilding after a long-ago war reduced humans to a primitive state? In “Hammerhead,” John Park’s protagonist, “tangled in the other branches” of his lives, must replay a horrific scenario in his head over and over to get at the uncomfortable truth, to find “the different here” that will help him in his “journeying.”
Julie Czerneda offers one possibility of what may happen when a grieving couple?s application to adopt a pet takes a surprising turn in “Foster Earth.” Spider Robinson?s parentless character has to choose between being threatened or thrilled when the colony he joins “jumps off the edge of the Solar System” in “Who is Joel Johnston?” And in the final story of the collection, a Nova Scotian rebel of the future hopes that humankind?s survival depends on a past event that almost no one noticed.
Evocative and engaging, these stories, told with vibrant engagement with “otherness” of one kind or another, offer readers the opportunity to be both entertained and enlightened.
State of the Ark is the long-awaited follow-up anthology to the 1992 landmark Canadian science fiction collection Ark of Ice.