Molly Tanzer

About And Side By Side We Wander

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 Greenwood Museum. 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?

And Side by Side They Wander

This novella feels like old sci-fi to me. Specifically Isaac Asimov. I think the connection is because there is an android romance in the book and I cannot help but remember the wierdness in….I think it was The Naked Sun, but I could be wrong.

The story has so much going on. We have an art heist, a mentally unwell main character, a kinda whiney android, a spaceship (this isn’t really something that most people care about but I LOVE spaceships), and some bullshit-ery from the folks who rule the world. I also love that there is a real discussion of the importance of art to humans, but also as a concept in science fiction. Often science fiction writers pull concepts from art and the resulting allusions and connections make the story feel richer. At least to me, because I can see the connections they are making to something from the here and now. This relatability is crucial for science fiction that takes place in the far future or not on Earth.

Needless to say, I loved the book.