#Introduction to 2181 Overture

[filipmagnuswrites]

The Short Story Reader #20 – Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition By Gu Shi, Translated By Emily Jin

Previous | Next Gu Shi’s short story is the most in-depth exploration of cryosleep I’ve read yet. More so of what a world in which cryosleep becomes a socially common norm would look like. “Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition” has bold ideas about the ways in which society would change when humans are given the promise of manipulating not only their spatial but temporal locale. It’s a…

[ghosthermione-reads]

Over the extended weekend (it was 5 days here and then I added 2 more of holidays) I picked up some free short stories. Gonna put em here in the order I read them

How to Raise a Kraken in Your Bathtub by P. Djeli Clark

I found this one to be fun, albeit I wish it had been... deeper? I remember a few years ago every short story was mind-blowing. I have read most of Clark's longer fiction and this makes me think "this is nice, but he can do so much better" - which seems to be a trend this year

One Man's Treasure - by Sarah Pinkster

Now this one I really did enjoy! It's outwardly very light - at least at the start - where you just follow A Day In The Life of a magical trash collector, but then you realise the story is also about social class, and who matters and who doesn't, and workers rights. While still keeping some levity to the end

Introduction to 2181 Overture, Second Edition, by Gu Shi, tr. Emily Jin

I enjoyed the concept and the form of this one, the introduction to a fictional and future book telling you its own story. If it had been just a chronicle of the various "cryosleep" inventions over a century, it would have been boring, however the second part comes with a twist. However, there is an unhealthy bit of gender essentialism that, while 2 lines or so, kind of tainted the whole story for me.