Speculative Los Angeles by Denise Hamilton

Speculative Los Angeles Reviews

• 
  Joe

  Akashic Books, which might be running out of cities or regions to cultivate their wonderful noir anthologies, is branching out into the speculative fiction genre. Published in 2021, Speculative Los Angeles is based in L.A. Speculative fiction deals with extraterrestrial settings, magic, futurism, alternate history, or characters with unusual powers. The improbable, quixotic, or unreal.
  
  I found most of the fourteen stories obtuse or difficult to pry open. My favorites:
  
  + "Peak TV," by Ben H. Winters. A wildly successful television writer/ producer in Culver City is pitched what he considers a bad idea for a paranormal TV show, until he begins being haunted in a similar fashion.
  
  + "Purple Panic," by Francesca Lia Block. A woman recalls growing up--surviving, actually--her childhood in Studio City/ the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s and her childhood's friend tale of how a visitor from another dimension helped get her through. This is the least science fiction story in the book, more literary fiction, something that always gets my attention in these collections.
  
  + "Maintenance," by Aimee Bender. Despite the pedestrian title, this is my favorite story in the collection. In Miracle Mile, two girls note the disappearance of the sculpture woolly mammoths from the La Brea Tar Pits Museum, which start turning up all over L.A. I've had Bender's collection
  The Girl in the Flammable Skirt on my radar for some time and now understand why.
  
  + "Jaguar's Breath," by Luis J. Rodriguez. The Big One ushers in totalitarian rule, which a guerilla movement called Jaguar's Breath fights back from their underground bases in the Angeles National Forest. Dystopia is not my favorite sub-genre because there's so much of it, particularly of the ecological disaster or immigration crackdown variety. It's not a matter of how well it's written, I like reading something different, but I could at least follow this one.
  
  One of my discoveries in the ten years I've been on Goodreads is Akashic Books. They had a booth at the L.A. Times Festival of Books, so I was happy to give them my business, purchasing this title and
  Beirut Noir. As a writer, I find it fascinating how a dozen authors interpret the same assignment. For readers, these anthologies are a wonderful way to discover local authors, as well as learn about other parts of the world.
• 
  Dave

  Akashic Books has criss-crossed the entire world twice over with their Akashic Noir series, each one focusing on a particular geographic area with mystery/crime/noir stories by various local authors, some well known and some barely discovered. Stop the presses! Akashic Books has just previewed the start of a brand new series of geographically-based speculative fiction (what we used to call science fiction) with the first one centered in La-La Land (Los Angeles). These stories take us through LA's various neighborhoods, divided into four topics or sections: (1) CHANGELINGS, GHOSTS, AND PARALLEL WORLDS; (2) STEAMPUNKS, ALCHEMISTS, AND MEMORY ARTISTS; (3) A TEAR In The FABRIC OF REALITY, and (4) COPS AND ROBOTS IN THE FUTURE RUINS OF LA.
  
  Stories range from alternate timelines, breaks in realities, mysterious children, valley girls and elves or leprechauns, and body cams on skid row. Favorites include Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Los Felix and Garbo on the Skids. Others deserve honorable mention and enough were worthwhile and thought provoking to make this a recommended read. Here's the entire cast:
  
  LISA MORTON Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Rancho Los Feliz
  ALEX ESPINOZA Detainment El Sereno
  BEN H. WINTERS Peak TV Culver City
  DENISE HAMILTON Past the Mission Encino
  S. QIOUYI LU Where There Are Cities, These Dissolve Too La Puente
  LYNELL GEORGE If Memory Serves Echo Park
  STEPHEN BLACKMOORE Love, Rocket Science, and the Mother of Abominations Pasadena
  FRANCESCA LIA BLOCK Studio City Purple Panic
  AIMEE BENDER Miracle Mile Maintenance
  CHARLES YU West Torrance West Torrance 2BR 2BA w/Pool and Black Hole DUANE SWIERCZYNSKI Walk of Fame Hollywood
  LUIS J. RODRIGUEZ Jaguar’s Breath Angeles National Forest
  A.G. LOMBARDO Garbo on the Skids Downtown Los Angeles
  KATHLEEN KAUFMAN Sailing That Beautiful Sea Century City
• 
  Suzanne

  This was a little uneven, as would be expected from a hodgepodge of different writerly styles and stories in various subcategories of speculative fiction, but only a little uneven. Most of them I liked very much and thought it far superior as a collection to editor Denise Hamilton’s previous anthology, Los Angeles Noir . But I knew I really couldn’t go wrong with this one when I saw an Eve Babitz quote in the front of the book: “. . . everybody who really lived in L.A. was linked into the trance.” [L.A. Woman]
  
  Stories are divided into four categories titled Changelings, Ghosts, and Parallel Worlds; Teampunks, Alchemists, and Memory Artists; A Tear in the Fabric of Reality; and Cops and Robots in the Future Ruins of L.A. Some capsule summaries and my opinions follow.
  
  The first story, “Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Rancho Los Feliz,” was a weak start and what I would call silly-sci-fi. A multiverse portal links a 20th century agrarian Los Angeles with a post-apocalyptic urban L.A., much to the consternation of the Los Feliz residents who have to deal with the fallout from a trespasser from the doomed realm.
  
  In the second, “Detainment,” there is a radical shift in tone. Here a mother and small son are re-united after the boy is kidnapped by ICE for six months and the narration tracks the mother’s concern as she observes disturbing changes in her son’s behavior since the separation. He’s not at all like her kid.
  
  The quality of writing took a giant leap with Ben H. Winters’ satirical “Peak TV,” which was entertaining and cathartic as I have recently been dealing with media people in my work life. And it had the kind of ending I didn’t see coming, but which, when it arrived, felt completely right.
  Denise Hamilton’s “Past the Mission” was the stand-out in the first section. Wonderful writing tells the story of Talina, an exploited Native Californian, having a #MeToo moment. She has to make some thoughtful choices about vengeance.
  
  “Where There are Cities, These Dissolve Too,” was one I loved unabashedly, much to my surprise. The grim dystopian environment, full of aggression, violence and betrayal, didn’t mar the love story told in the 2nd person. I like the 2nd person in some situations and S. Qiouyi Lu handled it beautifully here.
  
  I absolutely loved Lynell George’s beautifully written “If Memory Serves,” where the narrator, Alondra, has watched Los Angeles disintegrate into one hot mess. She is a little obsessed with reconstructing knowledge about the former landscape of the city and its people, keenly aware of the importance of history and how we ache for connections to a vanishing past. As a sort of counselor, she helps the elderly recover their own personal fading memories. “See, this is your story,” I coach my clients: “This is the shape of your story.”
  
  I was introduced to writer Steven Blackmore through “Love, Rocket Science, and the Mother of Abomination,” a tech-centered noir set Downtown circa 2055, featuring prose so good it made me forget I don’t know anything about technology.
  
  While most of the stories are stylistically more mainstream, or literary/mainstream, some are more experimental, philosophical and poetic, such as “West Torrance: 2 BR 2BA w/Pool and Black Hole,” by Charles Yu, whose new novel, Interior Chinatown, I am about to start.
  
  The collection gets a dose of satire with “Walk of Fame,” a send-up of Hollywood with landmark name-checking that’s fun for us locals, in an alternative reality where Musso & Frank’s serves vegan food and memory-altering cocktails. But I have to admit I didn’t get the ending. Can somebody explain it to me, please?
  
  I liked A.J. Lombardo’s 2019 novel Graffiti Palace, a retelling of The Odyssey set in South L.A., better than his story here, called “Garbo on the Skids,” although atmospherically it was similar, set as it was in the dark underbelly of ruined neighborhoods full of extreme poverty, crime and corruption. I did kind of like the ending though.
  
  The final entry, "Sailing that Beautiful Sea,” wins Best Name Award for a character called Abtonius Crowninshield. But beyond that accolade, the story was a moving account of a dying woman as she contemplates a fading world from a bot-run hospice. Kelsie seems to be the last human on earth and spends her final days making art in a world now run solely by bots. Benevolent bots, but bots nonetheless, who will not have the capacity to appreciate anything as human as art.
  
  I think this collection will be especially fun for Angelenos – I know I always enjoy the place names and being able to visualize vividly the settings referenced and sense the atmosphere of the various neighborhoods – but it’s good enough on other levels to be appealing to anyone open to the speculative genre.
• 
  Mona

  EXCELLENT SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY STORY COLLECTION
  
  This collection of science fiction/fantasy/horror stories is top drawer.
  Each is set in a different LA neighborhood.
  They’re written by a diverse group of authors.
  I loved this collection, even though I’ve never
  been to LA.
  
  Of course, as with any anthology, some stories
  were better than others. I disliked a couple.
  This is always a matter of taste. It’s
  rare that every story in an anthology will
  appeal to every reader.
  
  GREAT AUDIO NARRATORS
  
  The multiple audio readers were also terrific,
  for a change (Not the usual audio narrator who
  can barely read). Heavy hitters, like Stefan Rudnicki.
  
  All the audio readers were good, although I did like some better
  than others. Sadly, we never know which reader is
  reading which story (although I can always recognize
  Rudnicki’s deep voice).
  
  The audio readers were: Stefan Rudnicki, Gabrielle de Cuir, Judy Young, John Rubinstein, Justine Eyre, Roxanne Hernandez, Janina Edwards, Paul Boehmer, Kate Orsini
  
  ANTONIA AND THE STRANGER WHO CAME TO RANCHO LOS FELIZ by Lisa Morton
  
  4
  
  Great and moving story about an injured stranger disrupting the idyllic
  life of a kind lady who runs a ranch.
  
  Audio perfectly read by ?
  
  
  DETAINMENT by Alex Espinoza
  
  4
  
  Chilling story of a child and mother, fleeing an unspecified Latin American country.
  They separated at the U.S. border by ICE and then reunited. But the kid has
  changed.
  
  Audio beautifully read by ?
  
  
  PEAK TV by Ben H. Winters
  
  4
  
  Creepy horror story about an arrogant, successful TV show
  runner, his innocent son, and his son’s dog.
  
  Audio read flawlessly by Stefan Rudnicki, one of my favorite audio
  narrators.
  
  PAST THE MISSION by Denise Hamilton
  
  3.5
  
  A woman who, for a long time, has been nursing a desire for
  vengeance against an ex, finally has a chance
  to act on it.
  
  I found this a bit melodramatic for my taste. Also,
  the main character’s vengefulness became grating.
  The characters were not sympathetic or well developed.
  Still, the story was well crafted.
  
  WHERE THERE ARE CITIES, THESE DISSOLVE TOO by S. Qiouyi Lu
  
  4
  
  A moving story about two Chinese
  American female lovers
  whose hobby is battling in “chompers”,
  fighting machines built from junkyard parts.
  One of the two, Winnie, has PTSD.
  
  Beautifully read by audio reader ?
  
  
  IF MEMORY SERVES by Lynell George
  
  4
  
  A meandering and lovely meditation on memory.
  Not much of a plot to this story, really. Takes place in an
  LA in some indeterminate future. Climate
  change is a fixture. There’s little public
  property left, especially property accessing
  bodies of water. The rich have that access.
  Transportation has become really problematic.
  
  Audio wonderfully read by ?
  
  LOVE, ROCKET SCIENCE, AND THE MOTHER
  OF ABOMINATIONS by Stephen Blackmoore
  
  2
  
  Yuck.
  
  Dark sex magic, Aleister Crowley. Thelema. Murder.
  Not my cuppa at all. I started tuning this out towards
  the tale’s end. Entirely too creepy for me.
  
  Jack Parsons, at the story’s center, was a real person, a local rocket scientist at Jet
  Propulsion Laborotory in the 1940s. He was a fascinating, if
  repulsive character. He was very handsome, apparently drug addled, sex crazed,
  and insane. He was a dedicated follower of Aleister Crowley.
  He was defrauded of his life savings by the founder of Scientology.
  
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Pa...
  
  Parsons was an unsavory character and there was
  a bit more info about him (some speculative) than
  I really wanted.
  
  The historical research was the best part of this story.
  The story itself I could have lived without. The characters
  are just cardboard cut outs, chess pieces in service of
  the plot.
  The title is pretty accurate .
  
  It’s very sensationalistic material. So some readers
  may enjoy this.
  
  The sleazy sensationalism seems very L.A., somehow.
  
  Still, the story was imaginative and well plotted.
  But I’m not the right reader for it. It was just too
  creepy for me.
  
  
  PURPLE PANIC by Francesca Lia Block
  
  4
  
  Haunting tale about a 1970s Valley girl and
  her encounter with a strange being among
  the jacarandas.
  
  MAINTENANCE by Aimee Bender
  
  4
  
  Wonderful story. The mammoth statues in
  the La Brea tar pits go missing. A young
  child sees this as a symbol of her alcoholic
  mother who abandoned her family.
  
  WEST TORRANCE 2BR 2BA W/POOL AND BLACK HOLE by Charles Yu
  
  4
  
  A mournful, bittersweet and poignant meditation on family,
  parenting, the unbridgeable distances between
  people and the transitory nature of intimacy.
  
  Beautifully read by Stefan Rudnicki, in his usual
  understated way.
  
  W*LK OF F*ME by Duane Swierczynski
  
  4
  
  Lots of very dry humor here, poking sly fun at
  Hollywood celebrities, Hollywood in general,
  and detective novels.
  
  P.S. The story is written like a movie script. Each
  character has lines and stage directions.
  
  JAGUAR’S BREATH by Luis J. Rodriguez
  
  3.5
  
  A future in which Jaguar’s Breath, a guerilla
  group hiding in tunnels like the Viet Cong,
  battles the White Supremacist America First
  Party, which controls the government.
  Interesting story, but the ending and plot
  are a bit disappointing.
  
  
  GARBO ON THE SKIDS by A.G. Lombardo
  
  4.5
  
  Great, surprising.and very unsettling..noir crime story set
  in the future.
  
  Takes place in a future where California is
  divided into four countries, the East Coast’s
  free states have seceded from the U.S.,
  and the Midwest is an isolated republic,
  Great America, with Kid Rock as its President.
  
  The less said about the actual story, the better.
  
  SAILING THAT BEAUTIFUL SEA by Kathleen Kaufman
  
  4
  
  A touching and poignant story about the death of the last
  surviving human in a world run by bots.
• 
  Christina

  4 stars... though it's difficult to rate anthologies because each individual story deserves its own individual rating. A couple of the stories I didn't really care for, most were pretty good, and a few I loved! This anthology covers monsters, black holes, vaqueros, psychic terrorists, noir, parallel dimensions, gods, robots, and more! My favorite story was "Walk of Fame" by Duane Swierczynski. As soon as I finished it, I immediately read it again. I imagine there will be future rereads as well. It's the story of a future in which psychic terrorists can (and do) target for murder anyone with a name connected to a face, simply by using the powers of their mind. Ergo, anonymity is EVERYTHING. This short reads like a detective interview, and oh man I was right there sweating in the chair beside the two main characters.
  
  As a Los Angeles County native, I loved the tastes of color and culture and life that are pure LA and nowhere else in the world. I appreciated the map in the beginning with the location of each story. This was so much fun and one I can't wait to revisit it during future ventures back to my home turf.
  
  Thank you so, so much Edelweiss and Consortium Book Sales & Distribution for the ARC! I'm so happy to have read this.
• 
  Rachel

  The first in a new city-based series from Akashic Books, Speculative Los Angeles is a triumph. Going into this, I clearly had no concept of the breadth of genre that the term "speculative fiction" encompassed. The stories in this collection range from magical realism, to Sci-Fi, to noir, to pure horror. These are not happy stories by any stretch of the imagination, but rather they will reach inside you, grab hold of your heart, your lungs, your stomach, and tear you apart. The first few were some of the hardest to read, for me. I sobbed almost the entire way through Alex Espinoza's "Detainment", and "Peak TV" by Ben H. Winters scared me so much I almost tossed the entire book in my freezer. The collection ends with "Sailing that Beautiful Sea" by Kathleen Kaufman, which was hauntingly beautiful and bittersweet. As for the tales in between, they were gray and desolate, exquisitely constructed stories of alternate realities, AI, and climate disasters. I'm a huge fan of the Akashic Noir series and I cannot wait to see what Akashic comes up with next.
  
  Out February 2, 2021. Thank you to Akashic Books and LibraryThing for the Advance Uncorrected Proof in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.
• 
  Lindsay

  “If Memory Serves” by Lynell George is the best story in here. Way more high-concept than the rest, and much more skillfully written. Similar to the other stories, George weaves in critiques of widening class inequality, gentrification, and environmental degradation. Hers is a much more intimate voice though, and that’s where the difference is. The prisms of memory and limited geography lend a texture and specificity to her voice which most of the other narratives lack.
  
  “West Torrance 2BR 2 BA W/Pool and Black Hole” and “Detainment” are provocative, but not as engrossing as George’s piece. And the Ben H. Winters story has an absolutely inane ending. Charles Yu was the reason I bought the book, and I enjoyed the experimental range of his story.
  
  I like the idea of the four thematic divisions of the collection—ghosts/parallel realities, steampunk, tears in space, and cops and robots—but the quality of the writing is so uneven, the intended thematic resonance just doesn’t come across. What differentiates spec fic as a genre from sci-fi is the uncanny—the imagined world is very close to ours, but with differences that are rooted and project from dystopian elements that already exist. Most of the stories in here, especially in the cops and robots section, are too far-flung and sci-fi, and homogeneously so, to qualify as spec fic in my opinion.
  
  Also, I get sick of hearing about how hot everything is and the Santa Ana winds. These are interesting and hellish things, but not if you read about them described in the same way by five different writers in a row.
• 
  Sam Sattler

  The good news here is that Akashic Books has begun a new series of short story collections similar to its successful series of noir short story compilations readers have enjoyed for several years now. The bad news is that the first offering in this new series of “speculative” short stories, Speculative Los Angeles, is not home to many really exceptional stories. According to the book’s editor, Denise Hamilton, the fourteen writers whose work is included in the collection were asked to “reimagine Los Angeles in any way” they chose to do so. The problem is that most of them could not get past the basic premise of the effects global warming might ultimately have on the city or what life would be like in Los Angeles after “the big one” knocks everything down around the city’s population. Some of the stories, in fact, have so little real plot that they become hardly more than a hallucinatory tour of the destroyed city streets and the people forced to live among the rubble.
  
  That’s not to say that there are not some good stories in the collection, because there are. Among those is “Peak TV,” a story by Ben H. Winters about a television producer whose new hit series seems to be causing teens to kill themselves in copycat fashion to what happens on the show. This one has a particularly nice twist at the end that makes it even better. Then there’s Aimee Bender’s “Maintenance,” the story of a little girl and her father who take comfort from a mastodon tableau on display at the city’s famous tar pits. The tableau speaks to them emotionally in a way that fits their own family circumstances, and they visit the tar pits every week to revisit the mastodon family - right up until the massive pieces disappear and no one knows where they went or who took them.
  
  One of the stories that does a good job with the destroyed-city concept is A.G. Lombardo’s “Garbo on the Skids” in which a bad cop thinks he his taking advantage of a beautiful young woman living in a condemned building but finds out that she may be a lot smarter than him. Another effective tale is “Walk of Fame,” a story by Duane Swierczynski in which someone has murdered so many celebrities that they are down to the “D-list” now. Needless to say, no one wants to be famous anymore.
  
  But as it turns out, my favorite story in the entire collection is its very last one: “Sailing That Beautiful Sea” by Kathleen Kaufman. This is the story of a dying woman being tended by specially-adapted caretaker bots who are doing everything possible to make her last days as comfortable as possible. The kicker is that she is now the last human being alive on the entire planet, and that after her death the bots will carry on alone in their own brave new world.
  
  Bottom Line: Perhaps Los Angeles was not the best choice as the city to launch the new series with because its dystopian future is so easy to visualize that it all seems to be too predictable after a while. I am looking forward to seeing what the next collection brings, however, because I do like the premise of a city-by-city alternate history survey of the world.
  
  Review Copy provided by Publisher
• 
  Daniel

  Part I: Changelings, Ghosts, and Parallel Worlds
  “Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Rancho Los Feliz” by Lisa Morton (Los Feliz) 3.5*
  “Detainment” by Alex Espinoza (El Sereno) 3*
  “Peak TV” by Ben H. Winters (Culver City) 3*
  “Past the Mission” by Denise Hamilton (Encino) 3*
  
  Part II: Steampunks, Alchemists, and Memory Artists
  “Where There Are Cities, These Dissolve Too” by S. Qiouyi Lu (La Puente) 3*
  “If Memory Serves” by Lynell George (Echo Park) 3*
  “Love, Rocket Science, and the Mother of Abominations” by Stephen Blackmoore (Pasadena) 2.5*
  
  Part III: A Tear in the Fabric of Reality
  “Purple Panic” by Francesca Lia Block (Studio City) 3*
  “Maintenance” by Aimee Bender (Miracle Mile) 3.5*
  “West Torrance 2BR 2BA w/Pool and Black Hole” by Charles Yu (West Torrance) 3*
  
  Part IV: Cops and Robots in the Future Ruins of LA
  “Walk of Fame” by Duane Swierczynski (Hollywood) 4*
  “Jaguar’s Breath” by Luis J. Rodriguez (Angeles National Forest) 3*
  “Garbo on the Skids” by A.G. Lombardo (Downtown Los Angeles) 3*
  “Sailing That Beautiful Sea” by Kathleen Kaufman (Century City) 3*
• 
  Mark Richardson

  I’m a sucker for well-done speculative fiction and this collection was right up my alley. I’m also a resident of California, and although I do not live in Los Angeles, I did live there for five years. I loved the variety of stories, how they took a different slant on speculative, from magical realism to sci-fi to horror. I particularly enjoyed the stories by Aimee Bender, Ben Winters, Denise Hamilton, S. Qioyyi Lu, Francesca Lia Block, Stephen Blackmoore, and Duane Swiercynski. Now I'm going to drop the paperback off in my downtown Community Book Box so hopefully someone else will enjoy it.
• 
  Cedricsmom

  3.5 stars. If you read only one story from this collection, make it Garbo on the Skids.
• 
  Alan

  Rec. by: MCL, and pride of place
  Rec. for: Angelenos, former Angelenos, and anyone who's ever wanted to burn the whole place down and start over
  
  I lived in Los Angeles myself for five long years, 'way back in the 1990s, and I can attest to this: it's fun to think about tearing the whole place down and starting over. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles might have been a great idea at its inception, but the sprawling metropolis that L.A. has become exhibits, let's say, some significant downsides.
  
  
  Speculative Los Angeles, from prolific editor and writer
  Denise Hamilton, doesn't shy away from that impulse. Many of the stories in this anthology deal with the destruction or downfall of the City of Angels. There's even one where Ellay never existed at all. But these stories also show a great deal of affection for the place, or for places within the place. Hamilton's anthology of originals, featuring so many authors who are new to me, is on the whole a good, solid read.
  
  
  The book is divided into four parts, with three or four stories in each section:
  
  Part I: Changelings, Ghosts, and Parallel Worlds
  “Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Rancho Los Feliz” by
  Lisa Morton (Los Feliz)
  This one's set in the Los Feliz neighborhood, just north of where I lived (in a section once called Koreatown that is now labeled "Little Bangladesh"), but it's a pastoral view of the place, an alternative tlmeline in which the city was never built... Sadly, we all know such an idyll cannot last forever. When
  Jack Parsons shows up, everything changes.
  The name "Alta California" also shows up in
  Annalee Newitz's
  The Future of Another Timeline, by the way.
  
  “Detainment” by
  Alex Espinoza (El Sereno)
  Too much truth makes this changeling tale hard to read.
  
  “Peak TV” by
  Ben H. Winters (Culver City)
  Jack Avril will hear your pitch now. Just as long as it's not about... floats.
  
  “Past the Mission” by
  Denise Hamilton (Encino)
  The editor's own story, but it's a pretty good one, even so.
  
  
  Part II: Steampunks, Alchemists, and Memory Artists
  “Where There Are Cities, These Dissolve Too” by
  S. Qiouyi Lu (La Puente)
  

  PTSD is a perpetual engine that powers you across space and time at the cost of splitting your being in two, astral-projecting one half while anchoring the other to a touchstone of trauma.
  —p.123

  QFT, as the kids say.
  
  “If Memory Serves” by
  Lynell George (Echo Park)
  While I'm not sure that a rideshare company would call itself "GIPSI" these days, this poetic and wistful story otherwise hit all the right notes for me—I have watched the same skies bloodied by the same fires feeding off the winds of "that saint's name" (p.136).
  

  Sometimes the color at this time of day gives me a headache.
  —p.137

  
  
  “Love, Rocket Science, and the Mother of Abominations” by
  Stephen Blackmoore (Pasadena)
  Jack Parsons pops up again, like... an unwanted erection. But this time... maybe he was right? Diana thinks so, anyway.
  
  
  Part III: A Tear in the Fabric of Reality
  “Purple Panic” by
  Francesca Lia Block (Studio City)
  So TIL that "purple panic" is not a nickname for a kind of cannabis, but for the jacaranda that periodically perfume much of Los Angeles. This story escalates from there...
  

  In some ways, my whole life since had been an exercise in forgetting.
  —p.189

  Block's tale is devoid of (almost) all SFnal elements... but it's one of the most affecting in
  Speculative Los Angeles, even so.
  
  “Maintenance” by
  Aimee Bender (Miracle Mile)
  Literalizing a metaphor; this one is intensely localized, to a place I've seen and wondered at myself.
  
  “West Torrance 2BR 2BA w/Pool and Black Hole” by
  Charles Yu (West Torrance)
  Make. Believe. This one's typical Yu, using the language of physics to talk about love and loss. Or vice versa.
  
  
  Part IV: Cops and Robots in the Future Ruins of LA
  “W★lk of F★me” by
  Duane Swierczynski (Hollywood)
  A gripping tale energized by its totally loopy premise—get enough telepathetics (heh) into a room and they can assassinate someone just by focusing on 'em. Fame becomes a liability in this scenario. And only the SPCA (Special Patrol, California division) can stop them.
  
  “Jaguar’s Breath” by
  Luis J. Rodríguez (Angeles National Forest)
  The Big One shook the city down, finally, but in many ways nothing changed. Rodríguez observes, as have so many others, that the weakest link in digital security measures is and has always been the humans involved.
  
  “Garbo on the Skids” by
  A.G. Lombardo (Downtown Los Angeles)
  Some things never change. Officer Travis' bodycam footage is proof enough of that.
  
  “Sailing That Beautiful Sea” by
  Kathleen Kaufman (Century City)
  

  The problem with bots was their inability to understand the concept of not giving a fuck.
  —p.284

  A strong finish for
  Speculative Los Angeles.
  
  (Table of Contents modified this time from
  Akashic Books' website.)
• 
  Emily

  An excellent collection of speculative tales set in and around Los Angeles, CA. Those familiar with the area, though, might find a great many things have changed, particularly in the future-set and alternate reality entries.
  My favorite piece was "Where There are Cities, These Dissolve Too" , involving a future in which the disenfranchised pick useful garbage from the landfill by day and turn it into fighting mechs by night, but more because of the relationship that unfolded against that backdrop.
  If I had to pick a least favorite, I'd say it was "Garbo on the Skids" where a cop freaks out about an inappropriate action he took while his body camera was on. The story itself was really quite well-written, though; I think it just made me uncomfortable.
  I strongly recommend this book to fans of sci-fi shorts and am eagerly looking forward to future entries in this series as the publisher, Akashic, previously released quite a few collections of short noir set in various locations. Could we get one for Minneapolis, please?
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  aloe

  purchased this book as soon as it became available for preorder in late 2020. i'm working on an anthology of speculative fiction short stories by queer, trans and non-binary asian writers, and one of my friends posted about this anthology. it appealed to me since i happen to be working on a similar project and i grew up in the 626.
  
  for folks interested in this book, here's some trigger warnings to note:
  - violence (gun violence, murder, war, police brutality)
  - child sexual abuse
  - sexual assault
  
  giving this anthology a 2.5/5 rating overall since there were only a few stories that i liked or stood out to me. here are the ones i liked:
  
  🔧 "where there are cities, these dissolve too" by s. qiouyi liu 🔧
  - loved the steampunk world: liu's writing made the characters and scenes come to life. the story felt realistic while providing a look into an alternate vision of la puente where it takes place
  - this story gets 10/10 for the ~bisexual/queer asian~ representation woohoo
  
  🦀 "sailing that beautiful sea" by kathleen kaufman 🦀
  - the last story in the anthology, included in the section under the theme of "cops and robots in the future ruins of LA", this piece differs from the other ones in that it's less action-driven and more reflective. main character is essentially the last human alive on a planet run by robots designed to care for her. much of the narrative moves between her present and the past.
  - wish there was more development around the protagonist kelsie's family and wife
  - bonus points for the compassionate depiction of a person living with/dying from cancer
  
  📺 "peak tv" by ben h. winters 📺
  - this story's ending genuinely took me by surprise which made it memorable long after i finished it
  - points for the dark satire about the impact of the hollywood/tv industry on young people
  
  things i didn't like about this anthology:
  👀 when the editor denise hamilton said in the intro: "from the moment our ancestors founded el pueblo de nuestra señora la reina de los ángeles del río porciúncula, we began to conjure up a fictional utopian past that suited us better than the blood-and-genocide-soaked reality of our western frontier" ---> uh who is "we"??? 🤔 sounds kinda colonizer/settler-y to me.
  
  👀 i didn't see how a.g. lombardo's story quite fit in with the rest of the stories which mostly focused on people struggling vs. his main character who was a sexually predatory cop. the repetitive descriptions of the body cam footage were overkill. was this a reference to the state-sanctioned murders of black folks that drew public outcry after body cam/eyewitness footage went viral? i think not because 90% of this story focused on the cop's obsession with violating every woman he comes across. did i need to read two different sex scenes where he fucked his wife and nutted in her? no, but a.g. lombardo clearly did not have feminists in mind when he wrote this for publication. the ending just reinforced the injustice that survivors and victims have to face in a police state. kind of appalling that this story made it into this anthology.
  
  👀 most of the stories have a dystopian/post-apocalyptic feel, which makes sense given they're set in LA, but would've liked to see more variety on speculative fiction besides predictable climate disasters and black mirror-esque societies.
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  Tonstant Weader

  Speculative Los Angeles seems like the start of another fabulous Akashic series. I hope it is. Akashic publishes a series of noir anthologies focused on different cities around the world. Speculative Los Angeles is a similar anthology focused on speculative and science fiction stories centered on L.A.
  
  There are fourteen stories grouped into four sections: Changelings, Ghosts, and Parallel Worlds; Steampunks, Alchemists, and Memory Artists; A Tear in the Fabric of Reality; and Cops and Robots in the Future Ruins of LA. The section titles give you a good idea of the sort of stories you will find.
  
  The first story, “Antonia and the Stranger Who Came to Rancho Los Feliz” by Lisa Morton is also excellent and sets our expectations high, a dangerous and risky thing, but it pays off because the stories remained excellent and memorable throughout. There is the strangely satisfying “Past the Mission” by Denise Hamilton, the series editor. The final story, “Sailing That Beautiful Sea” by Kathleen Kaufman, devastated me. If it were the only worthy story, the anthology would be worth your time, but it is just one of many.
  
  “Detainment” by Alex Espinoza seems like tomorrow’s story while others are more fantastical, such as “Love, Rocket Science, and the Mother of Abominations” and “Purple Panic” by Francesca Lia Block. “Jaguar’s Breath” by Luis J. Rodriguez was too frighteningly real. “Garbo on the Skids” by A.G. Lombardo was a wonderful vindication.
  
  Speculative Los Angeles was a wonderful book and I hope the beginning of a new series that will take us on a speculative tour of the world. What is so profound about this anthology is whether we go to an alternative universe, a future Los Angeles, or a multiverse city, the essential ingredients of the story are the human imperatives remain the same, love, family, and survival, and maybe a touch of vengeance here and there.
  
  I received an ARC of Speculative Los Angeles from the publisher through LibraryThing.
  
  Speculative Los Angeles at Akashic Books
  Denise Hamilton author site
  
  
  https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpre...
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  Scott Frank

  A very disappointing collection that fails to live up to its promise. So many authors live and writer about LA, and it's such a rich vein for speculative possibilities, that it's a shame this wasn't better, more intriguing, with better stories. The individual ones are desperately uneven, and to some degree, it feels...well, lazily edited. In the sense that they didn't seek out any variety of stories, really (with the notable exception of Aimee Bender's).
  
  The primary outlet for this is the sheer volume of stories (like 75% playing, with mixed success, on the dystopian LA theme. Look, that's a big trope, for sure, but 3 or even 4 stories that interrogate a dark, sinister future of Los Angeles is interesting, 14 stories that do it is boring. Where are the stories about the Unseelie Court that lives underneath Bunker Hill? Aliens who have am embassy in Lancaster? The alternate history where Marineland in Palos Verdes turned into a place of first contact with cetacean intelligences (these stories don't exist, I'm just giving examples of the breath of possible speculative fictions that could be written about the city - feel free to steal these pitches).
  
  The unfortunate truth, is that this volume of imaginative works about Los Angeles...sadly lacks imagination.
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  Sean McGurr

  I've read quite a few of Akashic Books [City] Noir books and have written lately that I've gotten bored with them as, oftentimes, the location seems to be an add on, with authors name dropping streets, locations, and landmarks without adding much to the story. In this newest series, while still set in a city, stories are speculative, which provides a whole new approach to the stories. While the opening up the location, it also allows the authors to intertwine locations more closely with the story. This first book, focusing on LA, perhaps one of the most noirish and speculative cities in the US. A perfect setting for a wide variety of stories, involving parallel realities, dystopian futures, and AI takeovers. As with any anthologies, there are strong stories and weaker one. The book ends on a perfect note with Kathleen Kaufman's "Sailing that Beautiful Sea."
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  Michael Dipietro

  Very Meh. I got the sense that these stories were rushed out to fulfill this anthology's premise and most of them were really bad - rife with SF cliches plus an overemphasis on up-to-the-minute social and political problems, and just cheesy bad writing.
  
  The only ones I'd recommend here, for being unexpected within the "speculative" prompt or having nice prose, are:
  "If Memory Serves" Lynell George
  "Purple Panic" Francesca Lia Block
  "Maintenance" Aimee Bender
  "Sailing that Beautiful Sea" Kathleen Kaufman
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  Cow

  Definitely a mixed bag. Some of the stories are brilliant (S. Qiouyi Lu's alone is worth the cost of the anthology). Some are...not great. One, I wish had had a content warning (the second-to-last story).
  
  But overall, worth the read. Friends who know me know of my deep love of Los Angeles, and while that plays in here, it must also be said: Los Angeles is a perfect place to set an anthology of weird stories. I just wish the entire second half of the anthology hadn't been so dark.
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  Angela

  Really enjoyed this collection. I am struck by how so many of the writers envisioned that our very much reliant tech-future also comes hand in hand with an environmental dystopia. It makes for an unnerving feeling about our future!
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  Salimah

  An engaging collection of dystopian, post-apocalyptic, paranormal, quantum tales that kept me engaged from beginning to end. Each story simultaneously captured the inherent creepiness and magic of the City of Angels and its surrounding environs.
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  Rick

  Interesting concept. Fourteen authors
  with future tales around the city.
  Most were very entertaining and
  I look forward to another spec city.
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  Ginny Sullivan

  4.5 stars! As usual, Akashic has compiled an excellent ensemble of writers for this mind-bending compilation.
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  Nancy

  Love the variety of stories and the imaginative treatments!
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  Bryan VanMeter

  Great collection of stories!