Elephants and Corpses by Kameron Hurley
My rating: 4/5 cats
Bodies are only beautiful when they aren’t yours.
another fine, free tor short. these things are great because they allow you to sample authors completely risk-free! because it takes a special kind of author to be able to pull off a story whose concept revolves around a “corpse-jumping body mercenary,” and i think for the most part, hurley nailed it.
she does a good job defining exactly what the heck a corpse-jumping body mercenary is (it’s pretty much what it sounds like – a guy who can jump into any body he wants, provided it’s dead and not too badly decomposed), and she fleshes out the world and characters well. there were a couple of times where i became confused – just some difficulty following dialogue and mixing up the two characters, but that’s likely on me, and not the fault of her writing.
but it’s a strong story, with interesting characters, solid problem-resolution, and a wholly original premise. also, a trumpeting miniature elephant named falid. View Spoiler »
it feels good to be back on the tor train!
i know i have a lot of catching up to do!
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/2015/05/13/elephan…
