The Dying Days of Summer by Terry Gibbons

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Robert_Moriyama
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Re: The Dying Days of Summer by Terry Gibbons

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

... I'd still rather print new material, but I really liked this one. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has read it in one of its other venues -- I don't have any idea how much overlap there is between the reader bases of different 'zines (especially given Aphelion's international WRITER base -- we've had stuff from the U.S. and Canada (of course), Australia, England, and Israel, at the very least).

Robert "Rules? What rules?" M.
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

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Re: The Dying Days of Summer by Terry Gibbons

Post by Megawatts »

Good space story, good beginning and smooth development and nice easy character growth. I could feel myself on Mars, feel the wind, sense the light atmosphere and the loneliness that must accompany the small clan that has survived.

The name Alex Braxxian is appropriate for it reminded me of the old West. Borax is mined in California, and an old T.V. Program, The Zane Gray Theater---narrated by President Ronald Reagan in the 60’s----opened with a twenty-mule team hauling a wagon of borax across an arid land.

I don’t know if the author intended to associate the name ’Braxxian’ with ’Borax’ to symbolize desert like conditions, but it did with me!! Maybe someone else can comment of symbolism used this way.

I found the body of the story to be rather predictable------a young kid breaking the rules by going out himself to the scavenger camp, and then rescued by another. In this case by
Aaron Thorne, a big, powerful Martian, and again the name given to the Martian suggests strength.

The ending baffled me. The Symbol of Earth was recognizable, yet it has been one hundred years since the war which apparently wiped out all life on Earth. If some on Earth did survive, a new government would have formed, and there would be little chance of them using an old marking. And the craft only twenty-meters long and shaped like an arrowhead with flesh-colored metal and ribbed and skeletal-looking, leaves me to wonder.

The two mutants inside the ship might be anything imaginable. Were they from Earth present? Or another part of Mars? Or in suspended animation for years since Alex ran a glove over the skin of the ship and noted:  The skin was pitted and scarred with hundreds of tiny holes and gashes; it had certainly seen better days. That does suggest the ship being in space for a long time or stored outside for years with little maintenance on it. And if it were in space for years, then maybe the suspended animation system malfunctioned somewhat and turned it’s occupants into mutants! Anything is possible!

The American Dome? Many countries must have colonized Mars at one time, then a nuclear war destroyed Earth, or so the story suggests.

This story must be an idea for a novel, and it’s a good one! I really like it!!!





   
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