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  Praise for Quantum Santeria

  “Hernandez shows off his facility with a variety of concepts and genres, and each scene is realized to its full potential.”

  —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

  “It’s not every writer who can manage to be funny, terrifying, philosophical, metaphysical, and scientific at the same time, but narrative genre-blending is Carlos Hernandez’s stock in trade. I start reading each story wondering what he’s going to come up with next, and finish it having learned something about humanity and faith and also giant pandas or ghost jellyfish. A remarkable collection.”

  —Delia Sherman, author of Young Woman in a Garden

  “Hernandez’s The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria is fantastic and sincere, seamlessly blending science, magic and love. Whether rescuing trickster jellyfish frozen on Mount Everest, or reattaching legs to a lover’s husband via superportation, Hernandez cuts to the human heart of each story and wraps an ebo around his readers.”

  —Eden Robinson, author of Monkey Beach

  “In his debut collection, Carlos Hernandez explores the ways in which we conform our identities to fit into worlds that would otherwise break us. But all of his characters strive to reclaim the parts of themselves that could easily be thought of as lost. Funny, smart, and fierce, these stories are a breath of fresh air in a tightly constricted world.”

  —Christopher Barzak, author of Wonders of the Invisible World

  “Irreverent, ebullient, dark, hopeful, sharply funny, and achingly sensitive, Hernandez brings us a rich tapestry of Latino experience. Absolutely not to be missed.”

  —Julia Rios

  “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernandez is an exceptional collection of imaginative stories that are as captivating as they are entertaining.”

  —Erin Underwood, editor The Grimm Future

  “These delightful stories from Carlos Hernandez dance with a light step and a knowing wink, and yet that effervescent surface wraps jaw-dropping twists and mind-bending concepts within its boundaries. Science fiction and magical realism freely fraternize, quantum fluctuation and ritual incantations just two aspects of the same great mystery. In these intimate stories of families rent apart and repaired, that mystery is just as likely to be encountered in a humble kitchen or a lover’s bed as it is in outer space or the deepest trenches of the ocean. Each story is a shimmering pond that once dived in proves bottomless. The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria is a remarkable debut, an intoxicating breath of fresh air.”

  —Mike Allen, editor of Clockwork Phoenix, author of Unseaming, Nebula and Shirley Jackson Award finalist

  “The Assimilated Guide to Quantum Santeria is fiercely smart and entertaining; a polished collection of stories by one of speculative fiction’s most distinctive and original voices.

  “Hernandez’s science fantasy transfixes as it explores technological paradoxes and inhuman intelligences in compellingly human (and humane) ways. And the Latino urban (and suburban) fantasy pieces sprinkled into the collection are like the best dark añejo rum: warm, smoky, exquisitely sharp and sweet. Hernandez’s stories go down smooth and easy, and finish with a kick.”

  —Sabrina Vourvoulias, author of Ink

  “Carlos Hernandez swindles you with a mixture of levity, authenticity, and sorrow that’s too true to be unreal.”

  —Charles Tan

  “Carlos Hernandez treats science, culture, and genre with a bracing irreverence. The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria is a zany, kaleidoscopic whirl of a book that delivers both tantalizing ‘what ifs’ and moments of true pathos.”

  —Sofia Samatar, author of A Stranger in Olondria

  Earlier versions of stories from The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria appeared in the following publications:

  “The Aphotic Ghost” in Bewere the Night, Prime, 2011; “Homeostasis” in Futurismic, 2009; “The International Studbook of the Giant Panda,” in Interzone, 2013; “The Macrobe Conservation Project” in Interzone, January 2006; “Los Simpáticos” in Hit List: The Latino Mystery Reader. Arte Público Press, 2009; “More Than Pigs and Rosaries Can Give” in Exotic Gothic V, Volume 2, PS Publishing, 2013; “Bone of My Bone” in Cosmopsis Quarterly, Fall 2007; “American Moat” in A Robot, A Cyborg & a Martian Walk into a Space Bar, Nomadic Delirium, 2015; “Fantaisie Impromptu No. 4 in C#min, Op. 66” in Crossed Genres Magazine, Crossed Genres Press, 2014; “The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria” in Interfictions II, November 2009.

  The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria

  Copyright © 2016 Carlos Hernandez. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or retransmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

  Rosarium Publishing

  P.O. Box 544

  Greenbelt, MD 20768-0544

  ISBN: 978-1-4956-0739-4

  LCCN: 2015937847

  Cover Art by Bizhan Khodabandeh

  Claire,

  You’re the most perfectly named person I’ve ever known.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction by Jeffrey Ford

  The Aphotic Ghost

  Homeostasis

  Entanglements

  The International Studbook of the Giant Panda

  The Macrobe Conservation Project

  Los Simpáticos

  More Than Pigs and Rosaries Can Give

  Bone of My Bone

  The Magical Properties of Unicorn Ivory

  American Moat

  Fantaisie Impromptu No. 4 in C#min, Op. 66

  The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  by Jeffrey Ford

  The title of this collection, The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria, seemed wonderfully outlandish to me when I first encountered it. To the contrary, though, the book perfectly delivers on that title as if only that title could do it justice. Everything it suggests is here–Science, Faith, Assimilation, Particle Physics, Cuba, contemporary Latino culture in the U.S., and a sensibility that recognizes a vast world beyond. Not only do each of these elements appear within the book, but they appear, very often all at once, in each of the book’s dozen stories. What with all these themes weaving together throughout, Hernandez’s collection gives the effect of seeming greater than the sum of its parts. None of this becomes obtrusive in the reading. The stories are too strong–the narrative drive, the voice, the concision in writing, the smart dialogue, the slyly judicious application of research. They gracefully balance the book’s thematic concerns. As a writer of short stories, I found much to admire in The Guide and as a reader, even more. Following are a few observations that struck my fancy and sparked my imagination.

  There are “real” science fiction stories in this collection. What I mean by “real” is that the nature of the technology or the aspect of the physical universe that is central to the plot resonates metaphorically with the plight of the character or characters. This is a type of storytelling you don’t encounter much in SF but which makes for the finest stories. Finding that metaphor to bridge the character and technology is often very difficult, so writers don’t bother with it and what you wind up with is an adventure tale. I like a good adventure tale, but I’d rather find a “real” work of science fiction–the kind written by authors like Ted Chiang. Hernandez includes a number of such stories in The Guide, and the beauty of them is that they don’t traffic in the technologies of past generations–rockets, ray guns, witty robots. The
technologies at the core of these stories are extrapolated from cutting edge discoveries in a whole host of fields from neuroscience to the Aphotic Zone. As well, the characters’ issues are contemporary ones we might witness or experience ourselves.

  I mentioned earlier that there was a lot I admired about this book. The technique that makes these science fiction stories believable within the context of their fictional worlds is the author’s research. Hernandez has obviously done his homework in that his explanations as to the nature of certain technologies or physical phenomena have a confident clarity to them. They are firmly based in science and so convincingly explained that it’s difficult to tell where the science leaves off and the fiction begins. As a story writer, I love that sleight of hand. It takes a graceful touch to parse out research to the reader–not too much, not too little–so that the result is effective and yet not generally noticed. This goes for the stories in the collection that are also not science fiction. Aspects of history, culture, politics that appear throughout all seem right on, offering no reason to doubt their validity. This serves to draw the reader more fully into the story.

  Although Latino characters appear in the early science fiction stories of the collection, you’ll notice that Latino culture, and specifically Cuban and Cuban-American culture become more prevalently the focus of the fiction as you continue through the book. It’s not that this is definitive, because some of the later stories deal with Science as well. These pieces range from the weird to the absurd to the fantastic. What’s wonderful about all of the stories is that Hernandez very economically creates interesting characters, who, even though they don’t always do the right thing for themselves or others, we root for them, we care about them. There’s an emotional core to all of the stories here. Even in the midst of humor or horror, there’s a human connection at play. There’s something for the reader beyond the dazzling science and the enigmatic, beyond the clarity of the writing. These stories always return us to ourselves where we find the connection with a character’s foibles, triumphs, mistakes, loneliness, fear, joy.

  It’s clear to see, through the writing, that this connection is at the core of the author’s intent. There are very few instances of structural pyrotechnics. What you get is pretty much all story, all the time. Beginnings, middles, ends. The masterful economy of writing and the undeniable narrative drive pull the reader in and don’t let go. With each of these pieces, it took no more than a paragraph, and often less, to hook me and make me want to find out what happens next. Nothing compares to a classic story structure with clear, descriptive writing. All of these stories, for whatever else is happening in them, no matter amazing scientific concepts or the mysteries of Santeria, concentrate their energy primarily on the character/characters and how they deal with their dilemma(s), their desire to connect, to understand themselves and where they belong. This is where the real power comes from in Hernandez’s fiction.

  Going back to the title of the book, which I mention in my opening paragraph, you might wonder where the “Quantum” aspect can be found. I counted a half dozen instances of the mention of or allusion to some concept from quantum physics (I’m betting there are more)– Schrodinger’s Cat, the multiple universes theory, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, etc. They lurk in the background of the stories and sometimes move forward to affect the outcome of the plot. It’s fitting they should permeate the book in that they hint at probability instead of certainty. All of the stories here continue to give that sense of uncertainty, that impetus to make you read on, until at the very end when the wave collapses and the reader experiences the outcome of the drama. In other words, nothing is predictable to a certainty. How many times do you find fiction that you can say that about?

  My last observation is one also involving the title. What better guide could an assimilated Cuban have than another assimilated Cuban. Hernandez’s family is Cuban, and we get to see the world from a Latino perspective in these stories. The pieces where this is most obvious are some of my favorites in the book. Although I’m accessing these through the filter of a different culture, there is some magic there that allows me to find myself in them most readily. There is great humor and pathos in these stories. The descriptions of those things I’m unfamiliar with are succinct and illuminating, and I’m never confused as to what’s going on. Perhaps the best of all is the final story of the book that carries the collection’s title. Santeria, which is mentioned in the title and has an important part in the story, is the religion of African slaves brought to Cuba; a mix of Yoruban beliefs and practices blended with some Catholicism and native Caribbean faith. Because these slaves were not permitted to practice their religion outright, they had to veil their saints and holy figures behind those the Catholic Church approved of. In other words, they assimilated themselves and their religion into the new world. This assimilation was not a forsaking of their culture or religion but a way for it to survive and thrive against the horrors and iniquities of slavery. Hernandez’s Guide is about how to survive contemporary culture with its incredible scientific advancements and mishaps, its sometimes tenuous relationships, its lack of certainty, its treacherous racial and cultural divides, and through all of it to be able to encompass your past and manage to hold on to who you really are.

  An ingenious title for a wonderful collection. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

  The Aphotic Ghost

  Mountain

  Sometimes when a body dies in Everest’s Death Zone, it doesn’t come down. Too difficult, too much risk for the living. Thing is, it’s so cold up there, bodies don’t rot. They get buried by snow periodically, but the terrific winds of the South Col reliably reveal them: blue, petrified, horned by icicles, still in their climbing gear, always forever ascending. They scandalize the Westerners who paid good money to climb Everest and who don’t especially want to be reminded of how deadly the journey can be. But then their Sherpas usher them past the garden of corpses and, weather permitting, to the top of the world.

  I am a Westerner, and I paid good money to climb Everest. But the summit wasn’t my goal. I was going to get my son Lazaro off of that mountain, dead or alive.

  Sea-Level

  Lazaro’s mother, Dolores Thomaston, taught twelfth-grade biology at the same school where I taught AP World History: Bush High, right on the Texas-Mexico border. Lazaro was born of a dalliance between us almost three decades ago.

  Dolores had an Australian ebullience and a black sense of humor and a seeming immunity to neurosis that made her irresistible to me. She could have been 25 or 55, and I never found out which. She’d made a splash in the scientific world a few years before coming to Bush with a paper she co-authored on a deep-sea jellyfish that, interestingly, was immortal. After it reproduced, it returned to a pre-sexual polyp state through a process called cell transdifferentiation, and then become an adult again, and then a polyp, and so on. The layman’s version is this: age meant nothing to that jelly. It only died if something killed it.

  Dolores and I spent the summer together. I really believed we were on our way to getting married. That’s why I wasn’t worried when she started talking children. In fact, I was surprised to discover how much the idea of children tickled me. I had no idea how much I wanted to be a father until she put the prospect before me. I’d spent all of my adult life contemplating history, and now, suddenly, I was awash with dreams of the future.

  She asked me what I would name the child, so I told her: “Brumhilda.”

  “Be serious,” she said.

  “I am!”

  “Yeah? So what if it’s a boy?”

  I kissed her, the first of many that night. And then I said, “Lazaro.”

  Aphotic Zone

  Dolores didn’t just leave me. She vanished right after we consummated our relationship. She left a note on her pillow that I promptly set fire to in a skillet before reading, then spent the next two decades wishing I hadn’t.

  I didn’t know she had died during childbirth, that she had opt
ed for an ocean water-birth. Ocean-birthing. Of all the crazy trends. She never left the water.

  I found all of this out from a young man named Lazaro Thomaston when he came to meet me. He was 21, already a man. By then I’d missed my chance to be his father.

  Sea-Level

  An hour since I’d learned I’d been a father for 21 years, Lazaro sat on the couch with me, showing me his portfolio. He worked as an underwater photographer and videographer. “It’s second nature to me, being in the water,” he said. “Really it’s the ocean that raised me.”

  “Looks like the ocean did a pretty good job,” I said.

  He specialized in ultra-deep dives, descents into the bathyal region, which is the topmost stratum of the ocean’s aphotic zone: lightless, crushing, utterly hostile. There he had recorded a score of species new to science; he’d made his reputation before he could take a legal drink. His images were haunting and minimalist, the engulfing darkness defied only by the weak bioluminescence of the sea life and, of course, him. Off-camera, he shined like a sun, illumining the depths like the first day of creation.

  “These are incredible,” I said. “You must he half fish.”

  “Got that from Mom,” he said. And turned the page.

  Mountain

  Rather than take a leave of absence from work to climb Everest, I retired early. Lost some money that way, but I had more than enough money to get to the summit, get back, and bury my son. After that, the future would take care of itself. Or go fuck itself. Either way.

  I was old to climb the world’s tallest mountain, but not as old as some. The ascent from the Southeast ridge is by mountaineering standards fairly straightforward, especially with today’s technology. If you died it was because you were reckless, or bad weather surprised you, or your body gave out and you probably should never have attempted it in the first place.