Black Friday: A Tor.com Original by Alex Irvine
My rating: 4/5 cats
Caleb doesn’t mind defending his family, but too many of the Celebration teams have started acting like the real point of it is the shootouts instead of the holiday specials. Lyle Odenkirk is a cheerleader for bloodshed, and his ratings suggest many Americans feel the same. To Caleb this borders on blasphemy, a legacy perversion from the days when open-carry groups started patrolling the malls. To him, the guns were never the point. It was about family. Still is.
a not at ALL distressing vision of the future combining reality teevee, black friday mania and a hunger games-flavored all-american celebration of guns and consumerism. oh yeah, and family. let’s not forget family. i wouldn’t say it’s enjoyable – too many mass shootings in the real world make this impossible to enjoy, but it’s a good premise, well-written, and you’ll probably be thinking about it in the back of your mind for a while after you read it. for once, i’m glad this is just a short story – anything longer than this would water down the concept. AND – since i no longer write long reviews for short stories to save myself the self-imposed stress-and-failure cycle, that’s all you get, chums!
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2018/05/30/black-…
