"It reminded me of a dandelion seed"

December 18, 2021 8:15 AM

“The Last Ship Out of Exville” by Phoebe Barton is a short sci-fi story that's quick and angry and loud, like a punk rock song. "They call me the Sorceress, because holding together a community like Exville takes a little magic. We’ve got outcasts from Earth and Luna, Martian dustpunks, Venusian hotshots, and Belter wanderers, and all of them with their own ideas of how to live together. It’d be even harder if we didn’t have all those fascists on Callisto growling at our door."
posted by brainwane (6 comments total)

That was fun. Don't want to spoil the prose but the description of "The Callistonian commander" is some amazing writing.
posted by Nelson at 9:15 AM on December 18, 2021 [3 favorites]

Another great pick, brainwane! I rarely say this, but I would have loved for the story to be longer to give Exville more texture, but this is fine. And yes, the description of the commander was very nice.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:55 PM on December 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

Nice. This would be an amazing animated short.
posted by Wretch729 at 3:45 PM on December 18, 2021 [1 favorite]

I’ve been enjoying the stories you’ve been posting!
posted by michaelh at 6:21 PM on December 18, 2021 [2 favorites]

Shoulda called it Guile in Exville :)
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:38 AM on December 19, 2021 [3 favorites]

That was satisfying, in an odd and rather sad way I don't know that I want to examine too closely.
posted by humbug at 6:11 AM on December 19, 2021