Brothers, love, reflection. I was worried that this story, which starts out on a downer and pretty much continues down for several thousand words, would have an unhappy ending. Thankfully, that isn’t the case.
I mean, gosh, this is just an imperfectly-OCRed version of the story, and if you really want to see the real thing by all means pick up the book. But even here, reading off this Scribd document on a glowing computer screen, I am transported back fifteen years to the dusty Hardin County library, where I pulled down a book of Bradbury stories off the shelf and sat on one of those metal wheeled library stools and just read.
Bradbury always makes me miss the musty-sweet smell of that building’s old air conditioner, the claustrophobic science fiction stacks on the second floor, and the way the thick old walls would slow summer afternoons to a crawl. It’s ironic that a forward-thinking science fiction writer could create such a sense of nostalgia, but then Bradbury’s magic always leads back to childhood somehow, to stillness, to the sense that the world is a much larger and stranger place than we give it credit for.
Fantastic short story about nostalgia, old video games, and not always getting what you want out of your memories. The presentation — simple reading format, great images, and no visual distractions — is awesome as well.
(via Robin Sloan)
Imagine my surprise when I started reading this fantastic short story by Kyle Minor after it came up on my RSS reader.
The setting seemed eerily familiar at first — close-knit Appalachian families in a near-future SF setting. But then things started moving closer and closer to home — the University of Kentucky, and stone fences built by slaves, and Sonic burger, and Man O’ War neighborhoods near the Lexington airport, and Keeneland — I was completely taken aback. Seriously, it was kind of creepy to see my neighborhood pop up out of the blue like that. (Not to mention the climax scenes at the Lexington Green shopping center, which I had just visited. Granted, New Circle Road is called “the Loop,” which I haven’t heard, but that can pass.)
And a knock-out SF ending. You don’t know what’s coming until it does, and then it punches the reader in the gut.
It’s not Danny. It’s not Danny.
I’m going to have to find more stuff by this author, because this story is amazing. (via The Rumpus)
Slate’s Nathaniel Rich has an appreciation of the work of Ray Bradbury, who will turn 90 soon. Now would be a good time to reread a story or two. (via The Rumpus)
We tell lies to hide ourselves from the pain of the truth. This short story starts out slow, but comes to a boil by the end to punch the reader in the gut.
Last year I turned thirty-three years old and, raised a Baptist, I had a sense of being Jesus and coming to something decided in my life—because we all know Jesus was crucified at thirty-three. It had all seemed especially important, what you do in this year, and holy with meaning.
Hannah’s narrator is, on one hand, perfectly ordinary, but on the other hand he stumbles into something profound.
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Robin Sloan (author of Annabel Scheme) has a new multimedia short story up on his web site. The Truth About the East Wind involves words, sounds, and images, and is thoroughly awesome.
Reading this review of Jonathan Lethem’s new novel Chronic City, I’m reminded of this circular short story that appeared in The New Yorker last fall.
Trapped in space with a rowdy, unreliable Russian crew after the Chinese deploy mines around her vessel, lost astronaut Janice writes a series of letters to her boyfriend, Chase, stuck back on Earth. As their situation becomes more desperate and Janice deals with the knowledge that she has cancer and is doomed anyway, whether help comes or not, her letters to Chase take on a mystical, dreamlike quality.
Chase himself is the main character of Chronic City, so Janice’s missives to him form a sort of side story to the novel. But by themselves, they’re a beautiful, dreamy meditation on longing, loss, and outer space.
