Tuesday, February 9, 2016

The Day the World Turned Upside Down, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

I went looking on Free SF Online for something to read, and found that the webmaster had put the two winners of Hugos on the home page.  The Day the World Turned Upside Down won in the Best Novelette category, was linked there, and I had not read it.

So this evening I did so.  And it's a nice little story--an end-of-love story, with a trick speculation.  The loss of the love of his life has turned the protagonist's world upside down, and then--that happens, literally.  Everything that is not attached to the ground falls up. Somehow the atmosphere and water stay in place, but otherwise everything sticking up falls unless it's held firmly by the ground.  Quite the mess.

So our hero is one of the very few survivors, and processes all this as he is processing his broken heart.  He has something to live for--returning his lost love's goldfish, who has survived also.

And so the metaphor goes.  It's reasonably entertaining, if not excessively so.  I'm glad I found it and can say I'm caught up on award winners for now.  I give it 3 stars.

The Road to Roswell, by Connie Willis

This is a rom-com, a nice relaxing read. I think Connie Willis could have put more into it than that, but in the end it's pretty much a ...