It’s quite difficult to write about the “Rescuers” collection since this is not just a book but a project to help Ukraine, which is suffering from war. Nevertheless, I’ll still try.
After the war with Ukraine began, many Ukrainians were forced to leave their homes, many suffered, and many, unfortunately, died. Like other cities, for more than six months now, one of the most Russian-speaking cities of Ukraine, Kharkiv, has been subjected to daily bombings. And for me, Kharkiv has always been the capital of Ukrainian science fiction, because it was there that one of the most famous and most prestigious science fiction festivals — “Star Bridge” — was held for many years, organized by Kharkiv residents whom I deeply respect — writers Dmitry Gromov and Oleg Ladyzhensky, better known to readers under the pseudonym Henry Lion Oldie.
It was Oldie who decided to publish the book “Rescuers,” a collection of Ukrainian science fiction of 2022. The title “Rescuers” has a double meaning. First of all, almost all works in the collection are somehow connected with those who help, who save. Secondly, the purpose of this collection is to help Ukraine fight; all money from the sale of this book “will go to help Ukrainians affected by the hostilities in the war unleashed by Russia.” This is the clear position of the authors.
But besides this noble purpose, I still wanted to get acquainted with what modern Ukrainian science fiction represents today, even if in short form. I’ve known and loved Oldie for a long time, but I don’t always have time to follow new and less well-known authors.
I read the book quite quickly, but I couldn’t express my feelings about it. Because they turned out to be mixed. As a book, this collection personally seemed very average to me. And for different reasons.
Let’s start with the fact that despite the title “Science Fiction 2022,” some of the stories in the collection are far from new, and I’ve even read some of them before. The book includes 22 stories, of which only 13 were published for the first time in 2022. The rest had been printed earlier, with one dating back to 1983 (!!!), almost 40 years ago. Not exactly a new release.
Additionally, many of the stories are like sketches, rough drafts. Some are very sensual, written in good language, but… they would be more suitable for teenagers with unrequited love. I wrote such things myself twenty years ago. And all these sketches left little aftertaste for me. Because apart from the language, their ideas didn’t captivate me at all, they turned out to be uninteresting. You don’t want to think about them or empathize with them. Maybe I’m such a callous, dry person, but still…
Another oddity for me was that although the collection is supposedly Ukrainian, in some stories almost all characters have rather Polish names – Zbyszek, Waclaw, Michal, Danuta… It’s understandable that after the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth much has been mixed in our lands, but still unexpected.
At the same time, it was interesting that several stories in the collection are presented in the Ukrainian language. And it was even tempting for me to check how well I can still calmly read in Ukrainian (usually for Belarusians who know Russian and Belarusian, this is not a problem, and I watched films in Ukrainian at the cinema as if it were my native language). And yes – I experienced almost no discomfort reading stories in the language native to Ukrainians.
Perhaps from the entire collection, there is only one story that really touched my soul, after reading which I said “wow!” and went to retell the essence to my wife. This is “Kant’s Elegy” by K.A. Terina (I’m sure that “K.A. Terina” is a pseudonym). This is just a magnificent steam-punk with a very interesting and carefully conveyed idea. By the way, K.A. Terina also drew the cover for the collection.
I would also highlight the story “Only Together” by Ernest Marinin. For me, this is an example where the author chose exactly as many words as needed to convey his idea. Literally a couple of pages, but it makes you think. But this is the very story that is almost 40 years old.
In general, it’s very difficult to evaluate the collection. If I think about it as a regular book, I would hardly recommend it. However, on its pages, you can feel the pain of people who unexpectedly found themselves in the hell of a war that no one could even imagine (some stories are directly saturated with these feelings).
I know that the money spent on the book went to a good cause. And reading the book itself still gave me a look at contemporary authors. I marked some of them for myself (although some of them have been my friends on social networks for a long time).
My rating: 3/5 (but the rating is not the main thing here)
