Reflection on Short Story Reading Club 8th Session, discussing Victims of Time (1968) by B. Sridhar Rao

I like to think that the prerequisite of science fiction is the ability to imagine the future. The kind of imagination that not only solves the current engineering problem. It should aim at the societal problem, then work the logistics (re: the science) around it. It’s like what Frederik Pohl, a prolific science-fiction author, said, “A good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.”

There is also another prerequisite for reading fiction in general. It’s called a suspension of disbelief. To be able to immerse oneself in the story, one must acknowledge that fiction is also a reality within itself. One must suspend one’s disbelief that the story is a lie. A symbolic lie, to be precise.

Hence, science fiction (and fantasy) might not be for everybody. The utter undermining of realism in both of those genres might bother some people who nitpick the logic over the logistics. Especially if one is already epistemologically well-versed in their scientific field, making it harder to suspend their disbelief.

That being said, even in the most realist, cut-out-from-life-experience story, I think all stories are symbolic. The curtain might be just blue, but the choice of blue meant something to the character—written or not—in the story. Stories vary in length, but the depth remains. Though how deep, can only be determined by the reader.

Hence, I am loving readers at the Short Story Reading Club, session by session! Each session is more interesting than the other in such different ways. They brought their knowledge and experiences, then lodged them in a solid collective interpretation and conversation. Took me a while (8 sessions! That means 3.5 months!) to start jotting down my reflection.

Victims of Time (1968) follows an elderly person who recounts the de-aging phenomenon, caused by anti-atom research by an eccentric professor named Theta. The research was meant to bring peace, but like any reckless science experiment story out there, the unintended effect becomes catastrophic.

The time when the story is written is such an important highlight in our discussion. Amidst the Red Scare and Cold War turmoil that loom over the world, the story blends the crazy scientist trope, the common man narrator, and unintended consequences in such a compact format. The seemingly anti-war and anti-weaponized nuclear development message was ‘cancelled’ by the scale of mass confusion and existential crisis that follows.

This makes the story interesting because it reeks of ideological subtext, especially in technological advancement. Does this story endorse the Luddites? Is it anti-war or cynical towards the notion? What’s clear, and I think we agreed upon, is that mortality is the bane of our existence, regardless of how it came about (forward or even backward in time). Some of us believe that it was more about the scientific guardrails.

Yet, the actual reality of the Cold War is that the warring powers delimit the scientific advancement and engage in an arms race. Ironically, all in the name of peace. The governments then were (are?) unreliable in regulating science in the name of power. It is odd, considering the trope that this story uses is an outlier: a crazy scientist who works outside anyone’s jurisdiction. This begs a question: was the story an implication in favor of more limitation on scientific advancement, or was the author just satirizing the hero complex? Where does the author stand particularly in that political climate?

Sadly, there is not much we can dig up about this author. Victims of Time is the only piece he put out in English. Any critical interpretation can only be derived from the text and the time when it was published. It is frankly refreshing to see how one can imagine a future in a time when ideological certainty was asked for and required. Maybe the story is a meta; that’s what the story is all about. In between those superpowers, lies an observer who saw the impact of it all from a third world away.