★★★★☆ Moving story with an interesting concept
(SF Adventure) Ostap can’t wait to visit his girlfriend and see her big project that’s trying to use quantum mechanics to develop faster-than-light travel. (5,250 words; Time: 17m)
"Carouseling," by Rich Larson [bio] (edited by Neil Clarke), appeared in Clarkesworld issue 139, published on April 1, 2018.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Pro: The story does a nice job of showing how much Ostap cares for Alyce, so we feel his loss intensely. The way he dances with her at the end until she’s completely gone is heartbreaking.
It does a nice job of foreshadowing too. We know about the suits. We know that he asked her to bring it along. And the wording used to describe the experiment makes it sound dangerous without explicitly saying so. (E.g. It made “the old hadron collider look like a toy” and it was going to “shatter the rules of quantum mechanics.”)
Con: It sets itself up like a hard-SF story, but the result is little better than magic. For the most part, I can overlook that, but at least once the story rubs my nose in it: when she reports that she doesn’t have to breathe.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 139)
Rich Larson Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
It does a nice job of foreshadowing too. We know about the suits. We know that he asked her to bring it along. And the wording used to describe the experiment makes it sound dangerous without explicitly saying so. (E.g. It made “the old hadron collider look like a toy” and it was going to “shatter the rules of quantum mechanics.”)
Con: It sets itself up like a hard-SF story, but the result is little better than magic. For the most part, I can overlook that, but at least once the story rubs my nose in it: when she reports that she doesn’t have to breathe.
Other Reviews: Search Web, Browse Review Sites (Issue 139)
Rich Larson Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
Wow, wasn't expecting romance from a Rich Larson story...but dang, that was good!
ReplyDelete