Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound

Tesseracts Sixteen: Parnassus Unbound, Mark Leslie (ed.), 2012, ISBN 9781894063920

This latest collection of speculative fiction stories and poems from Canada focuses on the subjects of culture and the arts.

A long-time rock music fan is looking for the ultimate AC/DC bootleg tape, which may or may not actually exist. There is a story about language (not any particular language, but language in general) being intelligent. In a world where genetic engineering has eradicated most congenital diseases, the next genetic abnormality to be eradicated is the "art gene." A famous composer lives alone on a space station orbiting Saturn. His final composition involves playing Saturn's rings like an instrument.

There is a poem called "Zombie Poet". A pair of stories explore the world of dance. The first is about a special kind of memory cloth that can transfer insanity to a sane person, and the other concerns a dance competition between humans and aliens. A woman returns to her high school for her 60th high school reunion. She became a famous singer, and she meets up with an old boyfriend (she is white, and he is black). Muses are treated like intestinal parasites, and removed from people, but destroying them is not easy. A man has rented an isolated cabin in British Columbia to write a novel, but what is on the page becomes a little too real. Another story is about genetic engineering, but, this time, humanity has abolished moods, in effect making Prozac permanent. A desperate attempt is made to bring artists about to die forward in time to provide a dying humanity with emotion and creativity.

This is yet another first-rate collection of stories from Canada. All parts of "the arts" are covered, in very unique ways. Individually, these stories are excellent; together, this book is highly recommended.