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 i
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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!
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!
It was not unusual for a cough or sneeze to slip out unexpectedly, drenching a plate as it went out to a customer, or even a whole pie that Bhu pulled
It was not unusual for a cough or sneeze to slip out unexpectedly, drenching a plate as it went out to a customer, or even a whole pie that Bhu pulled steaming out of the wood-fire oven. Bhu found ways not to care, ways to justify his lack of caring, but one reason won out easily over the rest: Bhu wasn’t going to get anyone sick, because everyone was already sick. He saw the symptoms everywhere. In the customers’ heavy, bloodshot eyes, in their puffy lips and cheeks, the swelling in their necks and fingers, the sweat that coated their hands and the damp bills that they passed to him when he worked the register. He wore blue gloves for when he handled the bills, and at the end of his shift the fingers were stained and corroded, the latex pocked with small blisters.
YOU GUYS, IT COULD BE WORSE!!
in a world of the sick and the dying, insect swarms and squatters, and germ-covered pizza, it's good to know you can still count on man's best friend, even when your bestie is...a little gross.
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it's lucy the bulldog mix, chubby and leaky, mangy and near-toothless, relying upon a wheeled back-leg prosthesis to get around, doing that alarming snort-breathing thing that brachycephalic dogs do, her eyes and nose wet with tears and mucus, slimy as something dredged from an ocean trench.
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taking care of a pet is a big responsibility that only becomes moreso when the world in ending, food is scarcer, and your dog is a picky eater. fortunately, bhu works at a still-very-popular italian bistro, and his boss phan has some food to spare—something large and meaty down in the basement, something that keeps his restaurant filled with customers while everything else falls apart, something that makes lucy's mouth water and her body stronger.
under ordinary circumstances, owning a pet is an act of optimism, but owning a sick pet in the endtimes is a roll of the dice.
He liked to think, given the state of things, that the world would end long before she did.
but that was before...THE MEAT.
this is a fun, FREE story for our nowtimes. but if i catch anyone sneezing on my pizza, neither man nor beast nor lovecraftian nightmare creature will protect them from my wrath.
It was not unusual for a cough or sneeze to slip out unexpectedly, drenching a plate as it went out to a customer, or even a whole pie that Bhu pulled steaming out of the wood-fire oven. Bhu found ways not to care, ways to justify his lack of caring, but one reason won out easily over the rest: Bhu wasn’t going to get anyone sick, because everyone was already sick. He saw the symptoms everywhere. In the customers’ heavy, bloodshot eyes, in their puffy lips and cheeks, the swelling in their necks and fingers, the sweat that coated their hands and the damp bills that they passed to him when he worked the register. He wore blue gloves for when he handled the bills, and at the end of his shift the fingers were stained and corroded, the latex pocked with small blisters.
YOU GUYS, IT COULD BE WORSE!!
in a world of the sick and the dying, insect swarms and squatters, and germ-covered pizza, it's good to know you can still count on man's best friend, even when your bestie is...a little gross.
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it's lucy the bulldog mix, chubby and leaky, mangy and near-toothless, relying upon a wheeled back-leg prosthesis to get around, doing that alarming snort-breathing thing that brachycephalic dogs do, her eyes and nose wet with tears and mucus, slimy as something dredged from an ocean trench.
[image][image]
taking care of a pet is a big responsibility that only becomes moreso when the world in ending, food is scarcer, and your dog is a picky eater. fortunately, bhu works at a still-very-popular italian bistro, and his boss phan has some food to spare—something large and meaty down in the basement, something that keeps his restaurant filled with customers while everything else falls apart, something that makes lucy's mouth water and her body stronger.
under ordinary circumstances, owning a pet is an act of optimism, but owning a sick pet in the endtimes is a roll of the dice.
He liked to think, given the state of things, that the world would end long before she did.
but that was before...THE MEAT.
this is a fun, FREE story for our nowtimes. but if i catch anyone sneezing on my pizza, neither man nor beast nor lovecraftian nightmare creature will protect them from my wrath.
From the time she was old enough to understand it, the scientists had always told her she was the only one. That she was unique. That she was [image]
From the time she was old enough to understand it, the scientists had always told her she was the only one. That she was unique. That she was alone. Now the idea of another individual like her, or even more than one, is so momentous she can barely breathe.
She makes herself breathe.
whooo.
i was very excited to see another free tor short from this guy, after i loved-loved Our King and His Court: A Tor.com Original. that one had some violent bits that were maybe not for everyone, but this is more deeply sad and upsetting in a non-squirmy way, so i strongly suggest you all go read it. it is FREE. and it's been a rough week for people who seemed to have their shit together opting out, so there's a timeliness to reading a story so full of how desperately lonely this world can be, and the lengths to which people might go to feel connected, no matter how illusory. it's hard to exist in the world sometimes, but i promise you this story has a heartening ending, a sad-but-hopeful ache.
From the time she was old enough to understand it, the scientists had always told her she was the only one. That she was unique. That she was alone. Now the idea of another individual like her, or even more than one, is so momentous she can barely breathe.
She makes herself breathe.
whooo.
i was very excited to see another free tor short from this guy, after i loved-loved Our King and His Court: A Tor.com Original. that one had some violent bits that were maybe not for everyone, but this is more deeply sad and upsetting in a non-squirmy way, so i strongly suggest you all go read it. it is FREE. and it's been a rough week for people who seemed to have their shit together opting out, so there's a timeliness to reading a story so full of how desperately lonely this world can be, and the lengths to which people might go to feel connected, no matter how illusory. it's hard to exist in the world sometimes, but i promise you this story has a heartening ending, a sad-but-hopeful ache.
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 5
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on the one hand, new wayward children content is ALWAYS APPRECIATED. however, between what we've read and what we've intuited about what we've read, there's not a whole lot here that expands jack and jill's whole deal, so it's not as rewarding as getting that mariposa expansion pack a.k.a. Skeleton Song. still, her writing is so good - her turns of phrase, her twists of knives - she could rewrite the exact same events over and over using different words and i would be right there, drinking it all in, happy as a clam at high tide.
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 5
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on the one hand, new wayward children content is ALWAYS APPRECIATED. however, between what we've read and what we've intuited about what we've read, there's not a whole lot here that expands jack and jill's whole deal, so it's not as rewarding as getting that mariposa expansion pack a.k.a. Skeleton Song. still, her writing is so good - her turns of phrase, her twists of knives - she could rewrite the exact same events over and over using different words and i would be right there, drinking it all in, happy as a clam at high tide.
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 7
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well, this is a first (maybe a second): lovecraft-inspired horror i actually liked. the story has a great creeping-style build towards its horror, and then, once unleashed, it goes and goes and goes and goes, tying everything together at the end in an unexpected way; a true stoner thought-loop mindfuck of an ending. from one rabbit to another: MWAH!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 6
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i do love a story that creeps up on you, that slowly transforms from ordinary to extraordinary horrors; here an awkward, undesired social gathering peppered with white-people-bullshit that escalates into a not-quite-people threat, the details of which were a little hazy, but still effective and evocative. sometimes you don't need to see all the teeth to know you're in danger.
“I think you’re the only person here whose name I don’t know,” he says.
Choke.
You swallow. “My name is Kédiké.”
Reality flickers like a failing neon tube. Something nestles within that millisecond—a sound like flowing water, though you can’t be sure. Too suddenly, you’re back at the table, everyone still trying to wrap their tongue around your name. Alessia, intermittently contributing to the conversation from the side table where she’s tossing salads, says: “Do you go by a nickname?” She digs at the bowl with wooden spoons and flips with practiced ease. “Like Kay, or something?”
“Maybe what you need is an honorary American name,” says Charlotte, enthusiastic. “Name exchanges are great for cultural appreciation—you know the Indians used to do it with missionaries and soldiers? Anyway, my honorary Japanese name is Eiko. Means prosperous or something like that. I gave my friends American names, too: Kayleigh, Brooklyn, Chad. They love it.” She angles her head. “Maybe later you can give us African names?”
Another flicker, this time a half second, the crack wide enough to fit several images: white sheets; the sickly gray of a spider’s web; bloodred; fingernails scraping wood.
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 4
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an absolutely perfect fucking story. if you like murderbot, you're gonna love butterfly man.
for me, this was extra sweet because i love rich larson, yet i wasn't crazy about his most recent novel, Ymir*, which lukewarm response was purely a genre-not-for-me situation. but this, THIS!!! i loved every moment of it. it is on the longer side of the tor-short spectrum, so carve out enough time that you won't be interrupted by the hard limits of your commute, your lunch hour, your child's afternoon nap and GET INTO IT. if a whole story cycle about these characters set in this world existed, i would be a happier person.
* Ymir was actually the last book i was able to review before covid ate my brain and left me with a cavern of head-pudding instead. that was in JULY! beezus christ.
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 3
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five stars for a fifth JUDGE DEE story! seeing a red nose studio illustration thumbnailed on tor's free fiction page always makes the heart glad, and when it's attached to one of these undead-justice stories, it's doubleplusglad. i have missed reading these stories every week, but being away so long means it is now a tor-easure trove of unread goodies for me. my stocking is stuffed, my heart will go on, my edible will kick in.
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 2
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ohhhhhhh blessed new wayward children content, and i am all a-swoon. i was always a fan of mariposa, and had hoped for a full-length story set there, so if this is a teaser of that happening, excellent news, but even if this is all we're getting, i will be content. i will happily go wherever s mcg wants to take me, always.
“Good evening, Christopher,” she said, voice delicate as a wind chime. “How did you sleep?”
“Well,” he said, and his own voice was a heavier thing, rendered more substantial by the mechanisms of his breath, which was used to keep him alive, not just to speak. “I went to the meadow and slept in the sun for a while. It was nice.”
“I’d like to sleep in the sun,” she said, somewhat wistfully.
“You could,” he said. “I could carry your bones to the hill and let you sleep with me for a while. It wouldn’t be any trouble at all. You’re light as anything.”
“But skeletons don’t sleep in the sun,” she said. “We sleep in beds of flowers, or in the cool of the catacombs, away from sunlight. That’s how it is in Mariposa.”
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEWELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!
this explanation/intro will be posted before each day’s short story. scroll down to get to the story-review.
this is the SEVENTH year of me doing a short story advent calendar as my december project. for those of you new to me or this endeavor, here’s the skinny: every day in december, i will be reading a short story that is 1) available free somewhere on internet, and 2) listed on goodreads as its own discrete entity. there will be links provided for those of you who like to read (or listen to) short stories for free, and also for those of you who have wildly overestimated how many books you can read in a year and are freaking out about not meeting your annual reading-challenge goals. i have been gathering links all year when tasty little tales have popped into my feed, but i will also accept additional suggestions, as long as they meet my aforementioned 1), 2) standards.
GR has deleted the pages for several of the stories i've read in previous years without warning, leaving me with a bunch of missing reviews and broken links, which makes me feel shitty. i have tried to restore the ones i could, but my to-do list is already a ball of nightmares, so that's still a work-in-progress. however, because i don't have a lot of time to waste, and because my brain has felt scraped clean ever since my bout with covid, i'm not going to bother writing much in the way of reviews for these, in case GR decides to scrap 'em again.
i am doing my best. merry merry.
DECEMBER 1
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the one good thing about dropping the ball on all of my self-inflicted monthly challenges is that i have not gone to the tor site for my weekly free shorty fix since JULY, and when i popped over there today, i found that in my absence, SO MANY of my favorite authors had all-new stories for me to sink into. if anyone's still following me, first of all, i'm sorry i have been such an absentee booknerd ere these many months, but also be prepared that this advent calendar is gonna be pretty tor-centric at the outset. which is probably for the best, since gr hasn't deleted too many of those in the past, compared with stories from other sites. anyway, i love jonathan carroll, and not only did i just get to read Mr. Breakfast - his first novel in YEARS, but now a new story?
The Icebound Race is in the pure literal frozen ice-hell of the Norwegian Arctic. You know, the kind of Norway which is all the way out to Europe and
The Icebound Race is in the pure literal frozen ice-hell of the Norwegian Arctic. You know, the kind of Norway which is all the way out to Europe and then all the way up to a town where the ratio of polar bears to people decidedly favors the bears.
this is a longish, hallucinatory story about zombie sled races.
going into it, i thought it was going to be like the iditarod, but with zombies pulling living humans along the ice, which is an arresting visual, but here it's somewhat different.
during "revenant season," the zombies buried underneath the snow are unearthed by the driving winds and begin walking around, where they are gathered by handlers who take care of them until race day. they have more motility than yer average zombie, because they race alone, on kicksleds, drawn by an impulse towards...something located at the north pole.
they can also speak
“Why do you race?”
“It is inevitable.”
the zombie racers are given a head start before the human competitors follow on their dogsleds and sometimes there are unfortunate encounters between the two types of racers. the event is new, but gaining momentum, and our heroine, an extreme-sports writer, is there to cover the race and its history, and also participate.
her interview style is casual at best:
“But how did it become the Icebound? How did people go from ‘Yeah, let’s all get on sleds and chase each other around some hungry undead corpses’ to—uh—‘Let’s get the hungry undead corpses on sleds and send them off at high speeds’?”
“Reason other than poke-the-bear, bread-and-circuses kind of thing?” he asks, reaching over me to get the bottle.
it starts out funny and jokey like that, but once the race begins, it's nothing but white wilderness as far as the eye can see, hour after relentless hour, and although the possibility of a zombie lagger always a tension-making possibility, the brain naturally slips into a hypnotic resting-state of introspection and self-scrutiny.
and then the weird shit starts happening and the story gets slippery and jagged and i probably didn't understand all of it, but the parts i did were great, especially the way it keeps circling back to fate and choices, and i loved the narrator's voice and her ruminative wrestling with her own family legacy.
Don’t get me wrong, I do have a survival instinct. I got it from my father, who managed to escape the old country by snaking under a kilometer of razor wire and throwing himself over concrete walls twice his height as he was shot at by fellow officers armed with Kalashnikovs. He made it, though his twin brother didn’t.
“I had been right there,” he’d repeat with the same disbelief every time he told the story, “where he was hit. That same spot, a second earlier.” And he’d instruct me, cryptically, “Learn from me.”
I was never sure what I was supposed to learn but I grew up obsessed with what it was that made the difference—one zag instead of a zig and I wouldn’t exist. Snap. Just like that.
One zig instead of a zag and the bullet that felled my uncle would have chipped a concrete wall instead. And I’d be working in a tech startup or in marketing, because I wouldn’t have had to grow up with the horrible sentence: “I had been right there, a second earlier.”
But zigs were zigged and zags were zagged and here I am, seeking out experiences on the edge of survival that I can package into marketable epiphanies for eight cents a word.
this race is very much not for me, but the story, despite the murky whasshappening bits, very much was.