I would like to thank the author and Goldsmiths for a copy of this collection in exchange for a fair and honest review

Publisher – Goldsmiths

Published – Out now

Price – £17.99 paperback £11.99 Kindle eBook

The lives of people (mostly women) who help to produce science or who are affected by it.

The stories in Schrödinger's Wife (and Other Possibilities) travel through laboratories, observatories, rockets, hotel rooms, hospitals, out to the Antarctic and into outer space, following the trails of women scientists, technicians, patients, doctors, and spouses in their encounters with some of the most extraordinary aspects of modern science.

In these science-inspired tales the nuclear physicist Lise Meitner discovers the secrets of nuclear fission while fleeing from the Nazis. An employee in the underground laboratory CERN refuses to have her own photo taken. The biologist Margaret Bastock must figure our the impact of genes on behavior while coping with post-war expectations of women's own behavior. Scientists from East and West Germany stationed at opposite sides of Antarctica experience their own fall of the Berlin Wall. The elusive physicist Bruno Pontecorvo theorizes about an equally elusive particle. Schrödinger's wife Anny uses his theory to get her revenge on her philandering husband. A scientific theory worries about being discovered by a woman, and a resident in a special institution extrapolates the history of the universe from a piece of toast.

Science does not take place in a vacuum, ok smartypants yes apart from those using vacuums …and yes in space okay! But still despite you being a pedant what I mean is science while often portrayed as rules, explanations and something that sits outside of being human is actually something only humans can have created. Behind science lies a history and network of people across the world in the past and right now tackling what actually makes the world. It is not always a pure search for truth everyone supports. Science is as much impacted by humanity’s biases, prejudices and desire for conflict however much it can be seem to above those thing. In Pippa Goldschmidt’s excellent science fiction collection Schrodinger’s Wife (and other possibilities) we have tales of science’s past and present delivering intimate confessionals and reminding us that science is always about essentially part of being human – our desire to understand and explore ourselves just as much as the wider universe.

This is a really interesting collection which can be divided in tales using the past of science and dealing with more present day tales. All linked in some way to either a discovery in science or a principle. Sometimes very short tales of a few pages, a short story and even some longer interludes. Bridging both is the opening tale of ‘Alternative Geometries’ where a University researcher meets Valentina Tereshkova. Neither speaks the other’s language and showing her around the unused antique observatory is a story weaving past with present. It reminds us that various women have had key roles in history and that events have shaped our narrator’s life too. It captures the ethos I felt the wide collection delivery of science being this ever-expanding continuum of people (and in particular women who have bene overlooked) building and echoing off one another.

In the more present-day tales, it is often how the characters perhaps unexpectedly reflect the nature of their scientific work. In the great ‘Yellow’ a scientist exploring fruit flies is also watched with the just as strange mating rituals of humans. We watch our main character’s life over many years, being patronized for working in science, being expected to give it up for marriage and importantly it is about staying true to who you are and what you actually want.  In the deliciously pointed and achingly true surreal ‘What The Theory Worries About’ we get a theory disappointed as its ben discovered by s woman and know it now needs rediscovery by a man before it can be famous.

I absolutely loved the fascinating ‘Welcome to Planet Alba’ which takes us to a future rocket launchpad in the Scottish Isles where an American scientist works in the small research facility/museum/shop with some native Scots while millions of miles away they get virtual reality feeds from Martian exploring machines. It’s a tale of culture clashes, business mixing with science, love and regrets. The human dramas are both small and really important while management slowly cuts things back and prevent exploring to ever be truly carefree. This neatly bookends another tale ‘Safety Maneuvers’ where in a London wracked by climate change we meet Eve who works with VR to fix landers on mars when in trouble. Her ability to solve a problem like a human and see her landers as human is a powerful asset but the tech powers that be seem determined to ignore her warnings and I can’t help think that the reminders of climate change devasting her world echoes that selfish side of technology to ignore the human impact.

There is a touch of truly cosmic horror I ‘A Guide To Observing The Death Of A Star’ which congratulates the reader on their work but keeps mentioning the side effects on the observer which is both funny and creepy!

A more intimate tale is ‘Latent Image’ where a woman looks through her late father’s photographs and in particular the negatives. This is a beautiful and powerful tale of a family’s break-up with mental illness, grief and love all combining into a set of moments captured on film that never truly tell the whole story. It packs a real emotional punch as we discover the family’s history and how through no one’s fault it has left a huge mark on all its members. This also has another bookend with ‘Eurydice at Work’ a scientist at CERN is asked to be photographed an it has a horrible impact on our narrator and as the tale expands we see her familial relationships and her recent past have collided just as powerfully as the atoms being smashed a few meters away

In a similar way I was very impressed by ‘The Shortest Route On The Map Is Not The Quickest’ a tale of someone interviewing a London Cab driver on his missing girlfriend. It mixes that strange mental ability of memorizing routes that the Knowledge tests of cab drivers have with his girlfriend’s intertest in Dark matter. It’s a tale of secrets, regrets and hidden histories that we slowly tease out in the interview and paints a full start and end to a relationship very powerfully.

There is some dark comedy awaiting in ‘An Investigation Into Love by Babcock and wainwright’ where a laboratory mouse has an unexpected impact through its cuteness on an entire research group’s love lives are thrown into disarray a whole new meaning to office romances ensues with powerful (but to the reader hilarious) effect!

A tale mixing science with its more militaristic shadowy side is ‘Unsettled’ where our narrator look at drone images and just reports anomalies. Sometimes those anomalies then disappear. The observer wants to stay neutral but a few moments of seeing people and things in new contexts takes them down an disconcerting set of revelations. Goldschmidt cleverly weaves in a current social issue that when it appears casts the story in a whole new unsettling light about the authority’s refusal to look and see people as human beings.

For tales of the past, they too can take unusual forms such as in the fascinating redacted science paper ‘Footnotes To A Scientific Paper Concerning The Possible Detection of a Neutrino’ where we just have a row of footnotes but they actually tell us the story of science in the cold war period of spying and the impact for the author. Very short but packs a lot of detail into only an impressive few lines.. Watching the changes in attitudes filters into ‘Mrs McLean and Margaret Are Now In Charge’ Mrs McLean is the observatory’s cleaner and watches pre-war the many students and its bosses ignore her unless it is to deal with an issue but come wartime suddenly things change. Sharp storytelling underlines a point about women finally being allowed in but also being able to share the knowledge at last.

Another standout tale is based on real history ‘The First and Last Expedition to Antarctica’ taking us to 1989 and the last East German expedition and the First West German group to be composed fully of women. We have two groundbreaking moments coinciding the fall of the Berlin Wall and Germany’s reunification and a group of women who have campaigned hard to be treated as scientists and having to deal with the sexist attitudes of the time. We bounce between the two groups, and it reminds us of how everyone involved ins science is actually connected still to the rest of the world from trying to work out how to unblock a frozen sewer pipe to worrying if your observations on neigh bours will be finally discovered. It is a fascinating snapshot of a moment few know about, and it comes to life really beautiful and feels eventually uplifting…need a bit of that now!

 We move to WW2 and Lwow in Poland in ‘Distant Relatives of the Samsa family’ where a young woman’s desire not to be married off requires her to take desperate measures in an experiment but it also becomes a saving grace. Fascinating and as we discover true history.

The largest tale in the collection is ‘Schrodinger’s Wife’ that explores the not well-known story of the scientists’ wife and how she dealt with his very probably affairs and her own desire to have a life of her own. It’s a tale that like quantum physics imagines scenarios at the same time, plays with time and the balancing powers of these people going around each other like atomic orbits mixing real facts and speculation into something very elegant but mournful

This is a stunning collection with tales that take science and remind us of the human stoies that build and support it every day. It shows us the darker side of exploration but also the way it empowers people to live the lives and careers they want even in the face of our petty human biases and squabbles. It is very strongly recommended!