James Nicoll Reviews

Premee Mohamed’s 2025 One Message Remains is a collection of secondary-universe fantasy short stories.

Poor Seudast! So far from God, so close to Treotan.

One Message Remains

Major Lyell Tzajos is happy to serve glorious Treotan to the best of his ability, even if the best of his ability isn’t much, and service consists only of digging up graves. True, the people of occupied Seudast do not appear to appreciate having the unmarked graves of their war dead dug up, their funerary memorabilia sorted through, and the remains processed according to Treotan custom. But if the people of occupied Seudast knew what was good for them, Treotan would not have had to occupy them.

Objections to relocating war dead is rooted in the bizarre superstitions for which backward Seudast is known. Clearly, a civilized person like Tzajos must discount absurd local folklore and properly dispose of the honored enemy war dead. Heeding the warnings would be worse than foolish. It would disloyal to Treotan.

If it turns out that local superstition is simply an accurate accounting of a verifiable fact relevant to foreign grave-robbers? Too bad for poor Major Tzajos.

The Weight of What Is Hollow

Taya’s family survived the Treotan empire’s invasion and occupation of their homeland by making themselves useful to the empire. Taya’s family knows how to make especially efficacious gallows. As long as the empire has enemies who need hanging, Taya’s family is ensured a role. The empire will never run out of enemies to hang.

Colonel Gerhach of the Department of Justice has a very particular application in mind for Taya’s skills. To obey would be an egregious violation of executioner ethics. To disobey invites vendetta from a well-connected officer. What to do?

Forsaking All Others

Even a deserter has to trust sometimes, but trusting the wrong person at the wrong time could put more than one wayward ex-soldier at risk.

The General’s Turn

No prisoner subjected to the depraved game has ever survived. What would happen if they did?

The Treotan empire is rapacious, dishonest, and many of its loyal subjects are woefully ignorant and deluded, even when their ignorance puts their own lives at risk.

Where do SFF authors get their crazy ideas?

***

It turns out that reading this particular book at this particular time, as the US looks for a manifestly fraudulent pretext to invade and occupy Canada, was maybe not the best timing? In fact, I’d put my decision to read One Message Remains at this particular moment in time up there with re-listening to Nazi Eyes on Canada. That said, even removing the supernatural elements from these stories, there are some useful ideas here for obstructing occupying forces¹.

People who aren’t facing economic warfare and invasion in the next six-to-eighteen months might be able to appreciate the work on a less personal level. Mohamed demonstrates here her superb knack for writing, a knack that has earned her an astonishing number of award wins and nominations² and will no doubt do so again in the future. 

One Message Remains is available here (Psychopomp), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), here (Kobo), here (Words Worth Books).

I did not find One Message Remains at either Bookshop UK or Chapters-Indigo. This isn’t the first time I’ve been unable to find a book by a Canadian POC at Chapters.

1: I wonder why, when I rant about occupiers, First Nations people roll their eyes. Is that a supportive gesture with which I am not familiar?

2: ISFDB moves at human speeds, so that list omits Mohamed’s recent Nebula nomination.