Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained from the publisher in advance of the book's release on April 5, 2022 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
One Arm Shorter than the Other by Gigi Ganguly
One Arm Shorter than the Other is a debut novella by Indian author Gigi Ganguly, being published by a small press here in America in April. It's a novella in two parts, with the first part featuring a series of short stories all connected by a single theme - a repair shop in Delhi whose workings result in magic - and a second part featuring a longer story that explains the origins of what came to pass in those stories.
It's a really well done novella, an interesting tale with ideas of love, loss, and eternity throughout, that shifts from fantasy in the beginning to a more clearly sci-fi touch in its final acts. It's not the type of work that'll blow you away, but it's effective and worth your time for a different touch to a novella.
Quick Plot Summary: In three different decades, three different individuals search Delhi and find a simple repair shop, which contains within a number of odd items. There each of the three has repaired a specific item - a projector; a television; or a radio - and finds the item returned to be far more than they imagined, responding to their needs and wants in a way they never could have hoped for.
Several Thousand Years later, a 23 year old breaks a vase......
Thoughts: There really isn't any way to describe the plot of One Arm Shorter than the Other without spoiling what happens, even if it's not a story that's really relies too much on surprise. In the first act, each of the three protagonists, each of whom has had a sense of loss - for one, grief of a lost loved one, for another, loss of what he feels should have been a rightful career, for the last, a loss of having someone to keep her company - brings something to the repair shop and receives something in return that goes right to that feeling of loss. That said, how it does so is very different each time, and what each protagonist get is something they deserve....and in one case that isn't something necessarily very nice (and is kind of horrifying anyhow).
And then there's the second act, which is a longer novelette-size story dealing with love and longevity (and loss again). The less I say about it the better, but it works as a nice complement and capper to the original three stories, both explaining them and dealing with similar themes at the same time.
None of this is really spectacular or super pulling on your heartstrings - the novella doesn't really last long enough for that. But it's well done and interesting and thus worth your time if you're interested in seeing a SF/F novella from a different perspective, dealing with these themes of loss, grief, longevity and what comes next.
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