Lone Star Stories — The Wreck of the Grampus by Jeremy Adam Smith
“Do you understand the story, you machine? If there is an intrinsic design to the universe, humanity has not been able to find it. We must make our own, and so are most fully human when in situations that are wholly artificial.”
Picking something from this story to quote was not easy. This is one of the best, if not the best science fiction story I have read this year. It has senswunda note after senswunda note–a veritable senswunda orchestra. It has robots and deep philosophical questions and giant undersea creatures. Believable human characters, deeply human in their ways, and some deeply strange. This is a future that does not leave me cold like many post-singularity stories do, which are so common these days. In those stories, you can almost feel the silicon wrapped around you. Not here. There’s so much I want to say, so many surprising bits, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.
I think it’s absolutely fantastic, and the author, Jeremy Adam Smith, and Eric Marin, the editor and publisher, should have as many kudos I can throw at them. This is damned good science fiction. Read it. Let me know what you think. Let the editor and author know.
My only problem is, the author’s name is Jeremy. I can’t stand that name!
