I think I've finally put my finger on what doesn't work for me about most Resnick stories. He sucks at Science Fiction. I never buy into whatever futuristic hook he puts into his stories. If he has a robot in his stories, it's not realistic as a robot, and the implications of robots in society are always laughable.
This time, there was no attempt at Science Fiction, and thus I really had no problems with the story.
Have you read
Santiago? That is one on my all time favorite Resnick stories, and one of my all time favorite sci-fi books, even fiction in general books that I have read. I haven't read many others of his books, but that one is great.
I liked this story. It's good to know I'm not the only who who can get a bit teary eyed listening to my iPod, but I don't mind laughing out loud at things no one else can hear as I work, but getting seen crying for no apparent reason, that would be annoying {:0p Near the end, I guessed what was going to happen, but I felt the story lead up to this and there was foreshadowing and not just plain obviousness. I posted some stuff about guessing story ending on
this thread on the Drabblecast forums, so I wont say it all again here.
I don't find the story believable, doesn't seem like it would ever happen. Normally, I tend to enjoy totally unbelievable situations less, but if in the world it is set in it makes sense, I enjoy it more. In this story, there is no real 'sense' to it, things just happen for no reason, but because of the way the story was told and how mush I liked the characters, I never got bugged by the story. Besides, anything can happen in fantasy.
I've never been a huge fantasy fan, but with the exposure I'm getting via audiobooks, podcast(les) I've been listening too and so forth, I'm finding I like it more than I thought I would. Sci-Fi so many times focuses on things and situations, fantasy so many times seems to focus on people. In Santiago, as I recall while writing this, I remember the people more that the situations or technology, where as in my other favorite sci-fi, I seem to recall the situations more.
I've been trying out other fiction podcasts and haven't had too much luck, lots of the stories were very dark, and a nice happy story was very welcome. Four thumbs up! (Yeah, four, because anything can happen in fantasy)