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jokoloyo's review
3.0
It is a good heartwarming story, I like the ending.
But is it a SF? I have been asking this question more and more in my heart since 2015 where I started catching up reading some Hugo or Nebula nomination/winner stories.
I see the story as a family drama with setting in the future where space travel to Mars is possible. But SF stories is not the story of a fictitious technology, but how the technology affects the people's life. I see People's behavior in the story are the same as in real life.
But is it a SF? I have been asking this question more and more in my heart since 2015 where I started catching up reading some Hugo or Nebula nomination/winner stories.
I see the story as a family drama with setting in the future where space travel to Mars is possible. But SF stories is not the story of a fictitious technology, but how the technology affects the people's life. I see People's behavior in the story are the same as in real life.
delz's review
5.0
This was a very enjoyable short story. It was touted as sci-fy, and although it's set into the far off future, it's really about a struggling young woman trying to work and take care of her dying mom.
alexiacambaling's review
4.0
A nice novellete about a woman whose only clue about her father is an old book. Who her father was is obvious from the beginning but the story still managed to be compelling and interesting. I’m would love to know more about her mother though since she interests me more than the protagonist.
spookyjane's review
3.0
3.5
There were places in this that were so beautifully written - I highlighted about 6 different passages in this 40 page story. However, there were places that also felt abrupt, like there should have at least been a break between paragraphs to indicate a change in time and/or place. Those moments jarred me out of the story a bit.
The story was interesting, but I did guess the ending quite early on,which made all of the consideration of different men to be the main character's dad seem like it was all there for no reason but to make the story a certain length .
There were places in this that were so beautifully written - I highlighted about 6 different passages in this 40 page story. However, there were places that also felt abrupt, like there should have at least been a break between paragraphs to indicate a change in time and/or place. Those moments jarred me out of the story a bit.
The story was interesting, but I did guess the ending quite early on,
tsana's review
4.0
This story is about a woman who works in a hotel near Heathrow, which happens to be the hotel the group of astronauts going to Mars will stay at before departing. The bulk of the story deals with her feelings surrounding space travel, which is inextricably tied up with her family history, especially her mother. The major emotional journeys for the protagonist, Emily, are her search for her father — whose identity she doesn't know — and her mother's illness, caused by proximity to space travel.
It's not a bad story, but nothing very much happens in it. We get a bit of a sense for a future in which a large mission is being attempted for the second time, but not much else about the future world is revealed. Emily's emotional journey isn't boring, but neither is it thrilling. The most interesting bits, for me, were about what happened to her mother. Mind you, part of the point there is that no one really understands her illness in full, so it's not really a plot thread with a resolution. I enjoyed "The Art of Space Travel", but I didn't love it. I am hoping that I will enjoy some of the other novelettes more.
It's not a bad story, but nothing very much happens in it. We get a bit of a sense for a future in which a large mission is being attempted for the second time, but not much else about the future world is revealed. Emily's emotional journey isn't boring, but neither is it thrilling. The most interesting bits, for me, were about what happened to her mother. Mind you, part of the point there is that no one really understands her illness in full, so it's not really a plot thread with a resolution. I enjoyed "The Art of Space Travel", but I didn't love it. I am hoping that I will enjoy some of the other novelettes more.
lan's review
2.0
notes
• another reviewer described it as "the most down to earth story about space travel you'll ever read" and I'd have to agree
• it felt too compact at the end
• (I'm having trouble shuffling my thoughts together)
• another reviewer described it as "the most down to earth story about space travel you'll ever read" and I'd have to agree
• it felt too compact at the end
• (I'm having trouble shuffling my thoughts together)
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