Click on image to enlarge.
|
Breakaway, Backdown [MultiFormat]
eBook by James Patrick Kelly
| |
Regular |
|
 |
|
Club |
| List Price: |
$0.49 |
|
|
|
$0.42 |
| You Pay: |
$0.27 |
|
|
|
$0.23 |
| You Save: |
44.9% |
|
|
|
53.06% |
eBook Category: Science Fiction Year's Best Science Fiction Selection
eBook Description:  This story presents a gritty, realistic view of what the real consequences may be of people occupying space for long periods of time. It's written in an unusual second-person style in which you, the reader, take the role of a shoe-sales person talking with a person who has just dropped out of the orbital space culture. The main character talks directly to the reader, and the story is written such that you will automatically fill in the other side of the conversation. Highly unusual style, but it works well for this story.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's, 1996
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2001
87 Reader Ratings:
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [25 KB]
, ePub (EPUB) [23 KB]
, Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [12 KB]
, Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [61 KB]
, Palm Doc (PDB) [11 KB]
, Microsoft Reader (LIT) [48 KB]
, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [82 KB]
, hiebook (KML) [56 KB]
, Sony Reader (LRF) [51 KB]
, iSilo (PDB) [10 KB]
, Mobipocket (PRC) [12 KB]
, Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [40 KB]
, OEBFF Format (IMP) [21 KB]
Words: 3527
Reading time: 10-14 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
You know, in space nobody wears shoes.
~ Well, new temps wear slippers. They make the soles out of that adhesive polymer, griprite or griptite. Sounds like paper ripping when you lift your feet. Temps who've been up a while wear this glove thing that snugs around the toes. The breakaways, they go barefoot. You can't really walk much in space, so they've reinvented their feet so they can pick up screwdrivers and spoons and stuff. It's hard because you lose fine motor control in micro gee. I had ... have this friend, Elena, who could make a krill and tomato sandwich with her feet, but she had that operation that changes your big toe into a thumb. I used to kid her that maybe breakaways were climbing down the evolutionary ladder, not jumping off it. Are we people or chimps? She'd scratch her armpits and hoot. ~ Sure, breakaways have a sense of humor. They're people after all; it's just that they're like no people you know. The thing was, Elena was so limber that she could bite her toenails. So can you fix my shoe?
|
)
