Earn The People Of Sand And Slag Scripted By Paolo Bacigalupi Exhibited In Booklet
available in sitelinkPump Six and Other Stories
“The People of Sand and Slag” starts as straight military sf and then twists.
It was nominated for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards,
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February, Minorish spoilers.
This was an interesting little read, and a very distinct one for its premise: technological development has placed the human cast into a postmortality world, and the events of the plot serve to discuss the potential ramifications of such a change.
The setting has elements of both utopia and dystopia, and though some aspects of its plausibility are exaggerated I would think the desire for pets amp sociability beyond just other humans would not suddenly vanish, and that the environmental treatment of the planet/s would not be so bad without a radical paradigm shift which, to selfcriticise, the book is essentially presenting though its extent can still be critiqued, the main debate is handled well and I think an excellent subject given its relevance to us, both past and present.
The story does throw some acronyms and terminology at you from the start without elaborating on their meaning, which I think could have been better handled with terminology more standard to the genre, though it is not a major point.
All in all, I thought this was a solid read, and enjoyed the questions it presented, ugh fuck The end could have used a little bit more fleshing out, but I really liked it, A great short story set in a scifi universe and warns us about not losing our humanity, Very good but nasty for your heart,
Bacigalupi writes in this short story about a militarised and corporatised transhuman world where we have been engineered to feed off anything and so do not really care very much for nature.
Into this world, a rare thing a real animal, a dog appears unaccountably to a small squad,
The story is about the responses of this squad to the animal, It is perhaps the best story I have come across about what transhumanism might come to mean in terms of the loss of what makes us human now.
The squad are transhuman but also posthuman,
The author writes well and imaginatively, The irony of their near posthuman status is that he manages to present them so that they are recognisably still human in most of their attributes and yet, by the end, we know that humanity crossed some line although we are not sure where.
There seems to be an intuitive truth in this, The transhuman process is more likely to be evolutionary and not revolutionary, The passing from our human state to the next nonhuman state is likely to be slow and Bacigalupi manages to chronicle this process as it happens.
This short story is available on the author's sitelinkblog
It envisages a future when mankind is no longer vulnerable to disease and injury thanks to having been augmented and adjusted by "weeviltech" implants.
Living in a wasteland, eating sand and slag, Gone is much of what today makes us human, The first part of this story could be any scifi military operation, hunting down the "hostile", but then the crew find a dog, a real live unaugmented dog, They are not even sure what it is, how could it survive in such a habitat As they wait for the scientist to come to establish it is a dog, they begin to understand how vulnerable an unaugmented animal is.
SPOILER ALERT The scientist confirms "it's quite certainly a real dog, But wat on Earth would I do with it" He held up a vial of blood, "We have the DNA. A live one is hardly worth keeping around" and when the crewe ask what they are supposed to do with it, he replies "Turn it back to your pits.
Or you could eat it, I understand it was a real delicacy, There are recipes for cooking animals, " . They decide to keep it, It intrigues them, The discover it can learn tricks, obey commands, and display affection, But it is not a happy ending for the dog, it is too fragile, required too much attention, and was too expensive to keep, Ultimately however it is the humans one feels for left with the memory of "when the dog licked my face and hauled its shaggy bulk onto my bed, and I remember its warm breathing beside me, and sometimes, I miss it.
"
ashramblings review I'm not a great lover of war stories full of references to military tech and manoeuvres whether in the scifi arena or not.
So the first part of this story is a difficult read for me heavy as it is on the soldiering aspects, but when the twist comes it transforms into a story about what consitutes being human juxtaposing the flimsiness of flesh and blood with regenerative augmented imortality.
Who would want a rare real dog that breaks easily, gets sick from eating the wrong kind of toxic waste and doesn't grow new bones and limbs Brilliant.
Бачигалупи собаку съел на этой истории As the tagline / synopsis says, starts off as scifi military story and then takes a twist as you learn more and new discoveries are made.
Quite vivid, very memorable and worth reading without further elaboration on the story, Interesting concept but I think the realization is a bit too convenient,
WARNING: animal cruelty Never have I hated astar story more.
I realized that I have actually read this before, as part of sitelinkWastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, I must have excised the memory of the story from my brain, because I do not remember it at all,
It's a very well written, ugly story that should come with a trigger warning, I had a hard time sleeping after reading it, I just hated it, despite the excellent writing, This is amazing and almost life changing : Human enhancement is one of the recurring themes in the work of Paolo Bacigalupi, Today's prosthetic limbs, Lasik surgery, and invitro fertilization merely point the way toward the wild possibilities Bacigalupi posits in his fiction, He goes far beyond the human genetic engineering now in development to make humans stronger, smarter, and healthier, Like Margaret Atwood in her Maddaddam Trilogy, he envisions highly intelligent animals that combine the best traits of several species, And he portrays farfuture humans adapted to the harsh conditions of Earth once climate change has rendered the planet unlivable for today's frail human species.
The People of Sand and Slag are engineered security guards who are impervious to the harsh conditions in the vast mining complex where they work.
They thrive in the poisonous atmosphere and pools of toxic chemicals that surround them, They eat mud and sand, which genetically engineered worms inside them somehow convert into nourishment for their bodies, And they laughingly amputate limbs for sport, prepared to wait for the appendages to grow back overnight, This novelette is a gripping story, told with great skill and a sure command of suspense,
About the author
Paolo Bacigalupi has won the Hugo, Nebula, Compton Crook, Theodore Sturgeon, and Michael L, Printz awards, and was nominated for the National Book Award, In addition to his five scifi novels, a collection of short stories, and these three novelettes, he has collaborated on a novella and a novel, both of them works of fantasy.
I half wish I'd never read this, The visceral reason is because I love dogs, and hate to see them in peril, The intellectual reason is that in Bacigalupi's dystopian vision, the future is bleak because human beings are, by nature, monsters,
I might be forgiven for guessing, at first, that I was reading about artificial people, Their seeming indifference to pain, their ability to regrow amputated limbs, their diet of sand and rock, and their immortality all suggested that the characters in this story couldn't possibly be human.
And then I realized that they were a step in human evolution, people living in a symbiotic relationship with creatures called "weevils" that give them the ability to recover from any injury, and to live, presumably, forever.
And in the end, though they've become like gods, they still have all the faults of humans but magnified now that there are no consequences.
As a result they're casually cruel and thoughtless, They seem to have lost the ability to care about anything, to value traits like love and loyalty, They wonder, at one point, why the last mortal poet nice play on the idea of an "immortal" poet refused immortality, They love his work, but don't get what it is he's telling them,
I wish I'd never met them, and yet the power of this story is undeniable,
This is a memorable, but horrible story, I've read little of Bacigalupi's stuff, and this is why, Not for me!
Michele was more eloquent:
sitelink goodreads. com/review/show This book is an awesome look at how humanity will always adapt 'Nuff said.
Edit,: I feel the need to clarify my rating of this story, Although I gave it no, it has stayed vividly with me since the day I read it much like Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been", so clearly both the story and writing are powerful.
In terms of the power and craft of its storytelling, I would
have to give it five,
But did I like the story Oh hell no, It's dark and disturbing and gutwrenching so horrific, in fact, that I didn't have the nerve to try anything else by Bacigalupi for eight years.
Just thought I'd get that out there, Most of us are aware of how plastic the human body is, It quickly adjusts to whatever environment it lives in, whatever the circumstances, within limits, However, the 'average' person, who rarely travels too far outside of his or her own experience and understanding, believes those limits are very rigid, Doctors and anthropologists have a bigger picture of how people adjust to various temperatures, foods, deformities, injuries, beliefs, customs, mores, etc, especially if born into a particular environment, When immigrants change countries with a completely different habitat, aesthetics and foodstuffs, some adults may never be able to adjust, while children quickly adjust so fast, they may completely lose all ability to return to their country of birth after they grow up.
But most people do adapt to some degree, The scientists say the body basically grows new tissues and brain cells to deal with the new functions it needs to survive, while literally absorbing and getting rid of the old, unused cells.
Literally, if you don't use it, you lose it,
What would happen if a number of predicted future possibilities come to pass at the same time Specifically, body modifications which permit people to live on radioactive sludge, metal leavings, rocks and sand bodies which feel no pain when injured bodies which heal so fast even death is no longer a possibility and this is the human experience for centuries Why would you care any longer about hurting yourself Video games would no longer be important because everyone could easily have the excitement of war, destruction, deathless murder and change of physical attributes without penalty, all in actual fact.
Whatever you could imagine for yourself is absolutely possible, Rambo would be a pussy in this future environment,
So, what we think of as 'humanity' and as being 'humane' today, would it still be true of people with these kind of bodies, impervious to all the agonies of pain, environment and death Where no one would have to care for anyone else ever again in their lifetime Where people have forgotten that people used to have each other's backs beyond any personal gain except the emotional reward of being humane
Where would animals fit in this radioactive world Where would farm animals fit, if people ate rocks to live Especially pets Would military or business entities care to support creatures who do not add to the bottom line If people worked in environments of toxic sludge, or war with toxic weaponry with complete safety, would they bring pets After centuries of living for only one's security, advancement and sensual desires, would people lose 'humanity'
Three people live and work at a mining operation for SesCo, Jaak, Lisa and Chen.
They are happy enough protecting the Montana property, watching over the biorobots, mechanical equipment and computers, They spend their offhours having sex and playing immersive wargame video games, Nuking unexpected visitors to the property is their hope, Without violence, life is boring, So when their monitors show something moving within the perimeter of the company's territory, they gleefully set out to destroy or kill whatever has wandered in or invaded they don't care which.
Shockingly, they discover a dog, a REAL dog, Jaak wants to keep it, They take a vote after Jaak agrees to pay for it's food out of his pay, because it needs specialized pellets of food which are only available for scientific experimental animals.
Something about the dog's aspect is vaguely appealing, but soon the trio discovers it is a fragile being, its natural abilities being of limited entertainment value.
Is the dog worth protecting and keeping alive The trio will soon need to decide as the expenses of its food continue and it becomes obvious the friendly creature needs constant care.
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