Short fiction report #3
So, this be the one that won a Hugo a few days back. It's been available for online for some time now, but, cause I suck, I only just managed to make my way over and check it out. Was it worth it? Yes. Did it deserve to win? Mostly yes (I say this only because I thought it was a great piece of writing, but have not read any of the others that were up for the award). Should you read it as well? Yesss.
Short fiction report #3
Title: "Tideline"
Author: Elizabeth Bear, aka
matociquala
Published in: Originally published in Asimov's, June 2007 issue; available for free reading here
Length: about 4,300 words
Genre(s): science fiction, faux military SF
Plot summary, yadda yadda yadda: Chalcedony is the last of the war machines, robots built for battle, and she spends her time combing the beach for anything her sensors find to be desirable from local shipwrecks. She's making funeral necklaces, see, for the dead, for those that can and will remember said dead. These are her days now, and they go untouched until she spies someone watching her, a young boy named Belvedere. Together, they form a mother-son relationship, each helping the other in ways they only can. Eventually, he'll be everything Chalcedony needs to finish her work.
Thoughts: Well, that was unexpected.
Robot-with-a-youngling stories are not exactly brand new. There's Tik-Tok plus Dorothy in L. Frank Baum's world of Oz, there's R2-D2 and C3P0 with Dark Side n00b Anakin in Star Wars, there's a slew of others. (One I remember fuzzily, but can't gnab the name of, is about a young boy and the robotic maid his mother picks up for him at the antique store. The boy's older brother joined the Fleet and he wants to too. He does, eventually, breaking the maid's (?) heart. I think. It's hard to remember.) Yet, in "Tideline" we have something a bit different. An amiable relationship, one that makes sense. Chalcedony needs help with her necklaces, Belv needs to learn how to survive. That's basically the story, too, them doing their own thing until the time comes for them to move on or end. What makes "Tideline" worth it though is not the SF aspects (though Bear's descriptions of Chalcedony and her tools is very engaging), but watching the two of them grow closer, knowing that, inevitably, they will part. And when they do, gah, it's like a needle to the eye. I even went back and re-read the final section, making sure I understood what was happening. So simple, so plainly understood from the getgo, yet still a tough bolt to swallow. It's enlivening that that's how this one turned out, with the inhuman acting human and the human doing as told.
So, yeah. I liked it. A lot. A very quiet story that sneaks up and holds onto you for a great length of time.
Typos (cause I'm annoying like that and can never shut off my inner editor): None again. I must be losing my touch...or the world is getting better!
Score: 5 spicy tuna rolls out of 5
Short fiction report #3
Title: "Tideline"
Author: Elizabeth Bear, aka
matociquala
Published in: Originally published in Asimov's, June 2007 issue; available for free reading here
Length: about 4,300 words
Genre(s): science fiction, faux military SF
Plot summary, yadda yadda yadda: Chalcedony is the last of the war machines, robots built for battle, and she spends her time combing the beach for anything her sensors find to be desirable from local shipwrecks. She's making funeral necklaces, see, for the dead, for those that can and will remember said dead. These are her days now, and they go untouched until she spies someone watching her, a young boy named Belvedere. Together, they form a mother-son relationship, each helping the other in ways they only can. Eventually, he'll be everything Chalcedony needs to finish her work.
Thoughts: Well, that was unexpected.
Robot-with-a-youngling stories are not exactly brand new. There's Tik-Tok plus Dorothy in L. Frank Baum's world of Oz, there's R2-D2 and C3P0 with Dark Side n00b Anakin in Star Wars, there's a slew of others. (One I remember fuzzily, but can't gnab the name of, is about a young boy and the robotic maid his mother picks up for him at the antique store. The boy's older brother joined the Fleet and he wants to too. He does, eventually, breaking the maid's (?) heart. I think. It's hard to remember.) Yet, in "Tideline" we have something a bit different. An amiable relationship, one that makes sense. Chalcedony needs help with her necklaces, Belv needs to learn how to survive. That's basically the story, too, them doing their own thing until the time comes for them to move on or end. What makes "Tideline" worth it though is not the SF aspects (though Bear's descriptions of Chalcedony and her tools is very engaging), but watching the two of them grow closer, knowing that, inevitably, they will part. And when they do, gah, it's like a needle to the eye. I even went back and re-read the final section, making sure I understood what was happening. So simple, so plainly understood from the getgo, yet still a tough bolt to swallow. It's enlivening that that's how this one turned out, with the inhuman acting human and the human doing as told.
So, yeah. I liked it. A lot. A very quiet story that sneaks up and holds onto you for a great length of time.
Typos (cause I'm annoying like that and can never shut off my inner editor): None again. I must be losing my touch...or the world is getting better!
Score: 5 spicy tuna rolls out of 5