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A review by kittyg
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 92 by Neil Clarke
4.0
So I read this online (Clarkesworld) as it's a free short story and I read it as a part of the BooktubeSFF Awards Shortlist. I didn't really know what it was or what to expect going into it, but when I did get into it (which didn't take long) I found myself sucked into the slightly peculiar, yet very interesting, ideas of the creatures and lifestyles within this story.
In this short piece we focus on the Meeker, a fairly subservient being who serves the All-Seeing Eye, who is a pretty impressively massive 'brain' essentially. We follow the pair as they fly through Space collecting and harvesting stars and different cultures and absorbing them into the All-Seeing Eye's corpus.
What I took away from the story was that there's a lot of cool ideas and a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle references to problems within society today with certain people being power-hungry and certain ideals and mysteries being introduced. I found this to be a slightly confusing read at first, but it evolved and developed a fair amount considering just how short it was and the ideas it did make me consider were thought-provoking and intriguing.
Overall my overwhelming sense of this story is that it's really exciting because of the way it's written, which feels detached at first and slowly draws you in, and the ideas and messages it sends. I found myself getting more excited the further through I went and forming real thoughts about each of the abstract characters, and I couldn't always predict how it would unfold which I also appreciated. On the whole, without spoiling anything, I thought this was a very well written short story and for the length it does a good job with hooking you in and making you ponder - 4*s :) Recommended, a fab short fiction piece :D
In this short piece we focus on the Meeker, a fairly subservient being who serves the All-Seeing Eye, who is a pretty impressively massive 'brain' essentially. We follow the pair as they fly through Space collecting and harvesting stars and different cultures and absorbing them into the All-Seeing Eye's corpus.
What I took away from the story was that there's a lot of cool ideas and a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle references to problems within society today with certain people being power-hungry and certain ideals and mysteries being introduced. I found this to be a slightly confusing read at first, but it evolved and developed a fair amount considering just how short it was and the ideas it did make me consider were thought-provoking and intriguing.
Overall my overwhelming sense of this story is that it's really exciting because of the way it's written, which feels detached at first and slowly draws you in, and the ideas and messages it sends. I found myself getting more excited the further through I went and forming real thoughts about each of the abstract characters, and I couldn't always predict how it would unfold which I also appreciated. On the whole, without spoiling anything, I thought this was a very well written short story and for the length it does a good job with hooking you in and making you ponder - 4*s :) Recommended, a fab short fiction piece :D