Signals from the Edge: A Trip through Time, Memory, and Tears
David Horn’s Signals from the Edge, Tales from the Fault Lines of Time and Thought will take you to the future, to the past, and back around again. There is not a single story that drives his newest book, but a collection of them with a similar thread: memory. Memory is the little girl that arrives as a refugee on a planet, memory is a scrapbooks and forests and veterans, and memory is a fantastic octopus that can shape dreams after their capitalist repurpose. A small army of characters march through the pages, each one strikes a compelling and awe-inspiring figure. We are meant to love them, if temporarily, and take their lessons with us.
Horn’s storytelling is uniquely consuming, but he also has a particularly graceful handling of human rights issues that pervade society today and a keen eye for the directions they may evolve into. The speculative facet of his work taps the vein of humanity and empathy and challenges the reader to contend with their own beliefs and face branching possibilities. Two of these issues stood out to me the most: immigration, and religious compliance.
“Guest name: Ara. Status: Person.”
The collection of stories begins with a bang. We are introduced to Ara, an 8-year-old refugee of a mixed species status. In a pod, she falls onto an orbital hotel in the middle of outer space in a distant future. The AI that runs the hotel has to fight its own programming to adapt and find compassion within a reality that may be crueler than software. The story is a strong start to the collection. We are made to draw connections, intentionally or unintentionally, to the modern immigration crisis. The reader is forced to examine what qualifies someone as a human and deserves sympathy and care. Within the futuristic legal framework, Ara is not what is loved, wanted, or legally recognized, so we must contend with what that means for our own real-life systems of power. The following question inevitably arises: do human beings have the right to decide which 8-year-old child’s existence is legal and which is illegal, and what gives us the right? The reader is compelled to pull for Ara, to pray the AI pulls through, and to examine ourselves as we go.
“No one has interfered with your rituals. You may continue to pray to your god.”
One of my personal favorite stories that appears in this novel is “Faith is a Private Matter.” Another little girl is central to this story—star pupil and ever-compliant child Clara. Her grandmother also makes an appearance, a devout Christian who has violated the overarching rules of the cosmic entity Cthulhu. Here, Horn plays with other irrational rulesets, this one more closely (and ironically) paralleling modern Christian fundamentalism instead of a secular legal framework.
There are certain beliefs about how to learn, how to think, and what to worship inherent to the story. Like modern fundamentalism, there is some room and legality for alternative worship, but that is both discouraged and looked down upon. Clara is the potential for a new story, while Evelyn is a representative of the old–in this case, Christianity. Both try to contend with a changing world which is contingent on the whims of an eldritch horror. Evelyn and Clara’s dual-perspective third person contributions to the narrative feed into a more full-color view of their dire reality. As a reader, this made me consider the possibility of Christian fundamentalism snowballing, and if the path America is currently on would ever warp into a tale like this.
My feelings overall on this story collection are positive. Notably, I cried before the 27th page—big, unaesthetic, open-mouthed sobs. The words made me feel–for vulnerable minorities, for my own community, and for everything that the world could transmogrify into by the time I reach retirement. David Horn’s prose is the kind of beautiful writing that echoes through your entire body. Even if you don’t buy the hi-tech worlds Horn creates, the humanizing characterizations would resonate with anyone.
In terms of downsides within Signals from the Edge, there are very few. Two that stand out the most include inconsistent writing style and overly technical writing. For the first, Horn himself explained the extended time frame and irregularity of writing this book. The style changed and changed again, as an honest reaction to a writer’s growth. The highly technical writing is also a symptom of Horn’s style, and not necessarily an issue. Once you push past the complex descriptions of buttons and systems and futuristic technology, there is the story. And if you do enjoy the inner workings of the technological wonders that drive the story, that’s better yet.
To purchase a copy of Horn’s book, go here. To find previous Rooted coverage of works by David Horn, click here.
