Well, let's do a recap.
Escape Pod: "We're looking for female science fiction authors, because we know there are more of them out there than show up in our unsolicited submissions!"
The World: "Cool! What about people who don't identify as male, but also don't particularly identify as female either?"
Escape Pod: "They get overlooked unfairly too! Everyone join in and let's show that there's more going on than people realize!"
At which point, what, you want us to say to the nonbinary people, "No, you can't join in. Go sit in your corner again until called." The goal here was to highlight traditionally under-represented sex/gender groups, not put anyone in a box.
What Scattercat said. Going forward, let's keep this thread a place for discussing the story, and not debating which groups of people Escape Pod should or shouldn't have invited to submit to the special call. All of these authors were absolutely welcome and encouraged to submit under the guidelines, and I think the quality of the stories stand for themselves.
Huh? this is the first story of the month? Did we somehow forget about the Octavia Butler story? Doesn't she count?Because of the way things fell, the Butler story was released in Feb, but it was not part of the solicitation and not meant to be part of the Artemis Rising event. If it helps, you can think of it as a bonus AR story or at least the perfect lead-in to AR & Black History month!
At the moment the thread starts with these two comments that are apparently responding to a comment that has been deleted perhaps? This makes it sound kind of like Scattercat is responding to the story itself somehow, which given the content of the comment I don't think he is. Would it be possible to undelete the comment being responded to? Or, barring that, consider moving or deleting or at least putting in a moderator's note along the lines of "This comment is in response to a comment that has been deleted by its author"? Since it sounded like the original comment wasn't responding to the story itself but rather to the Artemis Rising parameters, could perhaps be moved to a new general thread like eytanz suggested.
Knowing how the moderators operate, I would very much doubt it was them that deleted it, more likely the original author. In either case, it's not likely to return here.
I have to admit to having a bit of a De-Ja-Vu moment with the part where Grace had to bargain with the AI for the kid's life, although I can't quite manage to name where I know that scenario from... Ah well...
Moderator note: this comment, and the three comments following, are referring to a post that has since been deleted by its author - eytan
Well, let's do a recap.
Escape Pod: "We're looking for female science fiction authors, because we know there are more of them out there than show up in our unsolicited submissions!"
The World: "Cool! What about people who don't identify as male, but also don't particularly identify as female either?"
Escape Pod: "They get overlooked unfairly too! Everyone join in and let's show that there's more going on than people realize!"
At which point, what, you want us to say to the nonbinary people, "No, you can't join in. Go sit in your corner again until called." The goal here was to highlight traditionally under-represented sex/gender groups, not put anyone in a box.
I can't decide whether Grace saved the boy because he is a genuinely good person, or because he feels that he needs to pay some sort of debt for saving his life. Whether the society he grew up in conditioned him to "do the right thing", or to "always pay your debts".
I want to believe that it's the former, but fear it's the latter.
I can't decide whether Grace saved the boy because he is a genuinely good person, or because he feels that he needs to pay some sort of debt for saving his life. Whether the society he grew up in conditioned him to "do the right thing", or to "always pay your debts".
I want to believe that it's the former, but fear it's the latter.
My impression was that Grace loves or otherwise has extreme affection for the boy's father, but this can never be anything more than the casual friendship they currently have. So, he rescued his son as a sort of love letter. I could be wrong though.