Teika Marija Smits

A lovely collection of loosely entwined tales, with a touch of the kind of modern fairy tale spirit of Charles de Lint: the magic seeps around the edges of the mundane.
From robots of the future to visitations from a goddess of storytelling herself (and three different takes on the classic tale of the minotaur and the labyrinth), the great joy of this collection include the recursive visitations of place and character from angles askew.

The short stories are beautifully conceived, occur in a future or past timeline, recounting human or AI experiences, and take you through all emotions as you traverse the author's creation stories in Umbilical. Some are tragic and gut-wrenching accounts but they always take you to places you don't expect. I thoroughly enjoyed the voyage.