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    Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette)
    Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette)
    Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette)
    Ebook45 pages32 minutes

    Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette)

    By Andy West

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “It’s very straightforward,” stated the culture-officer, with an edge of self-satisfaction. “If we can’t survive long enough for the natives to reach the required level of civilisation naturally, why then we’ll simply accelerate their development so they get there much sooner, when we are still alive and wholly capable!”

    When their ship crashes, the post-human crew of the Hermes launch a desperate bid to accelerate the technological development of the primitive natives, so that when the crew awake from hibernation they might find a civilisation eager and able to repair the ship. Memetically primed to search out an assist God's Hidden Angels, how will the natives react when they finally encounter the post-human crew?

    Rescue Stories was a runner-up in the BSFA 50th Anniversary Short Story Competition.

    Andy West is a rising star of the SF world and this is first title for Greyhart Press. His short fiction has recently appeared in anthologies alongside such authors as Neil Gaiman, Stephen Baxter, Charles Stross, and Sarah Pinborough. He has co-written a novel with Ian Watson.

    This Greyhart Press e-book is a novelette, a perfect length to enjoy in one sitting over a lazy lunchtime.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGreyhart Press
    Release dateMay 16, 2011
    ISBN9781458112378
    Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette)
    Author

    Andy West

    Andy West has written for The Guardian, Aeon, 3:AM Magazine, Huck, The Big Issue, openDemocracy, Lead, The Times Education Supplement and Bloomsbury. The Life Inside is his first book.

    Read more from Andy West

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    Reviews for Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette)

    3.5/5

    6 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Loved this story, future humans not quite as super as they would like to think, best laid plans and all that. Found the characters very engaging and enjoyed finding out about their ways as the story unfolded. One of this author's best stories so far.
    • 2/5
      Prefaced with some quotes on religion from Thomas Mann and George Santayana, thisstory is the tale of a space vessel containing far future humans that crashes on a world with primitive sentients, The 'humans' have lost gender identity but have rather silly names based on stars. They come up with a survival solution that is, to say the least, audacious. Rather overlong, but has a nice twist.

    Book preview

    Rescue Stories (A science fiction novelette) - Andy West

    Rescue Stories

    Andy West

    Copyright Andy West 2011

    Published by Greyhart Press at Smashwords

    Cover images by valentina1988 and Lukiyanova Natalia - frenta, used under license from Shutterstock.com

    www.greyhartpress.com

    For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious.

    - Thomas Mann (1875–1955), German author, critic.

    Each religion, by the help of more or less myth

    which it takes more or less seriously,

    proposes some method of fortifying the human soul

    and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.

    - George Santayana (1863 - 1952) US (Spanish-born) philosopher.

    Contents

    Rescue Stories

    About this Story

    About the Author

    About Greyhart Press

    Other Stories you Might Enjoy

    Rescue Stories

    Blazing white fire streaked across the dome of night, dimming the stars, summoning flickering shadows that wheeled about tangled trees, and spilling innumerable pearls of light over the serried waves of sighing shores.

    Hunter-gatherers from northern forests, woken from their shallow sleep under broad leaves, believed that the Great Spirits were battling. Their wise ones comforted. The furious Spirit of Day had sent a warning, they said, a warning that Night would be crushed, unless the dark one finally tamed those demons of fear that stalked between dusk and dawn, making the people sorely afraid.

    Sun worshippers from the valley above the great eastern delta, roused by priests who studied the stars, speared the soft dark with a host of ecstatic cries. They believed an emissary of their god had come down to mortal lands. For the time left until dawn and also at many evenings after, they set lines of torches atop all their palaces and megalithic temples, such that the black cloak of midnight reeked of wood-smoke and pitch. Thus, they hoped, the high emissary might be drawn to them, the truest of adherents.

    The people of the western lands, just retiring and extinguishing their lamps, spilled into the street from their clay-brick houses and gaped in awe. Yet they viewed the event more symbolically: an omen, a foretelling, not necessarily of good or bad, but certainly of change. Next morning, queues snaked from the doorways of seers and sibyls, and people trailed out of town to sacrifice at the old megaliths, hoping for spiritual peace before the fates changed.

    Within the season came the gentle Beez. They looked just like ordinary beez yet were very attracted to any place where people congregated, also being less aggressive even when provoked. They had no hives

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