"Sixteen Earth years. Not quite nine, Martian."

November 23, 2021 5:44 AM

Wanna read action-y scifi about girls solving problems by hacking electronics? (Previously.) "Power to the People" by Kiera Lesley is shorter: “Sorry, print took longer than I expected.” Sarah said, fishing in her pockets for her offerings, all in white because that was the only colour filament she had. But "A Thousand Ways" by Beth McCabe takes place on Mars: Riley began moving the rows of panels from angled to vertical, a kluge Liam's team had fixed up to keep the sticky dust from accumulating during a storm. While she worked, her gaze travelled over the landscape of her childhood, littered with the debris of the Consortium's failures.
posted by brainwane (4 comments total)

“A Thousand Ways” has just zapped me straight into its world, and left me wanting to spend more time there. Thank you as ever for these!
posted by greycap at 10:27 AM on November 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Wanna read action-y scifi about girls solving problems by hacking electronics?

Yes. And more specifically I want to comment to let you know that your posts (and Wobbuffet's and I am sure others who are posting short fiction) really make a meaningful difference in my life. I know that your posts don't get a ton of comments, and it is hard for me to comment on them because every post it would be "I like this, thanks", which doesn't seem to add much. Anyway, just letting you know that I appreciate what you are sharing. :)
posted by Literaryhero at 5:08 PM on November 23, 2021 [6 favorites]

I would love to read a novel of how Riley ends up leading the Martians to survive and thrive without corporate sponsorship.
posted by solotoro at 10:15 AM on November 25, 2021

Multiple people mentioned interest (in this thread and elsewhere) in finding more fiction by Beth McCabe. Her ISFDB entry is incomplete, and I don't think she has a homepage, but a contributor bio here and there helped me track down a few stories by her. I do not think she's published any novels yet. Her Andromeda Spaceways Magazine story "Siren Song" is behind a paywall, and she had a story in Blue Monday Review which seems to have completely gone offline, and (per ISFDB) she wrote some stories in some anthologies. Here's some stuff she wrote - I haven't read it yet - that you can read online for free:

"The Memory Gambit"

"The Mercenary"

"Siren Song"

"Prom Night"

"Everything We Need"

"Mildly Anxious, Overweight"

Literaryhero -- thanks for the kind words.
posted by brainwane at 6:57 AM on December 9, 2021 [1 favorite]