Kelly Ann Jacobson (ed.), Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction. Self-published, 2015. Pp. 126. ISBN 978-1-5176-0196-6. $9.99.
Reviewed by Małgorzata Mika
A marriage of science fiction and epistolary fiction appears to be an oxymoron; to merge that which alludes to romantic spirituality with visions of state-of-the-art technology, societies and relationships
in silico may generate a feeling of awkwardness. Yet, there is nothing more misleading! Examples such as Keyes’s
Flowers for Algernon, Herbert’s
Dune and Meyer’s
Twilight series prove that the fantastic allows itself to be imbued with literary influences bequeathed after the era of Romanticism. The chimera of
The Sorrows of Young Werther should not be dreaded though, as each of the novels, remembered for its more or less insightful probing of the characters, has forged a unique bond with the readers. Kelly Ann Jacobson’s book,
Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction, is no exception to this pattern.
I spent this past Halloween carefully reading Cherie Priest’s new novel, The Family Plot, in the daylight hours. Confession: I love ghost stories, but I also have a hyperactive imagination and am kind of a wimp, so I do my best to choose wisely when the season demands spookiness. Priest delivers the perfect kind of spookiness, familiar to everyone who has been in an old house (or any other building, for that matter) and felt sure that its past inhabitants have left something of themselves behind that is extraphysical. The action glides along smoothly, and I only ever put it down when the sunlight faded.
