I always love when a sci-fi book is sent my way because it reminds me of how much I love the genre and how I really need to read more of it. Being sent The Library Cosmic was even more of a joy because it’s a short story collection of connected science fiction stories and I don’t think I’ve read a short story collection like that before.
That being said, I struggled a bit with The Library Cosmic. While the world of these stories are lush, readers are thrown into the thick of what is happening in this future world with little explanation of how we got here. We see these characters living and reacting to what is happening around them while trying to fit together of what is and isn’t normal and it can get hard to follow at times. In an interview with All Lit Up, Berman Ghan is quoted as saying, “[d]on’t explain it. If you can, it won’t be magic anymore” and my guess is that this is where the vagueness comes from in most of the stories.
I really enjoyed how technology was shown and talked about in his stories, particularly in “The Church of the Hot Pink Jesus” where the protagonist loans his body in a droid-like fashion for various uses from sex work to wait staff and janitorial work as a way to make money. I loved the emotion of “Wild Dream Country” though struggled to understand what was actually happening at certain points of the story. I loved the relationship between Elisha and Lawrence in the titular story, and the futuristic world of “The Resting Place of Trees” where humans are no more and robots and tech rule the land. There are great themes on what makes a human a human, a person a person, who are we when we become entwined with technology and how to we find community in a disconnected world, I just wish things were a little less vague. I wish Berman Ghan invited readers to understand this futuristic world instead of taking backseat and observing it. I like a puzzle, but wouldn’t mind some help putting it together.
And of course, I loved the messages of libraries that really binds the whole collection together, how they are spaces of knowledge, community, and understanding. Hopefully my library will get a copy soon!
A thought-provoking book that encourages it’s readers to really consider what it means to be human, this was a lovely collection that at it’s core is about love and community. You don’t want to miss out on these stories!
Publication: May 12 2026
Publisher: Buckrider Books
Pages: 242 pages (ARC Paperback)
Source: River Street Writing
Genre: Fiction, Short Stories, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤.5
Summary:
In this fabulous and moving collection of short stories Benjamin Berman Ghan traverses time, space and the written word to consider the mysteries of life. From ghosts to golems to far future AIs these stories ask the big questions: What is consciousness? What gives a being its soul? What are the boundaries of love? And, perhaps most importantly, how will libraries save us all?
Sarah O'Connor 