SOLARIS RISING 2 Countdown To Launch (T minus 3 Days): Kay Kenyon chooses her favourite SF short story

In less than a week, Solaris Rising 2 will launch at Waterstones Gower Street in London where editor Ian Whates will be joined by authors Paul Cornell, James Lovegrove, David Mercurio Rivera, and Martin Sketchley, to talk about their contributions to this cosmic collection.


Solaris Rising 2 is available for preorder on including Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and indiebound, and is jam-packed with SF short stories that explore man's efforts to leave this humble dot of blue in a sea of black, and all this week on the Solaris blog, we're talking about the short story form and our favourite examples of it from SF.

Next up on the blog is Kay Kenyon, who has chosen For I Have Touched the Sky by Mike Resnick.

"How difficult it is to chose a favorite SF short story! It's even hard to choose the best from my favorite short story writer, Mike Resnick, because there are about ten I can't live without.

"For I Have Touched the Sky wins out, though. It's an important story because of its themes of cultural identity and the questionable leadership of true believers. How relevant in today's world, as religions clash with modernity! But current issues aside, if a story--like this one--is moving and deep and beautifully wrought, that's significance enough.

"I love how it seduces from the beginning with its simple yet elegant prose, and as tragedy looms, things sweet, wry, and horrifying collect at the edges. You know it's coming, but you keep hoping it won't.

"The story is in Resnick's famous Kirinyaga series, in which the Kikuyu people have given up their ancestral home in Kenya to more authentically observe their traditions on a terraformed planet. It's interesting how a story that does not much feel like science fiction so beautifully engages SF's most enduring question: How might technology shape (or not shape) a future culture?"


1 comment:

Mike said...

Kenyon --

Aw, yer sweet!

-- Resnick