A childless woman is consumed by dreams that she has a baby. (3,098 words; Time: 10m)
Rating: ★★☆☆☆ Not Recommended
"And We Were Left Darkling," by Sarah Pinsker [bio] (edited by John Joseph Adams), appeared in Lightspeed Magazine issue 63, published on August 1, 2015.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
It's difficult to suspend disbelief for this one. Over and over, Jo does things that make no sense. At the end, the story simply stops--we never learn what it was all about.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 63)
Sarah Pinsker Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 63)
Sarah Pinsker Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
I read this because I have the issue of Lightspeed that this story is in on my e-reader and it is a short story. Didn't take too long at all to read it.
ReplyDeleteI even read the Author Spotlight in Lightspeed to try and get some sense about this story. In brief it said to read as science fiction and that "a phenomenon with a biological explanation ...". Not very helpful.
The only thing I can think of is a migration urge, but it still does not explain where the children came from. It also kind of remains me of a plot from The X-Files where Dana Scully has been rendered sterile when all her eggs got taken.
The narrator has a name. It is "Jo" and it was mentioned once.
It is very well-written and is short, so I might re-read it to see if I "get" it the second time round.
It is not a story that I personally would consider genre.
Thanks for finding the name! I updated it.
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