The Trans Space Octopus Congregation

by Bogi TakÃÂÂcs, Charlie Jane Anders (Introduction)

Overview

This collection from the Lambda Literary Award-winning author and editor of Transcendent 2 offers plenty of thrills - and bonus tentacles - for readers of LGBTQ-focused speculative literature. The stories range from magical space opera to cheerful body horror and historical fantasy, always with a sense of hope amid adversity. The mystical and magical merge with the scientific and technological: sacred texts gain new interpretations in the light of nuclear physics, and people save a forest with computer science. Cephalopods build alliances and research their past, Jewish shapeshifters speak to extraterrestrial planetminds, and Hungarian horse archers summon ancient terrors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590216934
Publisher:	Lethe Press
Publication date:	10/05/2019
Pages:	328
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.73(d)

About the Author

Bogi Takács is a Hungarian Jewish agender trans person (e/em/eir/emself or singular they pronouns) currently living in the US with eir family and a congregation of books. Bogi writes, reviews and edits speculative fiction, and has been a finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. Eir anthology, Transcendent 2, won a Lambda Literary Award for Best Transgender Fiction.

Table of Contents

"This Shall Serve as a Demarcation"

"Some Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus"

"A Superordinate Set of Principles"

"Forestspirit, Forestspirit"

"Given Sufficient Desperation"

"Changing Body Templates"

"For Your Optimal Hookboarding Experience"

"Increasing Police Visibility"

"Good People in a Small Space"

"Recordings of a More Personal Nature"

"This Secular Technology"

"Three Partitions"

"The Size of a Barleycorn, Encased in Lead"

"Shovelware"

"The Oracle of DARPA"

"Toward the Luminous Towers"

"Wind-Lashed Vehicles of Bone"

"The Need for Overwhelming Sensation"

"Spirit Forms of the Sea"

"All Talk of Common Sense"

"Standing on the Floodbanks"

Editorial Reviews

08/05/2019

In this grim collection of speculative stories, Takács uses magic, technology, and the otherworldliness of space to explore the horrors of humans’ worst impulses. The 22 reprints and one new story showcase people and societies surviving at great cost to themselves in the face of war, apocalypse, and death. While the moral message is impeccably consistent, the stories that convey it do so with varying degrees of success. The grisly sacrificial violence (leading to the question “How much pain can a person take?”) undertaken by two roommates to fend off an attack in “This Secular Technology,” the macabre hopelessness of endlessly identifying and cataloging mundane objects at the behest of alien masters in “Given Sufficient Desperation,” and the eeriness of the parasitic relationship in “To Rebalance the Body” typify Takács’s decision to prioritize strong, shocking emotions above other elements of prose. The dense and often depressing nature of this collection will make it a challenge for everyone except hardcore lovers of dark and weird fiction. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"From uplifted octopuses on far flung planets to intensely topical explorations of authoritarianism and tightening borders here on Earth, this collection reveals a dazzling (and sometimes shattering) breadth of speculative fiction. It treats openly with a universe dominated by distance and space but made beautiful by the diverse people and connections that exist in the fleeting light of stars and in the shadows left behind when war and time ravage and ruin. Challenging and formally daring, the stories act as a prod and provocation for readers to engage more deeply with the world around them, to challenge their perspectives by putting them into minds both alien and achingly familiar, seeking empathy beyond what can be easily recognized or understood." - Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews

From the Publisher