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A review by colossal
The Four Thousand, the Eight Hundred by Greg Egan
4.0
An interesting short story which escalates from an ethics issue in an asteroid-based society right into a variant of the classic ethical question of the Trolley Problem.
The asteroid of Vesta has a political situation where a persecuted minority are fleeing to Ceres. Ceres itself seems to be heading down the same road after the population narrowly passes legislation which makes second-class citizens of the same minority (depressingly familiar story at the moment). Then a situation comes up where the protagonist, a member of that minority, is forced to make a horrible choice.
This was excellent, but the details of the "stone river" are not well described. They don't really need to be to get the gist of the story, but I found it a bit frustrating.
The asteroid of Vesta has a political situation where a persecuted minority are fleeing to Ceres. Ceres itself seems to be heading down the same road after the population narrowly passes legislation which makes second-class citizens of the same minority (depressingly familiar story at the moment). Then a situation comes up where the protagonist, a member of that minority, is forced to make a horrible choice.
This was excellent, but the details of the "stone river" are not well described. They don't really need to be to get the gist of the story, but I found it a bit frustrating.