Contains Multitudes

by Ben Burgis

Being a teenager is tough. Being part of the first generation of teenagers to share their body and soul with one of the aliens who just barely destroyed the way tougher.This compact but powerful short story from Ben Burgis, a relative newcomer to the speculative fiction world, places everyday teen angst on a landscape of intergalactic and interspecies conflict, to chilling effect.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Horror, Young Adult, Fantasy

20 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 17, 2013

About the author

Ben Burgis is a graduate of Clarion West, and he has an MFA in Creative Writing from the Stonecoast program in Maine. He writes speculative fiction and realist fiction and grocery lists and Facebook status updates and academic papers. (He has a PhD from the University of Miami, and currently holds a post-doctoral fellowship at Yonsei University in South Korea.) His work has appeared in places like Podcastle and GigaNotoSaurus and Youngstown State University’s literary review Jenny. His story “Dark Coffee, Bright Light and the Paradoxes of Omnipotence” appeared in Prime Books’ anthology People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction & Fantasy.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

WELCOME TO DECEMBER PROJECT!

boilerplate mission statement intro:

for the past two years, i’ve set december’s project aside to do my own version of a short story advent calendar. it’s not a true advent calendar since i choose all the stories myself, but what it lacks in the ‘element of surprise’ department it more than makes up for in hassle, as i try to cram even MORE reading into a life already overcrammed with impossible personal goals (live up to your potential! find meaningful work! learn to knit!) merry merry wheee!

since i am already well behind in my *regular* reviewing, when it comes to these stories, whatever i poop out as far as reflections or impressions are going to be superficial and perfunctory at best. please do not weep for the great big hole my absented, much-vaunted critical insights are gonna leave in these daily review-spaces (and your hearts); i’ll try to drop shiny insights elsewhere in other reviews, and here, i will at least drop links to where you can read the stories yourselves for free, which - let’s be honest - is gonna serve you better anyway.

HAPPY READING, BOOKNERDS!

links to all stories read in previous years' calendars can be found at the end of these reviews, in case you are a person who likes to read stories for free:

2016: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2017: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

scroll down for links to this year’s stories which i will update as we go, and if you have any suggestions, send 'em my way! the only rules are: it must be available free online (links greatly appreciated), and it must be here on gr as its own thing so i can review it. thank you in advance!

DECEMBER 8

The promise made in the terms of surrender was that the Others would grow in us so slowly that our precious human bodies would have a chance to die of old age, surrounded by our 100% human children and grandchildren, before our stomachs burst open. Only the kids born in the first twenty years after the War would be affected. That meant that apart from some kind of territorial division of the planet between humans and Others, by the time the new generation was gone, everything would be back to normal. The crowning result of their science mixed with ours.

When the videos of yellow tentacles ripping their way out of fourteen-year-olds’ bellies started showing on CNN, there were riots in the streets. Never mind that it would have been a miracle if there hadn’t been a single slipup in the gestation-slowing procedures, or that there was no evidence that it was happening to more than .00001% of kids around the world . . . people were sure that this was a sign that the Evil Aliens Had Lied To Us.

this is a three-star that i am willing into four-star territory. there's a lot about it i think is successful: i like the premise, and i don't mind that it cuts off just when things start getting exciting, forcing the reader to fill in the aftermath with their own logical speculations.

but, hm.

i like the whitman angle applied to the WE ARE VENOM conceit, but it's really just the one sound bite used here. and i know Song of Myself is a really long and frequently undisciplined poem, but there's a ton of material that could have been extracted from it to use towards fleshing this out a bit more. i dunno - it felt a little half-assed, less a part of the story then something for the story to lean on, and then explicitly calling it out - like tagging whitman on an instagram post. we are disappoint.

and as cool as parts of this were, knowing more about the relationship between alex and his otherself would have been welcome - there are some contradictory moments i'm trying to work out, as well as the alex and natasha relationship - they seem perfectly compatible, but considering the brevity of their relationship, it's a pretty bold move on alex's part.

i told myself i'm not overthinking short stories anymore, especially on this one-a-day advent calendar so i am turning off my brain. we'll give it a four because it is the season of giving and i am going to get on santa's nice list if it kills me.



read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2013/07/17/contai...


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come to my blog!

[Anish Kohli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoutout to Vishakha for this awesome recommendation! Thank you, miss!

“There are at least five hundred people in the crowd, a thousand minds eagerly waiting for the act.”

What the fuck did I just even read? And I say this in a good, no, a great way! This story is too short for me review without spoiling it. Read it and discover it for yourself.

I will only say that I loved the concept and I would love for this to be expanded into a full length book. It’s pretty awesome. The ending was, umm…how do I say it? It was weird? In a good and confusing way. I ended up reading the whole story again bcz I thought I skipped a beat. It had the same effect the movie Inception had when I watched it for the first time and I had to watch it again.

The writing is pretty good and although you can’t really judge the writing style in such a short story but yeah you can! I am confusing, aren’t I? Just like the story!

Read it already, guys!

[Ashish Iyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okayish for me. I like the amount of world building in such a short story. Story was kinda weird and gross. And this story reminds me of Childhood's end by Arthur Clarke. The story was too short for me.

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting short story from Tor.com. Like most good short stories it quickly fleshes out a scenario and and loads it up with pieces and parts that catch the eye and imagination. I almost want to read the whole book about this world and characters, but on the other hand I like that we just have this much.

Rating: R, for a couple of f-words and mild gore.

[Jan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy and kind of gross. Are they really One or is yellow-tentacle thing just suppressing the fact that it just murdered its host?

[Ebehi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great world building, interesting concept. It would be awesome if this was developed into a longer story.

[Shene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whitman would have approved of this.

[Dichotomy Girl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was much too short. I want to read more in the world, and find out what happens next to the world at large.

[Karyn Kar Mun (Thy Evil Queen) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of the best short science fiction stories I’ve read in a long time; the consequences of an alien invasion on an alternate earth with its own alternate history. The humans were given a choice: be destroyed utterly, or to allow infant aliens to merge with the children. They don’t really have much of a choice – the theme here is survival; the aliens are obviously doing this to survive, because for some reason they cannot raise their next generation without outside help anymore. This arrangement, they said, is only temporary - until both the aliens and human are grown up; after which they would presumably part ways.

I also found it interesting that the humans aren’t hosting the aliens – they become two entities in one body. Therefore, when the alien and the human have differences in taste – like any two different people often do - one loves coffee, for instance, and the other abhors it – they drink it, to the relish of one and the antipathy of the other. Henceforth, if I find any good full-length novels with a similar concept of duality, it’s going into my to-read list :D

[briz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant, brutal, teen spec fic. Alien invasion stories are generally pretty great, and this was no exception. Also loved the David Cronenberg-style finish. Plus: apparently, we carry around 3lbs of bacteria in our gut anyway, and only 10% of our cells are "us" (and not bacteria), and these gut bacteria apparently affect moods, so... yeah, an "alien in your gut" premise doesn't seem so farfetched. (FWIW, there's an excellent bacteria essay in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011.)

[Sidsel Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Within that half hour it paints the story of a whole alternative history, where the Earth has been invaded by aliens and has somehow merged with humanity. It does this very effectively. Of course there are few details but you get enough of a sense of what happened to get the idea and understand the context of the story.

It is also a love story between two teenagers. And there is no pinning what so ever - so that is lovely! It is really sweet and feels so real - unlike so many teenage love stories.

I found the story really enjoyable and lovely.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another clever way to deal with the human/alien symbiote concept. The end kept me wondering though. Because even with this new transition how will they live if the people (who don't have symbiotes) can't understand what is happening. I fear the new Alex may alienate his parents as they will not understand what has occurred. With such events that could arise it's possible the author could create something more akin to a novel format story here.

[Carla Barroso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this one was really short. And that was a pity. I really liked the idea of two entities, two consciences that enjoy different things in a body but unfortunately that isn't much explored. I wanted to see them interact more, to have a better grasp of the character's fear of separation and how they eventually merge. 3/5

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Shudders) So that was a wonderfully creepy story! Aliens essentially conquered Earth, and now the newest generation hosts them in our bodies. Ewww... The set-up is very interesting, the progress of the story, but I think near the end things come to a climax a bit too fast. This would be an interesting concept to expand to a full book.

[Mayumi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Li aqui, marquei lido aqui: Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2013.

[Kimikimi]

Another Tor.com short story.

No review, I'm not feeling it.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice little story. Maybe having an alien in your gut isn't so bad?

[Nighteye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okey story, read at tor.com for free... not what I expected but good!

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

simply amazing
one of the best short stories I've read
extremely well composed and incredibly dense with information, but very enjoyable and pleasurable to read