Reviewed:
As good as it gets. Yep. You read that correctly.
In recent years there have been few stories that warranted a review, let alone from a ‘new’ author. When the next Clitorides nominations open I’ll be nominating this story and the author in the appropriate categories.
'The Things We Repair' is a 156k word tale of emotions. Everything from fear to love and all in between.
Yes, it’s an AI assisted tale, but as the author made clear in a story comment, the AI did not write it, he did and then used AI as a tool to ‘polish’ it. As much as I abhor AI created stories, I’m OK with a human using AI as a tool to improve the tale.
“Synopsis: When courier pilot Neris Vael and her sentient ship are thrown through an impossible dimensional accident, they crash far beyond every world they know. Daniel Mercer, a widowed farmer, makes a choice before he understands what has landed on his property: he treats the strangers at the edge of his woods as neighbors. What follows is not a story of invasion or conquest. It is a story of repairs. Necessity becomes trust. Trust becomes friendship. Friendship becomes a household.”
For once the synopsis is accurate and I cannot improve on Flubu’s words.
The dialog usage is unusual, but it works! Works really well. I can easily ‘move into’ the scene and imagine the terse wording as the activity occurs whether it’s in the cow barn or the spaceship.
I’ll finish by saying that it would be best to have a tissue close so that damned dust can be wiped out of the corner of your eyes as needed.
Personally, I rate this tale as a 10/10/10 and I scored it 10.
In story comments Flubu has stated that the 2nd installment is posting and the 3rd is in writing.