Review of “Tales Lost Among the Stars” by Emiliano Forino Procacci

Score: 95(+)/100 (9.5(+) out of 10)

We've read a lot of short-story collections in this ongoing contest. However, perhaps the most colorful and varied of all these short-story collections is Tales Lost Among the Stars by Emiliano Forino Procacci!

What would happen in a world where oxygen is made scarce and needs to be purchased? A world in which everyone is required to wear a respirator and eat synthetic foods to stay alive?

What would happen in a world artificially created by an evil alien overlord to pacify, control, and exploit humanity? A world in which the lines between dreams, reality, and artificial reality are blurred as in The Matrix?

What would happen in a world in which people are overly dependent on artificial intelligence to make every single decision for them? And what would happen if that artificial intelligence deprioritized things like family, emotions, intimacy, and sentimentality for the sake of financial and career gains?

What would happen if Death weren't a big, huge, abstract, impersonal skeletal figure in a black cloak? What if Death were a ghost from your past? Someone you knew intimately?

What would happen when a father teaches his daughter to sweet-talk and “negotiate” with people in a manipulative way only to have it snowball into something exponentially more consequential?

What would happen in a world in which almost everyone stopped mentally aging and developing by the age of six, so everyone mentally remained six-years-old? What would happen if those six-year-old adults ruled every facet of human society from the governments, sports, schools, and cultures? The answer (according to this book) might shock, surprise, and amuse you (as it did us)!

We can say A LOT of great things about this short-story collection, but let's get this out of the way: “Eleutheria” was our favorite story in the entire collection by far!

“Eleutheria” concerns a world in which people stop mentally aging by the age of six (though they continue to grow physically). Now, we know what you're thinking: this is an allegory or satire about how our real-world leaders (and other adults) behave like petty, immature children sometimes. Well, you'd be a quarter right. This story is about much more than that. Where do we even begin?

Well, let's start with the main protagonist. The story focuses on Eleutheria, the titular character, who goes from being an advocate and an activist to eventually become the most politically-powerful and influential individual in the world despite having the mentality of a six-year-old.

One word personifies Eleutheria: IDEALISM.

Eleutheria is idealistic as heck. It's amusing, interesting, and a bit troubling. After all, a lot of idealistic people in the real-world can be charismatic and inspirational on one hand and manipulative and cult-leader-like on the other hand.

Anyway, Eleutheria's idealism isn't fueled by a selfish desire for power and money. No, she just wants to have fun and sweets, and she wants other people to be able to enjoy fun and sweets too. Eleutheria doesn't see the need for violence in sports or combat. She thinks that everything can be treated like a fun game, no different than tag or duck-duck-goose.

This story hugely subverted our expectations. We were totally expecting society to collapse due to the naivity and ignorance of the six-year-old-minded leaders. However, the opposite happened.

Crime rates decreased. Wars ended. The economy stabilized because everyone was content with sweets, toys, and play time.

Hey, maybe it's true what they say! Ignorance really is bliss.

Anyway, this book does have a pretty interesting wrinkle. There actually are people in the world who haven't stopped mentally aging and are actually elderly and antiquated in both mind and body.

The key figure among them (and main villain of the story) is Ebenise Farfuold, an old-fashioned politician who wants to take down Eleutheria and her blissful society of six-year-old adults. In a weird sort of way, we were oddly cheering for him in the beginning.

Eleutheria did come across as annoying, overly idealistic, and sorta like a cult-leader in the beginning of the story. At first, we didn't blame Ebenise Farfuold for opposing her. However, it became clear that he was on the wrong side of history when he knowingly and willingly began to reverse the positive gains that Eleutheria and her child-adults had made, especially their peace and prosperity.

This story also has one of the best quotes in the book: “The earth is filled with people who lost the spontaneity they had as children”

Another standout story in this book is “The Deceptions of the World.” In this story, Cassandra and her daughter, Adele, live in a world in which oxygen is a precious, rare commodity. Its supply is tightly controlled by the rich and powerful. True clean air, which should be a human right, is seen as a luxury reserved for the ultra-wealthy. It supposedly exists in a utopian world called Aether.

Well, it turns out that this book has an added layer of deception. Not only do Cassandra and Adele live in a tough world scarce on resources, but it's not even a REAL WORLD, and neither is Aether! It turns out that it's an artificial world created by an alien being known as the Dream Crafter, whose real name is Vertumnus.

Vertumnus is the closest thing to a pure villain in this book, although he shares some similarities with non-villainous or morally-ambiguous characters like the Architect from The Matrix. In fact, this story reminded us a lot of The Matrix and The Giver. However, Vertumnus proves himself to be far from a benevolent or morally-ambiguous being when he reveals that his illusion world, Aether, exists to trick humans into providing free resources (mainly labor) to his alien race. It actually functions a lot like the Matrix, only instead of providing energy to machines, the humans provide resources for Vertumnus's aliens.

There's another story called “Artificial Intelligence” which really spoke to us. How often do you refer to the internet, a search engine (like Google), or artificial intelligence for advice on what to do or say next? How often do you ask it what to think? What is “right” or “wrong?” Or even what to buy?

Well, “Artificial Intelligence” is a story that follows two people who are trapped in an abusive relationship with technology. Konrad is wholly dependent on his A.I., Eva, to plan his whole day and make choices for him. Because Eva dismisses things like family, human emotions, and sentimentality in order to prioritize professional/career gains, it convinces Konrad to ignore his family's calls in order to get more work done and to break a promise by missing his brother's wedding in order to go on a cruise with his bosses (in hopes of a promotion). This damages Konrad's relationships with his family members, particularly his brother.

Meanwhile, Annette Swift is a radio show host who should be able to lean on her natural charisma and her connection with her audience. However, she has become overly reliant on her A.I., Adam, who she constantly waits on for advice in almost every situation. It's like she has a sort of paralysis by analysis. However, it's not her that's doing the thinking and the analyzing, it's Adam. She can't even think or decide for herself anymore!

Even when she's crushing on a guy, she can't just genuinely feel the emotion of attraction, she has to wait for Adam to tell her that her heart-rate is elevated and to explain how she feels to her.
What a scary thought!

There's a brief little story in here called “Death's Question” in which a man named George encounters the apparent manifestation of Death in the form of a woman. However, unlike millions of others before, George doesn't ask about the universe or his mortality, he asks a question about Death and her well-being. Death reveals itself to be Helene, a woman he once deeply loved, who explains that Death appears to people in the form of someone who was dear to them (but had passed). She explains that “death is not a single entity” but a “collective.” This is a rather beautiful story about thinking outside and beyond oneself—being considerate and empathetic to the other person rather than only being concerned about yourself and your needs.

“Rising Cities” is another little, interesting story that satirizes the destruction of nature and the environment due to mass urban expansion. The people in the story build buildings and houses everywhere they can, even erasing forests, colonizing the sea, colonizing the mountains, and colonizing the sky. This is a cautionary tale about how we can't build indefinitely. At some point, we need to respect and protect nature from ourselves.

Probably the best quote from this story is “we're not going there to conquer”--which are the famous last words of rampant colonialism.

“The Negotiation” is another mind-bending, thought-provoking story!
The story follows a father and his daughter, Eleanor. The father constantly teaches Eleanor how to swindle, sweet-talk, negotiate, and manipulate people such as to get free tickets, products, or favors. This eventually gets her involved in illegal activities that land her in prison. However, her manipulative behavior doesn't end there!

One of the key themes from this story is freedom. Specifically, this is a story about freedom of speech. We often celebrate freedom of speech and advocate for it to be unrestricted. To an extent, that's a great thing. However, could it become a bad thing when it's pushed too far? What if speech is used to manipulate and swindle people?

This is a terrific collection of short-stories!

Check it out on Amazon!