The Infinite Library and Other Stories

As the title indicates, the legacy of Jorge Luis Borges lies heavy in Ocampo’s thoughtful but uneven debut collection. Indeed, in “Big Enough for the Entire Universe,” characters dubbed George Borges and Ghabby Marquez unwittingly share the same lustful girlfriend. Meanwhile, “Mene, Thecel, Phares” demands an appreciation of Lovecraftian references; proficiency in German, Latin, Tagalog, and Spanish; and a willingness to parse Spinoza quotations. By the collection’s midpoint a kind of shared universe takes shape—from the brief grace note of repetition of “murders of crows” in “A Secret Map of Shanghai” and “Big Enough for the Entire Universe,” to the multistory development of the telepathic symbiont Cafuné, first mentioned in “Blessed Are the Hungry.” Ocampo’s nuanced treatments of race, religion, colonialism, and aspects of the Filipino experience, especially as projected into the future, are marred only by the shallow, hypersexualized stereotyping of women in too many stories. It’s telling that Isabella, the intelligent, curious protagonist of “Here Be Dragons,” is one of few women granted agency—but exists only at ages 11 and 111, with nothing in between. Still, readers looking for lyrical, literary speculative fiction will find many of these stories worthwhile. (Oct.)