Saturday, April 29, 2017

Triceratops, by Ian McHugh

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(Near-Future SF) The narrator visits a reserve in Northern Canada where they’re experimenting with resurrected mammoths. (4,120 words; Time: 13m)

Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average

"Triceratops," by (edited by Sheila Williams), appeared in issue 05-06|17, published on by .

Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)

Pro: The descriptions of the animals are great.

Con: There’s no plot here. No one is trying to accomplish anything, there are no real problems to solve, and at the end, nothing has changed.

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3 comments (may contain spoilers):

  1. Just wondered if I'm missing something. The end doesn't make any sense to me.

    ReplyDelete
  2. In the next-to-last scene, a few days before the final scene, Yellen says the he and the other Thalers are "made from nothing, out of nowhere" and that they've got nowhere to fit, but that "maybe here is a place where we can find a way for us to fit together, find a reason to be a people."

    When the narrator asks, "And are you? Finding something?" He gives a nonspecific answer.

    In the final scene, when Kip is carving that Paleolithic Venus figure from a sheep's bone, and the narrator asks "What does she [the carved figure] mean?" her answer of "Something" is an answer to the earlier question.

    Does that help?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah, that makes sense. I'm surprised I missed that.
      Thanks!

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