Contains Multitudes by Ben Burgis
My rating: 4/5 cats
WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
boilerplate mission statement intro:
for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!
since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other reviews, and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which – let’s be honest – is gonna serve you better anyway.
HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!
links to all stories read in previous years’ calendars can be found at the end of these reviews, in case you are a person who likes to read stories for free:
2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show…
scroll down for links to this year’s stories which i will update as we go, and if you have any suggestions, send ’em my way! the only rules are: it must be available free online (links greatly appreciated), and it must be here on gr as its own thing so i can review it. thank you in advance!
DECEMBER 8
The promise made in the terms of surrender was that the Others would grow in us so slowly that our precious human bodies would have a chance to die of old age, surrounded by our 100% human children and grandchildren, before our stomachs burst open. Only the kids born in the first twenty years after the War would be affected. That meant that apart from some kind of territorial division of the planet between humans and Others, by the time the new generation was gone, everything would be back to normal. The crowning result of their science mixed with ours.
When the videos of yellow tentacles ripping their way out of fourteen-year-olds’ bellies started showing on CNN, there were riots in the streets. Never mind that it would have been a miracle if there hadn’t been a single slipup in the gestation-slowing procedures, or that there was no evidence that it was happening to more than .00001% of kids around the world . . . people were sure that this was a sign that the Evil Aliens Had Lied To Us.
this is a three-starcat that i am willing into four-starcat territory. there’s a lot about it i think is successful: i like the premise, and i don’t mind that it cuts off just when things start getting exciting, forcing the reader to fill in the aftermath with their own logical speculations.
but, hm.
i like the whitman angle applied to the WE ARE VENOM conceit, but it’s really just the one sound bite used here. and i know Song of Myself is a really long and frequently undisciplined poem, but there’s a ton of material that could have been extracted from it to use towards fleshing this out a bit more. i dunno – it felt a little half-assed, less a part of the story then something for the story to lean on, and then explicitly calling it out – like tagging whitman on an instagram post. we are disappoint.
and as cool as parts of this were, knowing more about the relationship between alex and his otherself would have been welcome – there are some contradictory moments i’m trying to work out, as well as the alex and natasha relationship – they seem perfectly compatible, but considering the brevity of their relationship, it’s a pretty bold move on alex’s part.
i told myself i’m not overthinking short stories anymore, especially on this one-a-day advent calendar so i am turning off my brain. we’ll give it a four because it is the season of giving and i am going to get on santa’s nice list if it kills me.
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2013/07/17/contai…
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