The Neurodiversiverse: A Science Fiction Anthology of Stories, Poetry, and Art

The Neurodiversiverse is a new anthology of original sf; the subtitle "Alien Encounters" makes me think it might be the first in a series, but I'm not sure. The premise of the anthology, as the ungainly title indicates, is to look at neurodiversity in an sfnal context. The stories here are largely (entirely?) #ownvoices one, being written by neurodiverse people about situations where neurodiversity is an asset to encountering the alien. So there are stories about people with autism, OCD, ADHD, and so on. I received a free review copy from LibraryThing's EarlyReviewers program.

The Neurodiversiverse: Alien Encounters: A Science Fiction Anthology of Stories, Poetry, and Art edited by Anthony Francis and Liza Olmsted

Published: 2024
Acquired: September 2024
Read: October 2024

The problem with the book is that the basic premise sets up a basic formula that is hewed to pretty consistently without variation and without—on my part anyway—much of interest. A neurodiverse person applies to work with aliens or is contacted by aliens, and then it then turns out that their special way of seeing the universe is matched by the aliens and/or a boon for speaking with aliens. Unfortunately, many of the stories feel short: we meet our protagonist, the aliens reach out, boom done. We don't really get to explore the actual diversity of neurodiversity, the stories have little conflict. Now it may be that this all isn't for me, that the kind of people who are represented here would get more out of it, I don't know. I can only tell you how I reacted to it. But fundamentally, I felt like these stories were mostly superficial representations of both neurodiversity and alien intelligence, and they quickly grew repetitive. Too many of the stories also depict the alien encounters as kind of boringly utopian; our neurodivergent protagonist meets aliens, things are now great. I suspect fewer longer stories could have been more interesting.

There were two exceptions that worked much better for me than the rest of the volume. The first was "The Grand New York Welcome Tour" by Kay Hanifen, which is about a tour guide for aliens. The protagonist has OCD, and their job is to escort alien delegates around; the story benefits from taking place much later than first contact, from focusing on the actual interactions in detail, and from showing us diversity among the aliens. It's not super deep but I did enjoy it. The other is "The Pipefitter" by Tobias S. Buckell. This one seemed to me to ignore the anthology remit a bit (not much from the aliens) and was all the better for it, a problem-solving, action-adventure story about a maintenance worker on a giant colony ship during a crisis situation. It deftly employs one of my favorite tropes, the seemingly insignificant person who proves their importance when they come through while others don't. If the stories had all been this good, I would have enjoyed the book much more.

I also enjoyed Cat Rambo's story about superheroes, but its connection to the anthology premise seemed even more minimal than Buckell's. Well done take on realistic heroes, though.

Also there are some poems, if you're into that kind of thing. I can be, but I wasn't into these.