[cio]

thanks, you are right. The wonderful thing with the english language is that you can still discover new words after dozens of years of study...

[General Battuta]

Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing. Any intentions of transforming these vignettes into a fully-fledged bp novel? It definitely has potential. Just one small thing: »She opens a glove in invitation. “I’m with Federation wetwork.«. Shouldn't this be network? Sorry, I just couldn't resist pointing this out.

I'm glad you liked it! We'd have to see what Jason Scott, my agent, and an IP lawyer think.

[headdie]

Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing. Any intentions of transforming these vignettes into a fully-fledged bp novel? It definitely has potential. Just one small thing: »She opens a glove in invitation. “I’m with Federation wetwork.«. Shouldn't this be network? Sorry, I just couldn't resist pointing this out.

I'm glad you liked it! We'd have to see what Jason Scott, my agent, and an IP lawyer think.

Would be interesting to see.  If its feasible put me down for a copy

[Rhymes]

Um.  Headdie? I think you accidentally the quote.

[headdie]

  fixed

[General Battuta]

Reviews :3

“Morrigan in the Sunglare” by Seth Dickinson

After an alien invasion successfully repulsed, the worlds of Sol turned inward and adopted a pacifistic lifestyle, leaving their interstellar colonies on their own. When the interstellar Alliance came to Earth for assistance in preparing for another alien assault, the homeworlders turned them down. The consequence is now war between the two human powers, with Federation pilots having to struggle to cast off their humane values in order to fight effectively. Those who “talk about why the war started, how it would end, who was right, who was wrong” are the ones who break. But Laporte, callsign Morrigan, loves it out there, the killing.

How could you think like that and then pull the trigger, ride the burst, guns guns guns and boom, scratch bandit, good kill? So Laporte gave up on empathy and let herself ride the murder-kick. She hated herself for it. But at least she didn’t break.

Laporte loves her commander, Simms, who has had to embrace hate in order to pull the trigger. After their ship is disabled and falling into the sun, they have time while dying of radiation poisoning for a long discussion of such questions.

A provocative work, the sort that makes readers wonder: just what is the author doing here? Because we are immersed in Laporte’s point of view as protagonist, witness to her embrace of the murder-kick, it seems natural to empathize, to congratulate her success, and I suspect a number of readers will do exactly that. “Monsters win”, so Laporte’s transition to a monster is a good thing, a necessary thing for victory. Cheer. Wave flags.

But I think the author is quite a bit more subtle here, or at least so I read it, as a deconstruction of the Laporte position. This is a horror story, a monster story, an anti-war story. This is largely because we can see, as the antagonists apparently do not dare, that it’s an unnecessary war – a war of choice, not survival. At first, people could engage with that proposition. They can think: maybe we should make common cause with each other for the sake of our common humanity. There is one scene where we see the combatants make a temporary, wary truce, only to have it accidentally blown away, to everyone’s secret relief. Peace is hard, war is the easier alternative; you don’t have to think. This sort of thing becomes its own end, self-perpetuating. We can see from this point into a future in which, like Bear’s Hardfought, humanity has remade itself to service the needs of a forever war with no discernible beginning or end – monsters.

And readers will have to wonder: what happens when the aliens return, as the Alliance is convinced that they will. Will the two factions of humanity be able to unite to face a common enemy in a true war of survival? Will this fratricidal combat prove to have strengthened them, transforming them into the kind of monsters that will be able to save the species? Or will it prove to have weakened them so that, the next time, they fall? Some readers may think it might be a good thing if the aliens did suddenly show up again, to save humanity from itself, from its own monsters.

–RECOMMENDED

[AdmiralRalwood]

Some readers may think it might be a good thing if the aliens did suddenly show up again, to save humanity from itself, from its own monsters.

You don't say...

[General Battuta]

It's kind of an interesting question, isn't it? That's how these stories end, right? Whether it's a TV show or a series of novels or a video game, readers start to attach to the antagonists. Spike teams up with Buffy. The cool Cylons join up with the Colonials. The EA signs a treaty with the GTVA. The reader learns to see both sides as protagonists, to value their perspectives and concerns.

So the Even Greater Menace arrives to prevent final reckoning, to make sure our newly sympathetic antagonists can set aside their differences and team up with the designated heroes. It's easier than letting the conflict play out, easier than forcing the reader to endure conflict between two sides they'd like to see set aside their differences. Team A and Team B can both be cool, they can both win. Let's gang up on Team C, the real bad guys: they're True Evil!

But it's a cheat. It's a narrative flinch. It hurts less than seeing the war run its course and knowing that someone wins and someone loses and maybe it's not clear which should have been which.

[Herra Tohtori]

for a moment there i was confused as to why captain Mence was Even Greater and what that had to do with anything else in that sentence.

Great read, and even greater when you know the things that were left unsaid... and I wonder, how do those readers react who never played BP?

[Phantom Hoover]

I'm very interested in knowing that too.

[General Battuta]

There's the review above, a scrap of reaction/review at the end of the audio version of the story (linked from the text version) which I found rather touching, and a bunch of tweets from people who loved it but who rarely get into more depth than 'I loved this' or 'I love @sethjdickinson's writing, and his new military SF short is stupid-good' (not to say I didn't adore hearing that, especially coming from an incredibly talented person I totally don't have a crush on ). All in all it's had some pretty strong response for a piece of short SF.

Nobody has yet accused it of being a ripoff, whether of FreeSpace or Cherryh's Union/Alliance setting or anything else.

e: Also it's a really big deal to not only get into Clarkesworld but to get lead billing. Very exciting.

[Luis Dias]

But it's a cheat. It's a narrative flinch.

Personally I call it the "DragonballZ syndrome". And why should anyone accuse it of being a ripoff? Ripoffs only exist when the writing isn't brilliant, cue Picasso's line.

[AdmiralRalwood]

But it's a cheat. It's a narrative flinch.

Personally I call it the "DragonballZ syndrome".

Really? I always called "Dragonball Z syndrome" when the heroes run into someone UNSTOPPABLY POWERFUL and get their asses kicked until one or more characters get a power boost, which either leads to the battle being won or the villain revealing (one of) their TRUE FORM(s), which repeats the process. I'm not sure what that has to do with the cliché being discussed, of two sympathetic warring factions joining forces against a third group who are more antagonistic... a situtation which applies to the plot of Freespace 1, I might add (well, depending on how "sympathetic" you find the Vasudans).

[Luis Dias]

ahah yeah that's also true, but I was going for the DBZ cliché of "I'm da bad GUYZZ untilyoudefeatmeandnowwe'rebestfriendsFOREVAH".

[NGTM-1R]

ahah yeah that's also true, but I was going for the DBZ cliché of "I'm da bad GUYZZ untilyoudefeatmeandnowwe'rebestfriendsFOREVAH".

I think Nanoha has repossessed that cliche and made it its own. Prepare to be befriended.

[AdmiralRalwood]

Whenever it happens in Naruto, my sister calls it "FRIENDSHIP NO JUTSU!"

[General Battuta]

Jason Scott thought it was fantastic :3

[AdmiralRalwood]

Jason Scott thought it was fantastic :3

Congratulations!

[NGTM-1R]

Jason Scott thought it was fantastic :3

He ought to. Very well done.

[Kolgena]

I am glad you referenced Darius and Blue Planet at the bottom of the piece. It'd be amazing if some readers googled what those words meant and found themselves here to play the mod for themselves. Sure, all of WiH part 1 would be spoiled, but I really don't think that hurts the experience at all.