And Side by Side They Wander

by Molly Tanzer

Synopsis:

An intergalactic art heist by a ragtag group of underqualified misfits. What could go wrong?

For three hundred years, humanity’s greatest works of art have been on loan at the Museum of the Seed-Born. It was finally time for them to come home...but the alien curators were disinclined to return them.

Force was out of the question. Earth’s government was clear: they were not going to press the issue. So, all we had was guile and hubris to fuel our little intergalactic art heist.

My old friend Tarquin was our leader, but not the captain. That was Tchik-tchik, though whether Tchik-tchik was our insectoid pilot’s name or species is still unclear to me. Misora, with her extremely illegal biotech mods, was our muscle.

Jack was there to hack the security systems of the biggest museum in the galaxy. He was a sensynth, a sentient synthetic being, and the most powerful machine intelligence on Earth uncorrupted by alien technology.

My name is Fennel Tycho. I’d like to tell you I was there because of my expertise in Art History. Truth is, I was there because without me, Jack would not have agreed to go. He was notorious for being difficult to work with—but it was a mistake to think I could make things any easier.

A meditation on the nature of love, life, and the "culture of the copy," And Side by Side They Wander asks the question: In a future where there are clones, androids, and a sentient mycelium that creates fungal simulacra, who is real and what is fake?

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Molly Tanzer’s And Side by Side They Wander is very clearly inspired by the actions of the British Museum, and their subsequent unlikelihood of ever voluntarily returning the items that were taken, though there are a number of other themes and ideas packed in there as well. There are references to Orpheus and Eurydice, musing on whether replicas of art pieces are still as moving and important as the originals, discussion of humanity royally messing itself up, sextuplets all folded up into the same body somehow (and able to separate when needed), the Great Mycelium which is clearly somewhat negotiating with humans… Tanzer’s clearly not short on ideas.

It really worked for me, on the whole; I’ve been fussy about what I want to read lately, having trouble settling, but I slid right into this. It helps that it’s short, of course, and the chapters are short too: it moves quickly and doesn’t linger too long on any one idea. Sometimes I’d have loved more information, but I think it’s a good thing that it doesn’t linger, because that’s not what the narrator’s interested in.

Sometimes the references to the British Museum feel just a little bit too obvious — I don’t want to spoiler exactly what happens, but suffice it to say that the same arguments for not returning art, like “our accessions policy doesn’t allow for it”, are parroted back just as ever by the villain of the piece.

A lot of questions are raised which the story doesn’t even try to answer, and indeed can’t, about what art is exactly, and what it means, but it works — it didn’t feel unfinished to me. Just a glimpse of one life, one perspective, one moment in time. It didn’t need to be more.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)