★★★☆☆
(Historical Fantasy) In 1899, little Charlie knows he’ll inevitably have to work in the mill, but what he really wants to do is learn to play the banjo. (13,327 words; Time: 44m)
Recommended By: 👍STomaino+1 (Q&A)
"Charlie Tells Another One," by Andy Duncan [bio] (edited by Sheila Williams), appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction issue 09-10|19, published on August 16, 2019 by Penny Publications.
Mini-Review (click to view--possible spoilers)
Review: 2019.487 (A Word for Authors)
Pro: It’s an affecting story of the horrors of child labor around the turn of the 20th Century.
Con: The speculative elements are very slight and could easily be deleted without changing the story one bit.
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Andy Duncan Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
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Pro: It’s an affecting story of the horrors of child labor around the turn of the 20th Century.
Con: The speculative elements are very slight and could easily be deleted without changing the story one bit.
Other Reviews: Search Web
Andy Duncan Info: Interviews, Websites, ISFDB, FreeSFOnline
Follow RSR on Twitter, Facebook, RSS, or E-mail.
I think Andy Duncan can toss off this kind of story in his sleep. And while it's true that there is almost no speculative content, it was really entertaining: I laughed out loud at "...kept company with certain widow women, who were all done with cooking but still kept their stoves hot."
ReplyDeleteI wonder if we see so many barely-genre stories because it's a lot easier to get an SF/F short story published than any other kind. So authors take stories that really belong in mainstream magazines and tweak them just enough to plausibly claim to be SF/F.
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