Four Horsemen, at Their Leisure by Richard Parks
My rating: 3/5 cats
well, it had to happen sooner or later. this was the first of the tor shorts that just didn’t do it for me. it was fine, but it just never got its hooks into me.
i liked the premise—the apocalypse has occurred, and all that remains are the four horsemen, puttering around the ruined wasteland of what is left, like strangers who have overstayed their welcome at the worst party ever. they part and come together periodically, but it’s always awkward:
The last time we were together we had a grand old time. War turned his back for a moment, and Pestilence tried to give him a cold. War chopped Pestilence’s head off and kicked it like a soccer ball. It was a good kick. Three hundred yards across the blighted landscape, easily. By the time Pestilence’s headless body managed, scrabbling across the dust and debris, to feel its way to where the head had rolled, we were pretty sure he wouldn’t try that again. A pity, really. I hadn’t laughed so hard since the Apocalypse.
well, to me that sounds awkward. but i’m not a harbinger of doom.
so, they are all alone in the ruined world.
until they’re not.
they find “an impossible green thing;” a pine seedling.
and they discuss its impossibility at great length—how can this exist when everything that should have made its existence possible has been razed and essploded? there is bickering.
“I don’t feel well,” Pestilence said
and then there’s some divine intervention and some rug-pulling theological jibberjabber and not much in the way of action, and it is all too reminiscent of those circular college stoner conversations i tried so hard to avoid back in the day.
it’s not terrible, it’s just not as shiny-delightful as the other selections have been. so far.
but it’s free, so try it for yourself. there is zero risk to you, which is a nice feeling.
read it for yourself here:
http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/04/fo…
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