Metamorphosis — Alaya Dawn Johnson

Metamorphosis offers a taste of work from WisCon 39 Guests of Honor Alaya Dawn Johnson and Kim Stanley Robinson, as well as an interview of Johnson by Justine Larbalestier and an interview of Robinson by Jeanne Gomoll. In Johnson's “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” the narrator, who regards humans (their brains, especially) as a primary food source, must cope with conflicting impulses when one of the most appetizing humans he's ever met is also really, really hot. In “A Song to Greet the Sun,” a family reels when a father puts honor before love. Robinson's “The Lunatics,” deprived of memories, toiling for their truncated lives deep below the surface, walk in the nerves of the moon, tearing out promethium under the lash of the foremen. While in “Zúrich,” the narrator's desire to be the first Ausländer to make an impression on an inspector notorious for not refunding cleaning deposits leads to extraordinary effects on the city he is preparing to leave.