Fictional stories about space fiction

October 10, 2020 5:27 PM

Two scifi/fantasy stories about space exploration, fiction, lies, and exuberant adventure. "The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales" by Fei Dao, translated by Ken Liu, sort of a Stanislaw Lem-feeling yarn, and "Four Kinds of Cargo" by Leonard Richardson (disclaimer: my spouse), a bit of Firefly-ish wackiness with a touch of pathos.

"The Robot Who Liked to Tell Tall Tales" by Fei Dao, translated by Ken Liu:

He decided that the solution was to find someone else who was even more of a liar than he was. Nobody ever remembered number two in any category.

"Four Kinds of Cargo" by Leonard Richardson (disclaimer: my spouse):

The Captain had spent her childhood watching bad native-language dubs of those same epics, except the implication that all this stuff was fiction had been lost in translation, or cut so the broadcaster could squeeze in another commercial. When she came of age, the Captain (probably not her birth name) had bought Sour Candy with Mommy's money, hired a crew, and declared herself a smuggler.

There is a completely different story by Fei Dao, "The Storytelling Robot" (translated in this case by Alec Ash), in case you want more kinda Cyberiad-ishness by the same author on similar themes: “The court trembled while the robot calmly answered, 'Your Majesty, this story can have two endings, but I haven’t yet calculated which is the most marvellous.'”

posted by brainwane (2 comments total)

No one knows what it's like
to be the bad robot,
to be the sad robot,
with tiny hands.

No one knows what it's like
to be hated,
to be fated,
to telling only lies.
posted by otherchaz at 5:24 AM on October 11, 2020 [3 favorites]

So much good stuff to read (or in my case, add to the to-read pile). Thanks!
posted by Harald74 at 4:07 AM on October 12, 2020