Saturday, April 19, 2014

Wakulla Springs, by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages

With this review I open my 2014 award nominated story and novel reading.  Only a so-so start.  No objection to the writing--Wakulla Springs is a nice story in the Nebula novella category.  It's a personal history, following a few highly varied characters (Johnny Weismuller and several impoverished black people from central Florida), giving vignettes of their lives from the late forties through recent times.  We see integration struggles, discrimination, and the ennui of stars.  What we don't see is much actual speculation.  We have exactly one page where an animal might have talked.

As stories go, it's sort of several related stories put together.  But really only juxtaposed.  I didn't mind reading it, but this isn't what I read speculative fiction for.  Hopefully the stories in the novella category get better from here. Two stars from me.

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