Huh. I'm really going to be a voice apart this time, I guess.
I absolutely loved this story. I thought it was well told (personally, I loved the way it just dropped me in there - it made me want to know what the hell was going on. Kate Baker's narration was subtle perfection. Great match-up between narrator and story this time, IMO.
I find myself
very quickly becoming a fan of Genevieve Valentine's fiction. I saw her name pop up all over this past month with stories at
Clarkesworld and
Strange Horizons, in addition to all the blogging she does at Tor.com - it's been quite a month for her. But I think it's very well-earned. She puts a real sense of hummanity into these great SF concepts and makes them oh-so bittersweet. Listening to this made me want to grab the Federations anthology off the shelf, reread this one, and then go through all the rest of the stories in there.
The comparisons Listener made to Waiting for Godot are interesting. I agree with them, and yet, I think there's slightly more optimism to it here (although there's plenty of heartache, too). I mean, 400 years without war, 400 years of peace? That's pretty amazing, and it made me wonder even if Catharge never came, or was fabricated, it might still be worth it to believe.