THE DEEP ONES: "The Mermaid Astronaut" by Yoon Ha Lee

"The Mermaid Astronaut" by Yoon Ha Lee

Discussion begins on June 29, 2022.

First published Beneath Ceaseless Skies #298



BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?2853886

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Volume 2

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-mermaid-astronaut/

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

No online audio versions found to date.

MISCELLANY

https://www.yoonhalee.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoon_Ha_Lee
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/nonfiction/interview-yoon-ha-lee/
https://tinyurl.com/bdhma424

A science fiction story crossed with a fairy tale. This story rather underwhelmed despite the lyrical passages. But I mostly put that down to never much having an interest in fairy tales.

Catching up on stories I missed during the summer, I find myself just over a month late to this one.

At first, I thought the joining of sf and fairytale uneasy, but I eventually warmed to it. The witch being a former star-traveller and succeeding her being the price was a nice twist I thought.

ObAnecdote: I once (jocularly) proposed to Yoon Ha Lee, back when he still identified as female.

I suppose space opera has been overtaken by a century of scientific advancement and really ought to be reclassified as fantasy, but the combination of space opera and fairy tale nevertheless failed to gel for me.

And as one of the below the line commentators point out, the starship crew would surely have warned Essarala about the effects of time-dilation.