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A review by nataliya_x
Sauerkraut Station by Ferrett Steinmetz
3.0
There’s nothing like a whiff of fresh sauerkraut first thing in the morning...
So. Let’s imagine the setting. Imagine a tiny outpost in the middle of nowhere, run by a family of three hardy women, along a road connecting two hostile empires. A place where for a small price weary travelers can get some rest and food for their steeds and, of course, delicious bratwurst with a generous helping of legendary local sauerkraut.
Now replace the outpost with a small space station, the middle of nowhere with the outskirts of the Oort Cloud, horse feed with spaceship fissionable fuel. But keep the sauerkraut. The sauerkraut stays.
Welcome to the Little Spacestation on the Oort Prairie!
Twelve-year-old Lizzie feels cooped up in the 228 walls of her space home. Her days are spent helping Momma and Gemma maintain the station, serve the travelers making a pit stop for refuel and rest, wave to the desiccated corpse of her Daddy orbiting past the station every 47 days (an unfortunate accident back in the day - *never* forget the tether while doing EVA!), tending hydroponic gardens and, of course, making sauerkraut. In space. She is very lonely, and her best friend is a little boy on his way to being a diplomatic hostage — whom she knew for four whole days.
And then space war breaks out, and Lizzie’s familiar life is changed forever. Not only does she become a badass space medic at twelve, after a four-months-long apprenticeship (she just needs a proper implantation of bowel sealant, dammit!), while still having to make all the sauerkraut, but the opposing powers both would just love to put the brave little Sauerkraut Station to their own uses.
If all the above made it seem like I accidentally got high on sauerkraut fumes when reading this story, I don’t even know what to tell ya.
All I know is that living your whole life in the tiny place full of sauerkraut must be a special kind of afterlife punishment. I remember my grandma making sauerkraut a few times when I was a kid, and her balcony was a bit, ahem, aromatic. And that’s *with* fresh air circulation, mind it.
Although the finished product may be worth stopping by a little space station somewhere in the Oort Cloud and put up with that fermented odor for a bit.
This story is weird and cute, and eventually a bit brutal, too. I do wish that instead of the too-sweet and too-innocent Lizzie’s POV the strange world of space homestead-y sauerkraut station was given a bit more satirical view through the eyes of a gritty hardy stationeer, but that’s for my imagination to expand upon, I guess.
3stars fermented space cabbages.
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Read it free here: http://giganotosaurus.org/2011/11/01/sauerkraut-station/
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Also posted on my blog.
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Recommended by: carol.
So. Let’s imagine the setting. Imagine a tiny outpost in the middle of nowhere, run by a family of three hardy women, along a road connecting two hostile empires. A place where for a small price weary travelers can get some rest and food for their steeds and, of course, delicious bratwurst with a generous helping of legendary local sauerkraut.
Now replace the outpost with a small space station, the middle of nowhere with the outskirts of the Oort Cloud, horse feed with spaceship fissionable fuel. But keep the sauerkraut. The sauerkraut stays.
Welcome to the Little Spacestation on the Oort Prairie!
“Momma says there are thousands of refill stations across the Western Spiral, but only we have genuine, home-made sauerkraut — one jar for ten indo-dollars, four for thirty. I know captains who chart an extra point on their jump-charts just to take some of our kim-chi home with ‘em, yessiree.”
Twelve-year-old Lizzie feels cooped up in the 228 walls of her space home. Her days are spent helping Momma and Gemma maintain the station, serve the travelers making a pit stop for refuel and rest, wave to the desiccated corpse of her Daddy orbiting past the station every 47 days (an unfortunate accident back in the day - *never* forget the tether while doing EVA!), tending hydroponic gardens and, of course, making sauerkraut. In space. She is very lonely, and her best friend is a little boy on his way to being a diplomatic hostage — whom she knew for four whole days.
“Only 228 walls in Sauerkraut Station,” Gemma nodded, clucking her tongue in sympathy. “All the walls you’ve ever seen. And each of those walls feels like it’s squeezing you. There’s gotta be someplace bigger out there, and you’re gonna die if you don’t step into it. That it?”
And then space war breaks out, and Lizzie’s familiar life is changed forever. Not only does she become a badass space medic at twelve, after a four-months-long apprenticeship (she just needs a proper implantation of bowel sealant, dammit!), while still having to make all the sauerkraut, but the opposing powers both would just love to put the brave little Sauerkraut Station to their own uses.
“Still, the soldiers always panicked when the twelve-year-old girl hooked them up to the anesthetizer.”
If all the above made it seem like I accidentally got high on sauerkraut fumes when reading this story, I don’t even know what to tell ya.
All I know is that living your whole life in the tiny place full of sauerkraut must be a special kind of afterlife punishment. I remember my grandma making sauerkraut a few times when I was a kid, and her balcony was a bit, ahem, aromatic. And that’s *with* fresh air circulation, mind it.
Although the finished product may be worth stopping by a little space station somewhere in the Oort Cloud and put up with that fermented odor for a bit.
“What would it be like to live in a world that could get by without you? Lizzie’s world was held together by checklists of chores and maintenance. Lizzie’s world needed her.”
“So Lizzie showed him how to make wishes off the microshields, where you said a question out loud three times and if a meteoroid got zapped before you could count to thirty, your wish would come true.”
This story is weird and cute, and eventually a bit brutal, too. I do wish that instead of the too-sweet and too-innocent Lizzie’s POV the strange world of space homestead-y sauerkraut station was given a bit more satirical view through the eyes of a gritty hardy stationeer, but that’s for my imagination to expand upon, I guess.
3
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Read it free here: http://giganotosaurus.org/2011/11/01/sauerkraut-station/
——————
Also posted on my blog.
——————
Recommended by: carol.