Algorithmic Shapeshifting by Bogi Takács

Algorithmic Shapeshifting by Bogi Takács is a collection of mostly speculative poems. I'm not a big reader of poetry, but I have mostly enjoyed, for example, the poems that appear in Uncanny Magazine. Since I also enjoy Takács's writing, this seemed like a good place to start reading more poetry.

Algorithmic Shapeshifting is the first poetry collection of Bogi Takács, winner of the Lambda award for editing Transcendent 2: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and finalist for the Hugo and Locus awards. Algorithmic Shapeshifting includes poems from the past decade and previously unpublished work. The scope of the pieces extends from the present and past of Jewish life in Hungary and the United States to the far-future, outer-space reaches of the speculative—always with a sense of curiosity and wonder.

There is a variety of poems contained in this collection, from very short to longer works and written in different styles. Some are more narrative and some more abstract. A lot of them tell a story, although a few (fewer than I expected, to be honest) went over my head. Some were very sweet love poems, some were chilling dystopian tales. Most tended towards the science fictional or the fantastical, which definitely appealed to me. Several poems engaged with Jewish themes in various ways. A few were less conventional (I think that's the right description) such as "The Tiny English-Hungarian Phrasebook for Visiting Extraterrestrials" which told a story in a clever way, and "The Oracle of DARPA", which was an amusing poem in the form of an interview between DARPA trying to build a weapon and an oracle giving oblique answers and unexpected side effects.

With short story collections and anthologies I usually include comments on each story unless it's flash fiction. I didn't think that would work for me with poems, so instead I'm just going to discuss/react to some of the poems that stood out for me. I was expecting "A User Guide to the Application of Gem-Flowers" to be horrific rather than wholesome. I was wrong. "Trans Love Is" was very sweet, as were a few other love poems I didn't explicitly mark out. "Periodicity" and "Flee to Far Shores" were both about leaving bad political situations and migration; I found them quite meaningful. I found the sort-of-reveal at the end of "The Third Extension" quite satisfying. "A Hail of Pebbles and Dust" was particularly science fictional, about a tidally locked planet. I liked the way "The Size of a Barleycorn, Encased in Lead" engaged with the idea of time-proof sign-posting (for nuclear waste). "Six Hundred and Thirteen Commandments" told a nice story in several verses spread across time, about completing commandments in different lives.

Finally, I want to mention that I had a review copy of the ebook and there were a few typographical notes in there about how the ebook differs in presentation from the original, intended form. One poem ought to have had two verses printed on opposite sides of a double page spread. Another was originally published in an animated form online and, although there description prefacing it was quite accurate, I didn't fully understand the point until I clicked through to see the original version. It's interesting, given these two examples, that neither the ebook or the paper book can be truely said to be the definitive version of the entire collection. I kind of like the idea of there no being one true version...

If you are a fan of poetry or Takács's writing more generally, then I heartily recommend this collection. I am far from being an expert in speculative poetry, but I enjoyed it a lot and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to others who are also interested in reading more speculative poetry (perhaps in between their speculative fiction).

4.5 / 5 stars

First published: May 2019, Aqueduct Press
Series: Not in the usual sense
Format read: eARC
Source: Review copy courtesy of the author

#ReadShortStories in mixed batches (6 to 10)

The status of my short story reading for this second batch is that I am nearing the end of Meet Me at the Intersection edited by Rebecca Lim and Ambelin Kwaymullina and that I am continuing to mix it up a bit with miscellaneous stories. 

DNA by Melanie Rodriga — A story about a queer teenage girl and her interactions with her family and one of her teachers. I found it to be a slightly unusual story, full of direct questions and teen anger but not as many answers as I might have expected. Source: Meet Me at the Intersection edited by Rebecca Lim and Ambelin Kwaymullina

Almitra Amongst Ghosts by Rafeif Ismail — A kind of depressing story about not fitting in due to race, religion and queerness, all at once. Written in a lovely style. Source: Meet Me at the Intersection edited by Rebecca Lim and Ambelin Kwaymullina

Forestspirit, Forestspirit by Bogi Takács — An excellent story that brought together many different ideas. Thoughtful, gentle and brilliant while dealing with some heavy concepts like alien invasion and super soldiers. Source: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/takacs_06_15/

Cosmic Spring by Ken Liu — Ken Liu could make the heat death of the universe fascinating. Which is exactly what he did in this story. I loved it. Source: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/cosmic-spring/

The Other Son by Omar Sakr — An autobiographical story about a father’s death and meeting a half brother for the first time, told by the middle eastern author.  Source: Meet Me at the Intersection edited by Rebecca Lim and Ambelin Kwaymullina

#ReadShortStories about feminist robots (126-130)

Not a huge amount of variety in this batch of short stories as I continue reading Mother of Invention, the anthology edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts. On the one hand, that does mean that this post is just presenting a chunk of anthology stories. On the other hand, clearly I'm enjoying Mother of Invention enough that I'm not feeling the need to seek out other stories to break up the theme.

This was a solid batch of stories that I enjoyed fairly consistently. That said, my favourite was the last in this batch, "Sexy Robot Heroes" by Sandra McDonald, which was delightful and thoughtful and a consistently interesting read. A bit surprisingly, this is also the only story in this batch by a new-to-me author. Hmm.

Junkyard Kraken by DK Mok — A roboticist builds an ocean-exploration robot after failing to get funding for it. A fun story, especially thanks to the inclusion of other AI robots, such that it can be forgiving for being a bit unrealistic. Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

An Errant Holy Spark by Bogi Takács — A Jewish AI growing up, learning, and trying to talk to aliens. Written in the unique style I’ve come to expect from this author, the inner voice of the AI was very different to conventional (robot/AI) tropes. An interesting story and premise, with baffling aliens. Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Goose Hair of One Thousand Miles by Stephanie Lai — A story written in the form of an annotated translation of a wuxia story. The story itself is particularly bizarre, to my eye, because of the way the robots are included and thanks to the aspects the commentary focuses on. Even so, it engages with ideas of colonialism well. Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

The Art of Broken Things by Joanne Anderton — An eerie story based on a really interesting premise/theme. I liked the idea and the way different aspects of the story meshed together, but at the same time it creeped me out a bit (mostly in a good way). Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

Sexy Robot Heroes by Sandra McDonald — I really liked this story. It featured a trans girl mechanic, a whole barge of girl mechanics, and androids bound to serve them. It was the right mix of sentimental and sensible. Source: Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts

#ReadShortStories about all sorts of creatures (96 to 100)

It is still the first half of the year and I have hit the 100 story mark. Huzzah!

In this batch I've been continuing my reading of the anthology Not So Stories and thrown a few other random stories into the mix. I expect the most memorable story in this batch will end up being "Some Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus" by Bogi Takács, if only for the usual narration (but also because it's a good story).



Saṃsāra by Georgina Kamsika — A story set in the present day about a mixed race teenager reconnecting with her Indian heritage as she and her mother clean out her late grandmother’s home. It feels a bit out of place among the other Not So Stories I’ve read so far, but then so does the protagonist in her life, and maybe that’s the point. Source: Not So Stories edited by David Thomas Moore

Serpent, Crocodile, Tiger by Zedeck Siew — This is more like a few stories that ended up being tied together in a way I didn’t predict from the start. It tells Malay folktales as well as giving a few different modern perspectives on the tales and on the people having perspectives. It gives an interesting cross-section of views and various cultural influences. I enjoyed it although I found the sections that were academic excerpts a little too dry. Source: Not So Stories edited by David Thomas Moore

Some Remarks on the Reproductive Strategy of the Common Octopus by Bogi Takács — This story is told from the point of view of an octopus, living in a future world very different to our present. I kind of don’t want to say more because I think part of the charm of this story is discovering the shape of the world along with the narrator, and I don’t want to spoil that. A very interesting and enjoyable story. Source: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/takacs_04_17/

I Have Been Drowned in Rain by Carrie Vaughn — I was expecting a twist that never came, when I was reading this one. From the talk of fantasy archetypes near the start I was really expecting that one of the characters would turn out to be playing a D&D campaign or something. It was disappointing when it didn’t come and while the plot wasn’t overly bland, I also didn’t find it especially interesting. Source: http://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/i-have-been-drowned-in-rain/

How the Tree of Wishes Gained its Carapace of Plastic by Jeannette Ng — A story telling the history of a wishing tree in Hong Kong and, by necessity, the history of the people and the place. A sweeping story of gods and history told in the style of a bedtime story. I enjoyed it. Source: Not So Stories edited by David Thomas Moore

#ReadShortStories (71 to 75)

This batch is characterised by a bit of random reading and a hankering for some flash after reading some longer things. I am continuing to read my review copy of The Underwater Ballroom Society, so I expect those longer stories (it's a novella anthology) will continue to inspire me to read shorter stories in between.

Notable in this batch, "A Series of Steaks" has become one of my favourite stories that I've read this year (it was published last year though) and I particularly enjoyed "Astrofuturist 419" as well.


A Series Of Steaks by Vina Jie-Min Prasad  — An excellent story about 3D printing forgeries of beef. It was a delightful read that made me giggle and also marvel at the level of details included. If the author wasn’t already on my list of short story writers I like, this story would have put her there. Source: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/prasad_01_17/

Twelve Sisters by Y S Lee — I like subverted fairytales and sequels to fairytales, as this one is. After the events in The Twelve Dancing Princesses (which I haven’t read and that made no difference to my enjoyment of this story), the youngest princess endeavours to save her oldest sister from an abusive relationship and also, as their father lies on his deathbed, to save the country from a malicious king. A great read. Source: The Underwater Ballroom Society edited by Stephanie Burgis and Tiffany Trent

Murdering Miss Deboo by Sean Williams — An story featuring the d-mat (replicator/teleport) technology that has featured in some of Williams’ other stories and novels. An interesting premise for a very short story, but I felt like it could have been a slightly smoother read. I’ve enjoyed some of his other stories more. Source: https://cosmosmagazine.com/the-future/murdering-miss-deboo

Shovelware  by Bogi Takács — Flash. Lucid dreaming games as a quick way of generating art assets is a cool idea. The depressing Hungarian art aspect could have done with a slightly meatier exploration. Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/531268a

Astrofuturist 419 by Nnedi Okorafor  — A “Nigerian scam” that wasn’t a scam: a Nigerian astronaut really was left stranded in space for 14 years and now his family is trying to get him home. Flash. I liked it a lot. Source: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/okorafor_11_16/

#ReadShortStories (46 to 50)

Three stories from the same issue of Uncanny, this batch. After realising how many short stories I was enjoying from Uncanny, I thought I should support them and subscribe. (It's also possible to support them on Patreon, but a yearly ePub subscription isn't very expensive, so I went with that.) They have rather more stories per issue than I realised, so I'm not even halfway through issue 20 (Jan/Feb 2018) yet. Expect more in the near future.

My favourite story from this batch was hands down "Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse" by SB Divya and, in fact, prompted me to finally pick up her novella, Runtime. Keep an eye out for my review of that in a couple of days. Also, if you happen to know whether "Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse" and Runtime are set in the same future, please let me know! I'm not sure whether they are, but I feel like they definitely could be.


Praying to the God of Small Chances by L Chan — A flash piece about wanting a miracle cure for the protagonist’s father’s cancer and an encounter with a god of small chances. The idea was interesting, but there just wasn’t much to the story, even considering that it’s flash. Source: http://arsenika.ink/fiction/praying-to-the-god-of-small-chances/

She Still Loves the Dragon by Elizabeth Bear — A lovely story about a knight errant who set out to meet a dragon and do the one thing she had not done: stand naked in front of the dragon she loved. Written with strong references to songs and ballads, including the ballad this story would become. It was a very nice story but I didn’t love it as much as I felt like I should have (whatever that means). Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/still-loves-dragon/

Contingency Plans for the Apocalypse by SB Divya — This story was right along the lines of what we were after for Defying Doomsday: it featured a protagonist with disabilities and an apocalypse. Also queer relationships. The apocalypse itself was a bit unexpected — I didn’t realise at first that it was set in the (former) US — and centred around what seemed to be a fracturing of the country into police states and safe states. The setting was very extreme (violent and oppressive) and affecting, which contributed to making this an excellent story. Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/contingency-plans-apocalypse/

The Hydraulic Emperor by Arkady Martine — An interesting story about aliens, desire, obsession and sacrifice. I found it an interesting read that got into various characters’ psychology, not just the narrator’s. Source: https://uncannymagazine.com/article/the-hydraulic-emperor/

Four-Point Affective Calibration by Bogi Takács — A flash story about calibrating a psychology (?) experiment and what different emotions mean to the narrator. Also what aliens mean to the narrator. Source: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/four-point-affective-calibration/