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A review by caitcoy
Future Science Fiction Digest Issue 1 by Steve Kopka, Alex Shvartsman, Walter Dinjos, Mike Resnick, Liang Ling, Dantzel Cherry, Marina Dyachenko, Sergey Dyachenko, Lawrence M. Schoen
1.0
In The Rule of Three, an alien traveling in a pearl lands in rural China where he catches the attention of the locals. When the narrator of the story hears from his mother about the strange visitor in the village (which happens to be where his grandmother lives), he travels back to China to check it out.
The base concept is interesting but the Rule of Three is borderline Luddite. While I appreciate that the author enjoyed getting to travel to a rural province in China and learn ancient techniques, I had difficulty swallowing the idea of anything not made by hand as "dark, unlife." Too preachy and too oblivious of the advantages we've gained from technology for me. Not all technology advances are good but we don't exactly need to return to pre-industrialization either.
The base concept is interesting but the Rule of Three is borderline Luddite. While I appreciate that the author enjoyed getting to travel to a rural province in China and learn ancient techniques, I had difficulty swallowing the idea of anything not made by hand as "dark, unlife." Too preachy and too oblivious of the advantages we've gained from technology for me. Not all technology advances are good but we don't exactly need to return to pre-industrialization either.