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Ruby, In the Storm [MultiFormat]
eBook by A. M. Dellamonica
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$1.05 |
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$0.89 |
eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: A professor whose post-doctoral fellow happens to be an offworlder finds herself dealing with angry parents and violent protesters when she learns Groll is also on a mission to convert human students to his religious faith.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Scifiction, ed. Ellen Datlow, 2006
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2007
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [197 KB], eReader (PDB) [43 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [31 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [29 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [86 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [103 KB], hiebook (KML) [97 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [59 KB], iSilo (PDB) [25 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [32 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [60 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [46 KB]
Words: 8548
Reading time: 24-34 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
"'Ruby, in the Storm' by A.M. Dellamonica offers a sophisticated look at aliens in Academia. This story is funny, wise, and stylistically sharp; I especially appreciated the witty dialogue and the story's spirited and absurd sexual situations. Mocking everything from club-dancing to extraterrestrial ennui, Dellamonica lures the reader through an increasingly 'deconstructed' future-campus where her professorial protagonist, Helena, attains heroic stature, merely by maintaining her humanity in the face of ever-less-human circumstances. In this sense the aliens of the story are symbols of alienation and the increasing fragmentation of human society. In searching for identity and moral bearing, many are apt to stray to bigotry and moral tyranny. 'Ruby, In the Strom' posits as many questions moral and philosophical questions as it answers--though the denouement and strong arc of character development in this piece point toward an ethical dynamic that recalls Carol Gilligan's 'Ethic of Care.' Lest any of this intellectual meandering bias you against the story, let me hastily add, that the tale is quite reader-friendly, funny in many places, and doesn't require that you be as smart (or as philosophically motivated) as its characters."--sfreader.com
The Katfite was smoky, strobe-lit, and loud, features that hadn't changed in the decade since Helena's dancing days even though music had moved on. Tripping rhythms hit her like ball-peen hammers as she stepped inside, coming face to face with a poster that told her the current band's name: Hairy Rhythm Romeo. She grinned as she scanned the shadows below the stage--they weren't half bad.
On the dance floor, two lines of kids were performing a Regency dance. They were moving twice as fast as anything out of Jane Austen. If what Helena had heard was correct, they would continue to speed up. Short leather straps dangled from their left hands; anyone unlucky enough to miss a step would be lashed by her nearest neighbors. Helena squinted, trying to see if anyone was bleeding.
Probably not--it was early yet.
She elbowed through to the bar and tried in vain to get someone's attention, made invisible by her conservative teaching clothes. At last she was jostled in the direction of an empty stool. Bracing herself, she stuck a muddy boot out in front of a passing waiter's expensive-looking tights.
He stopped, bawling over the accelerating tempo of the band: "Cop? Social worker?"
A crack of straps against flesh made her wince. "Professor. I'm looking for an alien--a Lrollmron?"
"Yeti? Big guy, kinda green?"
Green? Helena nodded anyway.
"In the john. You gonna order?"
"No thanks."
Shrugging, the waiter sidestepped her extended leg. Helena hooked a lemon slice from behind the bar, chewed the fruit for fortification, and plunged into the fray.
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