The Butterfly Disjunct: And Other Stories by Stewart C. Baker

(Interstellar Flight Press, 2024)

Reviewed by Susan Maxwell

In their statement at the back of The Butterfly Disjunct, Interstellar Flight Press align themselves with Ursula Le Guin’s assertion of the need for writers who can “even imagine real grounds for hope.” This collection of short stories may not offer “real grounds” but there is a definite cheerfulness to the tales, despite their grim settings; the undefeated, even kindly, side of dystopia. The stories are loosely linked by the re-use of place or character. While no overall mosaic-pattern or world-view emerges, there is an appeal in the effect of a light being shone through random windows to illuminate brightly but briefly the lives within.

‘Selections from the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index…’ has a strong Borges or Eco vibe, detailing different types of folktales, and including tales of which “regrettably, all extant copies of the index are missing this section.” Baker’s stories themselves could be similarly categorised: the manipulated character who, almost too late, recognises the manipulation, or the character who survives messing with time. Some are mimetic tales driven by characters negotiating love, grief, or resilience, set in admirably realised settngs. Others are metafictional stories where the language or form of the story (instruction manual, annotated reading-list) dominates, and the human tale is not so much told as allowed to slip out. Yet others riff on a scientific concept (‘How to play Reisenball’ plays with the observer effect), and some (like ‘How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator’) don’t so much riff as lose the run of themselves. Most of the characters are middling people without power, but sufficiently embedded in the socio-political environment to have something to lose. This includes the few rebels, like the engaging Maur, on the run after publishing “anatomically improbable” poems about the Empress, can still lose liberty or life.

Some stakes are too low: ‘Six Ways to Get Past the Shadow Shogun…’, for example, seems like a simple series of challenges resolved for the fun of resolving them, with the shogun appearing too late to be able to add any real tension. While the range of settings, challenges, and concepts is impressive, there is too often a sense that they are being touched on rather than explored, or that the narrative or plot devices were tagged on as afterthoughts. A variation on this is the way individuals are portrayed as making their decisions within constricted and constricting sets of circumstances, but not experiencing the consequences that seem to be demanded by the narrative structure as established (though ‘Words I have redefined…’ sticks to its inevitability), but even without a deus ex machina, several stories allow their protagonists to more or less get away with things.

The last two paragraphs might read as a negative review, but it is not; rather it is a response to the collection being nearly, but not quite, excellent. More than one story has a hauntological aspect, in the sense of future and past collapsing into each other, and profoundly affecting the present, and this gives a very interesting texture to the speculative nature of the stories. ‘Ghosts of the Maricourt Crater’, for example, is a ghost story in which the resolution of the mystery does not resolve the mysteriousness of Mars already having ghosts that will haunt its future inhabitants. The range of settings and of characters’ activities is impressive, and the descriptive world-building passages showcase the strong writing (‘The Colours of Europa…’ in particular). It is a collection to dip into and out of, and each foray has a strong chance of being rewarded.

Review from BSFA Review 25 - Download your copy here.