Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story....

"The New Venusians" by Sean Williams

From the anthology Drowned Worlds edited by Jonathan Strahan. See the Drowned Worlds anthology discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.

I liked this one! Single POV, simply written, and plenty of stuff happens so it should be more pleasing to those who desire a plot :)
I suspected the main 'twist' from the start of course.
But this take on Venus was unexpected and I approve.
So is it one drowned world and one UNdrowned world then?

Until I read this I hadn't realized what was missing in any of the previous stories: a sense of humor. An occasionally wry narration from a teenage girl. Podkayne of Venus? Grandpa is a few kilometers short of a stable orbit. And, as Rachael says, there's an actual plot.

There's actually a bit of sci-fi tech in the story, too, though it has nothing to do with terrestrial global warming. A little dirigible like exploratory vessel on Venus is interesting enough (there have been floating cities and other stories.)

I'm guessing grandpa would be ambivalent about terraforming Mars, then?

This made me realize how unremittingly seriously all the previous stories have taken themselves. I really needed a little relief from the almost universally elegiac tone over the previous stories.

Sails. ★★★★

Eh, I found the humor (and the parents' irresponsibility) to be grating at the beginning, but it won me over a little bit toward the end and as the action heated up. (I pegged Grandpa as unreliable, but I didn't guess the twist.)

I liked this one. Nice to get away from earth for a change. Certainly more lighthearted than the previous few stories, and I liked the MC's voice, although it did make the opening few paragraphs a bit unclear. I had to go back and re-read once I got a better handle on who was doing the narrating.

The idea of people being connected and online constantly, even when they're doing normal mundane stuff, was quite amusing, but also probably not far from the truth, considering where social media is heading. Looks like Natasha is about to become the next 'Life-logging' sensation. The birth of a new planet; I'm guessing it will get more hits than rapping cats and vegan recipe podcasts.

Also nice to see something more Science based. Liked the visual descriptions of Venus and the impending changes, and the science wasn't too mind boggling. Not sure how accurate it is, but it made for a good story.
All in all; thumbs up.

Matt wrote: "The idea of people being connected and online constantly, even when they're doing normal mundane stuff, was quite amusing, but also probably not far from the truth, considering where social media is heading. ..."

You might like David Egger's The Circle (recently a movie), which is very near future on same idea. Sharing is Caring; Secrets are Lies; Privacy is Theft.

As far as I'm concerned, this guy is the only true Venusian:

My feelings went both ways on this. Enjoyed the crazy uncle, thought the "insta-terraforming" was as silly as "insta-love" in YA books, but then it's a short story so wasn't much room for it to take a long time. Kinda liked the idea that Venus is the way it is because the original lifeforms messed it up.

In fact a real world example of something like that is the damming of the Colorado river. It blocked a lot of water from getting to Mexico and killed off whatever ecosystems depended on it. However, now there is a new ecosystem that built up and ecologists are debating whether that new ecosystem should actually be preserved, it's a rare wetland which is something that is disappearing fast everywhere else.

Like that elf story, sometimes the new reality has as much right to exist as the previous, and life is change, we can't freeze what we have now. Some animals will go extinct, new ones evolve. Only difference is we now have the power to both cause the change and preserve the current state, so makes for some interesting ethical questions.

I thought dmat (I assume short for dematerialization) was pretty mind boggling!

It seemed to mainly function as a transporter substitute for plot purposes (conveniently blocked at the crisis point to keep the stakes high), but I wondered how dmat would change culture. If things had not worked out, would the protagonist have been able to rematerialize a saved version of herself without the Venus experience? is the tech supposed to d&remat the same exact matter, which seems a stretch?

G33z3r wrote: "You might like David Egger's The Circle (recently a movie), which is very near future on same idea. Sharing is Caring; Secrets are Lies; Privacy is Theft."

One outstanding line from the Blurb-

The Circle links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency.

Ah, yes; Social Media Nirvana :)
Definitely one for future perusal.

Hillary wrote: "I thought dmat (I assume short for dematerialization) was pretty mind boggling!

It seemed to mainly function as a transporter substitute for plot purposes (conveniently blocked at the crisis point..."

Yeah, mainly plot purposes, I reckon. I doubt Tash's parents would send her to Venus as a punishment if if wasn't ridiculously easy to get there. The Author doesn't explain how it works, so I just assumed it was some sort of tech thing that's just taken for granted.

Being able to save a copy of yourself every time you went anywhere presents so many possibilities. With any technology, there are bound to be malfunctions. Imagine turning up in two places at once, or the transporter digging up an older version of yourself by mistake. Could lead to some interesting scenarios, not to mention embarrassing ones :o

Matt wrote: "With any technology, there are bound to be malfunctions"

Provided fuel for lots of Star Trek transporter malfunction episodes anyway :)