Ancestor’s Gift
"When he returned from his travels, he brought a contingent of scientists and engineers who built the tower and several other structures. But, after a year of serious work, they packed up and left."
Descent
"She didn’t care about any of my academic curiosities. About ii-mo or gba’agbo. She only cared about her sound mining business. About getting a competitive advantage. About winning."
We Begin Where Infinity Ends
"We Begin Where Infinity Ends" is a Mundane science fiction (MSF). It is a term coined by the writer Geoff Ryman to describe science fiction set on Earth with a plausible extension of our current technology. It is a story of three young adults, Naeto, Gozi and River. The three friends built environmentally friendly fluorescent tubes to help save endangered fireflies. Ryman, arguing for MSF, believes “that much science fiction, employing far-fetched concepts and unlikely technologies, is simply escapist.” Ryman “felt that this new focus on the here and now would give science fiction more relevance and greater social and political power." (Mundane Science Fiction in Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction in Literature. Edited by M. Keith Booker. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. P. 186). As an applied science fiction text, the interest in examining this story will be how it spurs the student's imagination to adapt our current technology in a way that makes it more environmentally friendly.
Where there’s smoke
The story features an ambitious young environmental studies graduate, who is keen and eager to bring change but her dreams are shattered by state corruption and climate injustice.
To rescue a self
This story is centred on Eketi, whose career as a journalist hit a dead end, forcing her to take a fellowship she earlier won as her only alternative for immediate survival, as she ponders her way forward in life.