Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions

This dazzling speculative collection comprising 10 authors and edited by Capetta (The Heartbreak Bakery), who also contributes, and Roush (Extraterrestrials), explores emerging innovative technology to imagine expansive futures. A nonbinary teen saves up money to literally change their voice via the booming body modification industry in Charlotte Nicole Davis’s “Cadence,” but must contend with unforeseen emotional backlash when they choose a voice that once belonged to an acquaintance’s dead loved one. “On the Tip of My Tongue” by William Alexander follows an unnamed mechanic as they attempt to adapt their tía’s visual aid to better navigate a cobbled-together space settlement. A group of women fight to combat generational mind control in A.S. King’s “Smile River,” and in Nasugraq Rainey Hopson’s “The Weight of a Name,” a young woman living in a future Inuit community learns that her mother’s legacy may be the bargaining chip to newfound opportunity on another planet. Podcast scripts, pen pal letters, and a b&w comic, illustrated via gentle line, are a few of the vehicles used to render these moving tales. The creators seamlessly tackle relevant issues such as colonization, misogyny, transphobia, and white entitlement in this eclectic celebration of infinite possibility and the ever-present human spirit. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)