Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
Sarah Pinsker can do no wrong. This story was a roller coaster, speeding downhill, all fun and great, and then BAM we ran into a wall and fell into pieces and then what? And no. No! Oh god no! It’s fantastic and you should read it. Except not you, Mom. Or Margaret.
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
I don’t think I fully understood this story. I mean, I get the overall plot and everything, I understand what happened and what the characters learned, but the details of the big tech thing and how (or why) things get erased…I spent too much time (for a novelette I finished in less than an hour) puzzling over it. Don’t dazzle me – just tell the story.
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
I liked the style of this story more than the content, I think. It’s about an archaeologist who reads about an astronomical discovery that upends her views on everything. The setting is an alternate reality where the science really does uphold the beliefs of the young-earth creationists, so that’s the accepted view of the world and physics and everything. The story is told from her perspective as she relates her days and thoughts to God, via prayers that feel like letters or diary entries.
Started: 7/19/20
Finished: 7/19/20
Fascinating near-future story with tech that allows you to communicate with yourself in a parallel universe, which is really cool, but it’s about free will and how people use that tech to make decisions, to justify their actions. The tech is just the next thing (but it’s a very cool next thing to consider).
Started: 7/18/20
Finished: 7/19/20
This novella was inspired by the song The Deep (by clipping.), which I haven’t listened to yet. The premise is that the pregnant and going-into-labor slaves who were thrown overboard midocean (true) gave birth to mer-people (probably not true) who built a whole civilization and society around a historian who remembers everything so that the rest of them don’t have to. The story is mostly about the current historian who is having difficulties with this burden, but it also goes back into the memories. It’s very good.
Hugo voting ends in three days, and all I have left to read are six novelettes and six short stories. I’ve read five of the six novels (there’s one I can’t get my hands on), all six of the novellas, five of the six YA nominees, four of the six nominees for best series, a sampling of the best new writer nominees, and I’m not even going to try with the other categories. I had to draw the line somewhere.
But I can read six novelettes and six short stories by Wednesday night, right? I can. I can and I will, but I really need to get off the internet!