(Hard SF) Anna’s grandmother died on Europa, and her mother was traumatized for life, but she’s determined to go there and finish the work they started. (9,942 words; Time: 33m)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average
Recommended By: GDozois:5"Fieldwork," by Shariann Lewitt [bio] (edited by Athena Andreadis), appeared in To Shape the Dark (RSR review), published on May 1, 2016 by Candlemark & Gleam.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: This is really the story of how Anna came to understand and respect her mother and her grandmother. The two Europa trips are simply background to that. As a human story, it's very successful.
Con: For an SF story, it just has too many disbelief-defying flaws in it. There is no way a first trip to Europa would bring children along—the argument that the long-established lunar base had rules for children doesn’t wash. It’s important to the plot that the plume that destroyed Minos base would have pushed the bodies into Jupiter, but that’s not right. They’d have gone into an orbit that intersected Europa’s orbit at the point they left it but with a different period. Sooner or later, they’d have impacted Europa’s surface and contaminated it. The eleven-year-old navigator is hard to credit as well; why wouldn't Earth just do it for them remotely?
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
Shariann Lewitt Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB
Con: For an SF story, it just has too many disbelief-defying flaws in it. There is no way a first trip to Europa would bring children along—the argument that the long-established lunar base had rules for children doesn’t wash. It’s important to the plot that the plume that destroyed Minos base would have pushed the bodies into Jupiter, but that’s not right. They’d have gone into an orbit that intersected Europa’s orbit at the point they left it but with a different period. Sooner or later, they’d have impacted Europa’s surface and contaminated it. The eleven-year-old navigator is hard to credit as well; why wouldn't Earth just do it for them remotely?
Other Reviews: Search Web, GoodReads.com
Shariann Lewitt Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB
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