Drawing its title from the brand-new novelette is extremely fitting for Lake of Souls, the collected (and, in the author’s own musings, lesser-known or -appreciated) short fiction works of Ann Leckie: These 18 stories reflect that same expansiveness, how one person—or a singular account—can possess a multitude of ideas or identities depending on who exactly is relating the story. One story, which starts as a Lovecraftian riff but ends on a John Carter of Mars vibe, leaves readers with uneasy answers about humans’ tendency to assert what folks today call Main Character Energy. Those same readers will be more likely to identify with the lobster-dogs and singing dinosaur space explorers than the human anthropologists or corporations supposedly steering interstellar voyages. Worlds end, but always with sights set toward a new one; an attempt to genetically optimize the humble onion winds up eradicating the entire crop line.
The collection is split quasi-equally into thirds, with Leckie’s standalone works as well as tie-ins to the sci-fi Imperial Radch universe and the fantasy world of The Raven Tower. Yet all of the aforementioned examples come from the opening portion, which contains the most dynamic stories—which makes for a strong start but sets up the subsequent categories for unfavorable comparisons. These (primarily sci-fi) standalones are the most playful peek into Leckie’s imagination, which is flexible enough to offer equal consideration to both high- and low-stakes stories. That in turn gives Lake of Souls a personal, cohesive feel, even if some of the stories occasionally turn repetitive.
Leckie’s wit shines in tales of mismatched pairs completely misunderstanding one another. “Lake of Souls” constantly switches between the equally moving perspectives of an alien nymph searching for its name (and thus its soul) and a human anthropologist, the sole survivor of a research mission studying what the two-leggers call lobster-dogs. By contrast, the frenetic “Another Word for World” takes place solely within the POV of Ashiban Xidyla, a middle-aged representative for one of two warring factions, struggling to communicate with the teenage Sovereign of Iss after their translator device is destroyed during an assassination attempt. As this odd duo trudges across their shared planet, their attempts at communication expose a generations-old translation error, making an incisive commentary on the danger of deliberate misinterpretation.
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Lake of Souls
“Sovereign” is an example of one ongoing motif: titles that don’t actually mean what the reader initially assumes. Other recurring themes include thorny family dynamics—especially where death and resurrection are concerned—and inquisitive interrogation of personal and cultural histories, like in the remarkable story of “The Endangered Camp,” in which society of dinosaurs refer to their own oral history when debating whether or not to turn their ship around, but the same song can provide two different courses of action depending on which verse the singer decides to end on.
While Leckie’s highly detailed worldbuilding in both her sci-fi and fantasy series is hall-of-fame caliber, the collected stories themselves feel more, well, ancillary to their respective fictional universes. They certainly illuminate fascinating corners of empires and kingdoms through compelling character studies, yet the actual plots blur together enough that it’s difficult to identify particular standouts as in the first batch of stories. “She Commands Me and I Obey” contextualizes the astonishingly high stakes of a sports game with the worship of athlete deities, and is a worthwhile read for any fan of Ancillary Justice and its sequels who may have never gotten around to it before now. Yet “Night’s Slow Poison” is a subtler brew of Radchaai intrigue, bringing to mind the political machinations and cultural maneuvers of Leckie’s latest novel Translation State.
The stories set in the world of Leckie’s standalone fantasy novel The Raven Tower tend more toward creation myths and fables, detailing the somewhat repetitive ways in which humans make bargains with the small gods who are omnipotent when speaking the truth but for whom falsehoods would bleed their power dry into nothingness. The idea that these gods, from a tiny skink to a vast river, are all constrained by clarity of language is a compelling one, but there are only so many ways that mortals can navigate the ensuing loopholes. That said, “The Snake’s Wife” is a standout from this half of the collection, if only because of how brutally its human cruelty reshapes fates while attempting to evade divine retribution. (As Leckie herself said, all the content warnings for this taboo tale that hinges on castration.) Less disturbing yet equally effective is “Marsh Gods,” marrying the aforementioned high and low stakes in a young girl confronting her prodigal brother after a brush with death transforms him into a stranger.
Think of all of these stories as “small, short-term deals”—as human/deity agreements are described in “The Nalendar”—and even the less thrilling ones will take on their own temporary power. Leckie certainly knows how to weave truth into a collection; it takes nothing away to say that there will be something for everyone.
Lake of Souls is published by Orbit Books.
