I rather enjoyed my first go at the Short Thoughts on Short Fiction format so I picked a fresh bunch of stories of the web for your entertainment. This batch is all science fiction, I’ll see if I can make the next one more varied. All of these stories are available online for free. This week I included the following stories.
A Flock of Birds by James Van Pelt – Read here
A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations by Kim Stanley Robinson – Read here
Two Dream on Trains by Elizabeth Bear – Read here
A Spy in Europa by Alastair Reynolds – Read here
The Season of the Ansarac by Ursula K. Le Guin – Read here
A Flock of Birds by James Van Pelt
After reading the post-apocalyptic anthology Wastelands I decided Van Pelt’s contribution The Last of the O-Forms was one of the highlights of that collection. Van Pelt has written only one novel that I am aware of but his bibliography lists close to a hundred short stories a number of which are available online. A Flock of Birds, first published in 2002, turns out the be a post-apocalyptic story of sorts as well. The author isn’t very clear on what happened but it looks like things got very much out of control after the 9/11 attacks.
Despite the disaster that has occurred bird-watcher Carson tries to continue with his life as much as possible. Around him people have left or died. A while ago he met a confused woman and took her in. He cares for her as best he can but she remains closed to him and mentally unstable. When she takes ill he tries to find her antibiotics but they prove hard to find. In the mean time he continues his bird-watching. One day he spots a bird he does not recognize. When he figures out what species it is, it turns out the be a reminder than while a lot of things have left the world as he knows it, some are actually returning.
It’s not a happy story, in fact, the world Van Pelt describes is so dreary that it’s a miracle there are people left at all. Carson’s strategy to survive and escape depression in an interesting one. Many readers will think Carson odd, he is in a way. On the other hand he’s also likeable, caring and resourceful. One of those people that seem most likely to make something of a collapsed society. Interesting story but given how events unfolded after 09/11, it does feel a bit dated.
A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations by Kim Stanley Robinson
Kim Stanley Robinson is one of my favourite science fiction writers. I have only reviewed one of his books for BSC though, he is horribly under-represented in our database. Unfortunately Robinson does not have a whole lot of free fiction online but I was able to find one on Infinity Plus. There are two version of this story, the first was published in Asimov’s, Robinson later rewrote it for inclusion in one of his short fiction collections. It does not explicitly say so but I am pretty sure the version I read the the rewritten one.
A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations uses a lot of themes we see in Robinson’s novels as well. The main character is a depressed writer of historical non-fiction by the name of Frank Churchill. He is undergoing light therapy when his agent contacts him about a new book on the history of the twentieth century for a London publisher. At first Frank does not take the assignment seriously. It sounds like a coffee table book to him. The money is good though so Frank decides to take the offer anyway. He heads to London to do his research in the British Museum library. When researching the first world war his depression hits in full force. His behaviour becomes erratic and finally he makes a run for it. North to Scotland and the Orkneys.
Characters with mental problems seem to interest Robinson. He wrote about the permanently homesick Michel Duval in the Mars Trilogy and Frank Vanderwal in the Science in the Capital series, who’s behaviour becomes decidedly odd after suffering head trauma. Frank Churchill reminds me a lot of these two. His response to his unhappiness is one we see more often in Robinson’s work as well. By making a run for it and seeking out the wide open spaces he basically returns to an ancient mode of behaviour, our days as primates on the plain as the author would put it in his other writings. Being on the move makes humans happy. It does indeed break Frank’s depression and pessimism in the future. Just what he needs to complete his book. It’s an interesting story in light of Robinson’s other work but on it’s own it is not brilliant. It does make me want to visit the Orkneys though.
Two Dream on Trains by Elizabeth Bear
I found this one at Strange Horizons, it’s the shortest story of the bunch at about three thousand words. Bear manages to cram a lot of information into those words though. The story is set in a future New Orleans. Rather than trying to keep it dry the city has been floated. Society seems to have evolved into several castes and which one you belong to determines your chance at a trip to the stars from the nearby spaceport. Patience is willing to make whatever sacrifice it takes to get a ticket out, if not for herself then for her son. Her son Jayve sees things differently though, he wants to be an artist. Not an occupation that will get him anywhere according to Patience.
Interesting story, obviously inspired by graffiti artists. I guess teenagers are not expected to change much in the centuries to come. It’s a very recognizable conflict, very cliché really, but I like the way Bear handles it. The recognition of the situation by the scarrist Patience is visiting in particular. And the idea of… decorating a space shit is of course very cool.
A Spy in Europa by Alastair Reynolds
This story is set in Reynolds’ Revelation Space. There are five novels in this setting at the moment and a whole lot of short fiction. This particular story is included in Reynold’s collection Galactic North. It is one of his earlier stories, first published in 1997. It can be read independently but I think you get more out of it with one or two Revelation Space novels under your belt.
The story is set on Europa and follows a spy of one of the two main fractions vying for control of Jupiter’s moons. Marius Vargovic is a Gilgamesh operative sent to the Demarchist settlements on Europa to make contact with one of their “sleepers” on that moon. She has uncovered a Demarchist secret that could make them extremely vulnerable. Marius goes into it as he would on a routine mission but things don’t quite turn out as expected.
Despite it being a short story Reynolds manages to stuff in a lot of technology and astronomy. Readers familiar with his other Revelation Space works will also appreciate the insight into Demarchist society. Some members of this faction play an important part in the novels. If you like hard science fiction you can’t really go wrong with Reynolds. I liked this story a lot, I guess I need to check out some more of his short fiction for this column.
The Season of the Ansarac by Ursula K. Le Guin
I am not entirely sure when this story was first published. It was included in the collection 2003 collection Changing Planes but it appears to have been available before then. In The Seasons of the Ansarac Ursula K. Le Guin shows us a world where the lives of the sentient species Ansarac follow a migratory pattern. Their world knows a year that is as long as 24 of our own. An Ansarac can expect to live three of their years. In the story an old Ansarac explains their way of life to an outsider and what happened when contact with an alien species threatened to disrupt the pattern.
The strong sociological theme in the story is not a surprise given Le Guin’s oeuvre. The migratory pattern is an interesting idea but arrogant as they may be, the outsiders are not completely wrong, their way of life does limit them in some ways. I wonder if a sentient species would not have found a way around that sooner or later. Or maybe they will, even the old Ansarac telling the story is not entirely adversed of breaking with tradition. Lots of food for thought in this story. I liked it a lot.
That’s it for this edition, there will be more short thoughts on short fiction but I have a stack of books to review first.
“A Flock of Birds” was definitely my 9/11 reaction story. I know a lot of authors who tried to process the events one way or another in fiction. I think you’re right about how quickly those events evolved and how they look from our current perspective. A lot of the the story’s punch required the 9/11 event to be fresh in the reader’s mind.
Thanks for choosing the piece to look at.
Thanks for stopping by! I live on the other side of the Atlantic, so I think even a few years back the impact on me personally would not have quite been the same as how an American might experience it. That’s a matter of perspective though, I can definitely see it could pack more of a punch shortly after the events to people who were more closely involved.