Convergence Problems by Wole Talabi (book review).
‘Convergence Problems’ by Wole Talabi is an anthology of sixteen mainly science fiction tales, ranging in length from short stories to novellas. Most have already been published in magazines and anthologies. The new tales are the novella ‘Ganger’, the novelette ‘Embers’, and the short story ‘Nigerian Dreams’. Those who are interested in writing science fiction will find his notes about how his stories came about interesting.
The content tends to draw on the life and traditions of his native Nigeria and on his experience and anticipation of computer, modelling, and simulation developments. Amongst all this are some close observations of what our lives can be like, which make these stories feel very people-centric.
Wole Talabi is an author who likes to experiment with his writing. For instance, one story is written out as a patent application, with comments being made on the already filled-out sections. Another story is a blog post with comments at the end. A third story has appropriate math equations as headers for its sections. The reader does not need to understand them to enjoy the story, but knowing what they stand for adds a depth of meaning to the piece.
I say mainly science fiction because there is one very short and touching story, ‘Silence’, that is not, to my mind, science fiction but solely an observation of how love can play out between two people.
It is perhaps unfortunate that the story I had the most difficulty with was the first one in this anthology, ‘Debuti’. It centres around the idea that computer software can come up with original art. An adversarial neural network does come up with such a work in computer-oriented terms. What I could not accept was that this hinged on one line of code that the programmers believed would never be invoked. In addition to the programmer’s lack of professionalism, such coding would not evade quality control checks prior to its release for widespread use, particularly in the context of auto-control machines.
But once past this, the stories have ideas that are intriguing and ask interesting what-if questions. Like any reader, some stories will be of more interest than others for personal reasons. Of the previously published stories, I found the near-future story ‘Blowout’, the most satisfying. It is about how a sister in orbit around Mars tries desperately to rescue her brother on Mars after a mining blowout. Both carry a lot of emotional baggage from their mutual past, which makes the story a tense will-she-won’t-she situation. It does have a happy ending.
This differs from all the newly published stories, which suggests that Wole Talabi’s writing may currently be taking a turn towards the dark side. ‘Ganger’, an abbreviation for doppelganger, is a two-stream story. The first tells the ancient tale of a hunter who finds a way of becoming youthful again during the day so that he can continue to have the thrill of hunting. That is, until one day he returns home to find he can no longer become human again. The second thread tells of Laide Haraya, who finds her life intolerably plain and boring. She wants to escape the city built to protect its people from the effects of global warming, where all she needs to do is ‘…exist and obey. Eat, shit, sleep, and entertain’. Like the hunter, he does find a way, but it eventually comes at a price. This well-written novella’s basic story line is nothing really new, but’ the ideas that surround it are, which makes it an exciting read.
‘Embers’ is set in the near future. There has been the miracle invention of Kawashida fuel cells, which are biological, though nobody outside of the firm who invented and made them knew how they worked. It replaced the traditional energy generation sources. This story is about the impact on people who have been made redundant from the old industries. As such, it acts as a political commentary on our current society and the price of rapid industrial change. Food for thought.
‘Nigerian Dreams’ is theme-wise a cross between ‘Ganger’ and ‘Embers’. It tells of how two men in the not-so-far Nigerian future have their own dreams and pursue them. The sad thing is that they are dreams driven by practicality and necessity rather than aspiration for improving society.
With these well-written and poignant stories being so wide-ranging in themes, ideas, and world-building, there is something in this anthology to hook almost every science fiction aficionado. But like every wide-ranging palette, there are some stories that will not hit the mark with the reader. Fortunately, these are very few.
Rosie Oliver
March 2024
(pub: DAW Books/Astra Publishing House, 2024. 311 page hardback. Price: $27.00 (US), £20.00 (UK). ISBN: 978-0-7564-1883-0)
check out website: https://astrapublishinghouse.com/product/convergence-problems-9780756418830/