{"id":69,"date":"2011-07-01T03:28:00","date_gmt":"2011-07-01T03:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/long-looks-at-short-fiction-coordinated-attacks-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch\/"},"modified":"2011-07-01T03:28:00","modified_gmt":"2011-07-01T03:28:00","slug":"long-looks-at-short-fiction-coordinated-attacks-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/long-looks-at-short-fiction-coordinated-attacks-by-kristine-kathryn-rusch\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Looks at Short Fiction: "Coordinated Attacks" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Analog<\/i><\/a>, July-August, 2011, $5.99<\/p>\n

I know, I know.\u00a0 That’s the previous issue of Analog<\/i>.\u00a0 The new issue came out last week.\u00a0 I’m a little behind.<\/p>\n

Anyway, you can still buy this issue in electronic format from Fictionwise<\/i> by clicking on the link above.<\/p>\n

I wanted to look at the novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch<\/a> in this issue.\u00a0 It’s a science fiction thriller set on the Moon at least 200 years or so in the future.\u00a0 (The exact date isn’t given but there are references to historical events that require that sort of time frame.)\u00a0 If you haven’t read it, it’s worth your time to do so for reasons you know I’m going to explain.
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The story has two plots, with one of them taking place four years in the past.\u00a0 The story in the past concerns a police detective, one Bartholomew Nyquist, who is called in to investigate a murder.\u00a0 He’s between partners, and the latest candidate, Ursula Palmette, is waiting for him when he arrives.\u00a0 Bartholomew tends to be rather hard on partners, so he tends to go through them on a higher than average basis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the present (at least as far as the story is concerned), the mayors of several of the Domes have been assassinated, almost simultaneously, and all in the same bizarre and horrifying manner.\u00a0 Nyquist is involved in this case as well, although he’s not in charge of it and doesn’t show up in the present until the story is well-progressed.\u00a0 Also involved in the investigation are Detective Savita Romey and Noelle DeRicci, Chief of Security for the United Domes of the Moon.\u00a0 DeRicci and Nyquist are romantically involved, although that aspect of their relationship doesn’t enter into the events.<\/p>\n

Maybe in the sequel Rusch will explore that aspect of her characters’ lives.\u00a0 I’m sure there’s going to be a sequel.\u00a0 Rusch started both her Retrieval Artist series and her Diving into the Wreck series as novellas in magazines, the former in Analog<\/i> and the latter in Asimov’s<\/i>.\u00a0 This story has the same feel as the inaugural stories in those series.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is a gripping thriller.\u00a0 You know the events of the case four years prior will come into play in the present and have something to do with the assassinations.\u00a0 The way the two cases related was unexpected.\u00a0 There’s some closure, but there are plenty of questions left unanswered.\u00a0 Some of these questions are major plot points, others relate to background details that could become important as the series develops.\u00a0 For instance, more than one reference is made to the fact that Nyquist has recently returned to active duty after healing from injuries he suffered in a major case the previous year.\u00a0 Rusch never specifies what the exact nature of either that case or his injuries are.\u00a0 But since it was a case involving terrorism, and the current case involves terrorism, I suspect a connection will develop at some point.<\/p>\n

While the scenes set in the present have multiple viewpoints, including Nyquist, all the of scenes from four years ago are told from his point of view.\u00a0 He’s a fascinating, complex character.\u00a0 From what I picked up, he’s undergone some changes in the intervening four years, some due to the case four years ago and some from the case in which he was seriously injured.\u00a0 I’d like to see more of those changes, just like I’d like to see more of Nyquist.\u00a0 Not to mention have the mystery resolved.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Kris Rusch is one of the best writers working today in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, and (although I haven’t read any) romance.\u00a0 If you haven’t read her work, here’s a great place to start.\u00a0 If you have, then you know “Coordinated Attacks” is going to be worth your time.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Analog, July-August, 2011, $5.99 I know, I know.\u00a0 That’s the previous issue of Analog.\u00a0 The new issue came out last week.\u00a0 I’m a little behind. Anyway, you can still buy this issue in electronic format from Fictionwise by clicking on the link above. I wanted to look at the novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[122,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analog","category-kristine-kathryn-rusch"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3P5pJ-17","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/adventuresfantastic.com\/futurespastandpresent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}