
(Military SF) Wounded in battle, Captain Carla Perea was the only pilot in the recovery center, but today she’s joined by Captain Sun Gaang. (2,989 words; Time: 09m)
Rating: ★★★☆☆ Average
"Human Pilots," by J.B. Park [bio] (edited by Jane Crowley and Kate Dollarhyde), appeared in Strange Horizons issue 08/21/17, published on August 21, 2017.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: The strangeness of the facility gradually gets more and more intense. Why are there tourists there? Were the captains really of any use in battle at all? Are they even still alive?
Con: We get no answers to any of this. The story ends abruptly with no closure of any kind.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 08/21/17)
J.B. Park Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Con: We get no answers to any of this. The story ends abruptly with no closure of any kind.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 08/21/17)
J.B. Park Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
The author has a new website at maybepark.com. His post there about this story explains that he chopped off the first quarter of the original story because it was too much exposition. I'm wondering if that's where the piece of the puzzle I need to understand what the heck is going on here went.
ReplyDeleteI dunno. I've seen a few stories lately that would have benefited from a prologuectomy. I think the trouble with this one was that it needed a few more paragraphs at the end.
DeleteBy the way, I just noticed that my blurb for this story is really bad. "Wounded in battle, Captain Carla Perea was the only pilot in the recovery center, but today she’s joined by Captain Sun Gaang" gives a prospective reader zero reason to look at this story, nor does it help someone who read it before remember what it was about. Drat!
Yeah, it is undoubtedly better to get into things right away than to spend a lot of time setting up. But I need just a little more explanation somewhere here.
DeleteAuthors really do have to walk a tightrope. Don't tell too much or it's an infodump but don't tell too little or it's confusing. And show, don't tell, while you're at it.
Delete