"The Bone Flute" by Lisa Tuttle
A World Out of Time by Larry Niven, contains "Rammer"
"The Bone Flute" is a short story by Lisa Tuttle that won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1982. One of the reasons I enjoy working through lists is that I'll read stories that I wouldn't normally read, and this one falls into that category. I'm not sure why, but the title "The Bone Flute" evokes "fantasy" to me, so I was surprised when the story opened in a bar on a space station. There the female protagonist watches a man perform an erotic dance, then meets him afterward. She's a trader, and is planning to make a trip to a planet that has had little contact with other worlds. Her attraction to the man is strong, so she offers to bring him along. The planet has a reputation of the most incredible music... and the rest is to be discovered for yourself. I found this story on Amazon for the Kindle for 99 cents.
Second up this week is "Rammer" by Larry Niven, which was part of a novel I read for a discussion on the SFFaudio Podcast. The novel is called A World Out of Time, and "Rammer", originally a stand-alone short story, was the first chapter of the book. Quick description: a man wakes up in the year 2100-something after being frozen in 1970. He's awakened by The State, who wants him to fly a spaceship alone to some potential colony worlds, then return.For me, the short story was the best part of the novel, but, as Jesse and Tam pointed out to me on the podcast, the book is full of ideas, and that's great.
Since I read "Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, I've been very interested in the concept of ambiguity in fiction. This is an illustration of that concept. At the end of "Rammer", the main character says where he's going to go next: the galactic hub, and maybe the Clouds of Magellan. Then the story ends, leaving the reader a sense of wonder. The novel takes off from there, and though I liked the continuing story, I liked the sense of wonder the original story left me with better. I can certainly see the value in leaving the story just as it was.
A short update this week! I better do one of two things - get on the ball and read a bunch this week, OR employ Tam to send Jenny some thousand page Peter Hamilton novels. Great North Road, Jenny. Great North Road!
11 stories so far for me this year, and I'm loving every minute of it.
Next up: "The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick
I dwell in possibility, Emily Dickinson writes in the first line of Jane Yolen's poet-meets-alien story called "Sister Emily's Lightship". In the story notes included in Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories, Yolen says she got the idea for the story after reading a Dickinson poem with a line about a "band of stars". A nice idea for a good story. I loved Emily's answer when asked by the alien about what she does in this world. "I tell the truth," she said. "But I tell it slant." This won the Best Short Story Nebula Award in 1998.
The Giver by Lois Lowry is a short dystopian YA novel that is one of the best stories I've read for a long while. In a review that I'm nearly finished with, I call it a "thought experiment". The story inspires a person to think about what things could be done to make sure that we humans treat each other better, what the consequences of those things might be, and ultimately what kinds of things are people willing to sacrifice to avoid pain. The society in the story is extreme. No pain allowed; but also, no joy. Puberty causes conflict, so the moment a citizen has "stirrings", he or she is put on pills to curb the effects. All kids are treated exactly the same. When they are little, they are given comfort objects, when they are a certain age, they are given a bicycle, etc. There's no room in this society for people that don't fit. Those people are "released", but no one in the society knows for sure what that means.
Theodore Sturgeon also expresses a sort of disdain for the society he finds himself in, or at least the main character in his famous story, "Slow Sculpture", does. It's a good story about an innovator who has devised a cure for cancer. He's visited by a woman that needs his procedure. The most striking aspect of the story is a very large bonsai tree in the courtyard of his home which becomes an object of contemplation for the characters. In that contemplation lies Sturgeon's point, which is something like: "Why don't people listen more to the smart people?" The solution offered is that the smart people ought to shape society the same way a bonsai tree is shaped. Slow sculpture. The story won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 1970/71.
Last up this week is "Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism" by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. Mike Mignola is the creator of Hellboy. I haven't read any Hellboy comics, but have seen and liked some of the art, and have seen and liked very much Guillermo del Toro's two movies. I listened to this one, since it arrived at SFFaudio for review. Nick Podehl narrated. I see that the description of the novella at Amazon says that it's an "illustrated novella", so I'll have to check out the art when I run across a copy. In short, it's a good novella about an Italian orphanage in World War II. Father Gaetano and the nuns at the orphanage, in an effort to connect with the children, makes use of a puppet stage that had been abandoned in the basement. He uses the puppets to teach Bible stories, first painting them to match the characters they are to portray. The problem is, these puppets come to life at night, like we know puppets do, and they take on the persona of the Biblical characters they were painted to resemble. It wasn't the best idea to paint one as the fallen angel Lucifer.
