Science Fiction: The Short Stuff discussion

I chose Né łe! by Darcie Little Badger, a short story (5,166 words), because I wanted to choose something contemporary and worthy. Ms. Badger wins awards, or is nominated for them, for a high percentage of whatever she writes. She is an author I imagine few of us have heard of. I hadn't until I began researching some recommendations for good, recent SF stories.

The main characters of the story are a Navajo interplanetary ship's captain and a Lipan Apache veterinarian accompanying 40 chihuahuas on their way to forever homes on Mars.

The author has been publishing since 2014. Her first two (of three so far) novels won awards. This short story is an example of indigenous futurism (see the Wikipedia article for more information), a sub-genre I didn't know existed until now. The Science Fiction Encyclopedia has a really good entry on this author, which also (I hope) explains why I think her work worth our attention: https://sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/lit....

The text of the story is free at Darcie Little Badger's website. Google is your friend. You could copy and paste it and email the story to your Kindle email address, or just read it there. It's also available in an eBook (or paper) anthology that may be of interest for its other stories too: Love Beyond Body, Space & Time: An Indigenous LGBT Sci-Fi Anthology. The other really interesting anthology with more famous authors and containing this story is Far Out.

Please post your impressions of Ms. Badger's story here, won't you? I will be posting mine once I read it.

I enjoyed the story which is about relationships, most of all. That and dogs on a space shuttle to Mars- 22 chihuahuas and one husky.

I just read the story too, and agree with you, that it's more romance than SF. Sorry about that. My review is here, for anyone who is curious: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

Warning: light spoilers are in my review. You therefore might want to read the story before reading my review. Most people rate the story higher than I do. If you like the story more than I did, you might be annoyed I spill as much of the plot as I do in my review.