Human Resources by Fiona Moore

Publisher – NewCon Press

Published – Out Now

Price – £13.99 paperback £4.49 Kindle eBook

Fiona Moore is a Canadian-born academic, writer and critic living in London. Her work has been shortlisted for BSFA Awards and a World Fantasy Award. Her short fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov's, Interzone and elsewhere, and has been selected for four consecutive editions of The Best of British SF.

Eighteen stories drawn from more than a decade of publications, plus the title story: a brand new novelette that appears here for the first time.

From a woman rebelling against the corporation that has turned her into living, breathing product placement to a story of misfit automata that have outlived their sell-by date. From a murder case involving an AI car to the hunt for a sentient battle tank lost somewhere in the jungle... These stories show us disturbing futures that may be a lot closer than we like to think.

When I get a story collection from  an author I’m not fully familiar with I’m looking for that mix of inventiveness, variety, skill and a sense of the themes that an author may be interested in. As such I was delighted read Fiona Moore’s excellent collection Human Fespurces that delivers unique and fascinating science fiction and fantasy tales to explore.

The opening story ‘Terms and Conditions’ is a splendid example of Moore’s approach to storytelling. An innocuous conversation suddenly reveals our narrator is not entirely in charge of their own words or actions. We get a tale of a human under the power of corporate technology trying to find a way out. It is both a salutary lesson on technology and how humans react to it. The dreams of humanity leaving the earth and what that entails for the rest of the universe is managed really well in ‘The Ghosts of Trees’ as Moore weaves potential Martian colonisation with images of humanity’s nuclear tests to explore the darker side of science and what it says about human nature. A mysterious New York is explored in ‘The Island of Misfit Stories’ which has a seasonal touch with a man who is homeless only known as Santa discovering the cast of AI toys and other devices folks leave behind can have many uses. Very subtle worldbuilding and a poetic mystery about living your own life.

Moore also has an unusual spin on the SF disaster movie. In ‘Doomed Youth’ we have an alternate America where humans must cope with the regular appearance of giant ants. What though reads funny is also increasingly dark as we see the way Americans adapt to giant ants is different from the population adapts to migrants and non-white communities. It is a haunting tale as we reach an unforgettable conclusion. Whereas in ‘Leave Only Footprints’ it is a moral question with a fascinatingly different take on 20th century history with a world recovering from an alien invasion and a query if lessons from our own history should be paid attention to delivered with aplomb to make the reader wonder what the right answer should be. The scary world of dating apps and AI has an unusual combination and impact in ‘The Stepford App’ where  man is persuaded to finally move on from his filed relationship but his new love has many secrets he has yet to fully understand – quite a prescient tale of the dangers of Corporate experimentation and how some effects are yet to be fully understood.

The classic SF detective story has an unusual twist in ‘Jolene’ where we have a country singer who has lost his wife, dog and car and the car is the one he misses the most. an interesting set of mysteries to untangle present themselves and even the ending is a bit disturbing!

We also get unusual futures. In ‘Morning In the republic of America’ we get a different idea of a Northern America that is delightfully different in the way Canada is treated. One of my favourites is a duo of stories set in an alternate 1960s space race focused on Captain Artie Quech an astronaut in the Commonwealth Space programme and balancing her desire for adventure with a new girlfriend in ‘Push A Little Button’ where we get a classic space mystery of a potential saboteur which rattles along joyfully but also has quite sophisticated new cold war politics and a really impressive alternate history that the short tale carries the depth for smartly. We return to Artie in the final story ‘Every Little Star’ where Moore has fascinating spin on VR in this period and aa well as putting our character in danger to escape also makes her question her own drives and what she wants to do next. Slightly more serious and yet Artie is still a great character to watch work situations out.

I loved the world explored in ‘Mnemotechnic’ where we have a classic heist novel with a difference – in this post Y2K world computers are humans with extraordinary memories and computational skills to replace the frailer devices. Moore cleverly subverts the cyberpunk tale with jaded narrator trying to commit a crime, but it also explores how such people could be treated and abused by corporations. It is a very smart and offbeat approach that works really well. The world is explored again in the titular ‘Human Resources’ again secrets of the past are being revisited but also here we have a compelling family relationship of brother, sister and a father with increasing dementia that creates all sorts of tension and disturbs the past up once again. A powerful story that fleshes out the human cost such a world has on those with these abilities.

I will try not to spoil ‘Rabbit Season’ and ‘The Mouse Trap’ two linked tales of characters living in a post-apocalyptic world and one particular place of dreams gets visited and it’s no longer that safe. Inventive, dark, and just a touch funny too!

Moore also knows how to use fantasy well. In the strange and slightly disturbing ‘Selma Eats’ we have an inhuman narrator explaining her life in a bookshop and her one friend. But the elements Elma does not quite understand that shows us the other part of the story which works really well quirky and yet slightly ominous. Another dark use of magic is explored in ‘The Kindly Race’ which has a gay man being promised innovative eternal youth in exchange for getting married and proving offspring. An unusual story that also runs through the years of the gay scene the characters live in in gives the story a lot of depth and context for how life and people change over many years in unexpected ways and perhaps staying true to who you are is always the better outcome. A dose of the weird is also found in ‘Proteus in the City’ with a tale of a man who lives out his life coming out as a gay man, enters a toxic relationship and finds himself trapped in it. His escape though may not be the most expected option. A tale of being absorbed into other people’s lives that is bittersweet.

As you can probably guess I loved the collection. One of the best I have read this year with vast range and inventiveness and that particular joy of not knowing what type of story I’m going to get with every turn of the page. Strongly recommended!