“Another Word For World” by Ann Leckie - A Short Story
- included in The Long List Anthology Volume 2 More Stories from the Hugo Award Nomination List -2016
Sometime ago I acquired Ancilary Justice, a highly regarded alternate world work novel by Ann Leckie. However, I have never gotten around to reading it. Having now read her fascinating Short Story “Another Word for World” I have pushed it up on my TBR list.
The story begins when an aircraft carrying the young Sovereign of Iss, hereditary high priestess of the Gidanta,
crash lands in a waste land on a planet and her interpreter. The planet is inhabited by two groups, the Gidanta and the Raksamat. The Gidanta have always been on the planet, the Raksamat arrived about two hundred years ago. We do not get any physical descriptions but they are humanoids. The planet seems small. Many of the Gidanta want a war against the Raksamat to destroy them.
The story is narrated by the interpreter, a Raksamat, she and the Soverign converse through a hand held translator. The pair begins a journey through the wasteland, food consists of raw grubs. As they travel we learn about their histories and life on the planet.
I enjoyed this story very much. It challenged and made me use my imagination to fill in the missing information.
“Ann Leckie is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award winning novel Ancillary Justice. She has also published short stories inSubterranean Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Realms of Fantasy. Her story “Hesperia and Glory” was reprinted in Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition edited by Rich Horton.
Ann has worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a rodman on a land-surveying crew, and a recording engineer. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri.” From annleckie.com
Mel Ulm
No comments:
Post a Comment