The Coffin Maker

by AnaMaria Curtis, LeVar Burton (Narrator)

On a long mission to search for a new home planet, an outfitter tries to protect the crewmembers' lives. But can she protect herself from the inevitable loss and heartbreak? This story first appeared in Uncanny Magazine. For more from the author, check out anamariacurtis dot com.


Content advisory: pandemic, death

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Audiobook

1 pages, Audiobook

First published September 1, 2023

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Star Trek is my default image of what futuristic starships will be like, this short story subverts my expectations as the ship Guiding Light is limping along with a crew desperate for a new home planet. One of the crew members is the last of her engineering division, tasked with outfitting crewmembers for dangerous away missions on unknown planets. Supplies are low with no new replacements so she is scrambling to find enough parts to keep them safe and the bridge crew ignore or discredit her requests. She feels as though she is sending people to die, thus the title of the story, but when a crew member that she has feelings for is assigned to go down to the planet, she gives her the best suit left. Will it be enough? A lovely tale that really humanizes the risks of interplanetary missions.

[Kass Reads Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story! Love LeVar!

[Matt Vincelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to this as a podcast. A cute, suspenseful short story. Good characters and person-to-person narrative. I enjoyed it.

[Chrysten McNiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

5.0 ⭐ “l need heating tubes, and seals, and filters, and you don’t have those.”

**mild content spoilers**

♡ LBR 2024 ♡

I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the new year than with a fresh season of LeVar Burton Reads.

This exhausted my spirit to read, but it’s laced with a reprieving vindication too. When I started these reviews for LBR, I worked at a family-owned hotel.

The hotel’s condition began to decline in a number of ways, and I reached out to the owners over and over again. Each shift was more miserable than the last, as customers were enraged by mismanaged bookings, inadequate amenities, and poor hygiene/upkeep. After five years getting nowhere with my warnings, armed with a stimulus check to get by, I quit the job I loved most.

The hotel was shutdown due to these issues about two months later.

There’s nothing worse than pushing a rock up a hill, except maybe pushing it off a cliff. You can only warn your leadership so many times. There are such casualties to ignoring the red flags too. Several of the hotel employees (one of which, was a senior citizen) lost homes they’d enjoyed for 10+ years. Even more lost their jobs with no notice, and the way I heard it, no final check.

There’s a selfishness to running the wrong mission into the ground. It’s impossible to decide what to do after a certain point. Who and what to save with what material and resource you have.

In my personal situation, I saved me.

If I’d been in Stephanie’s shoes, I would’ve saved my person too.

Thanks for reading and if you wanna chat about the latest LBR episodes, come join us at the LeVar Burton Reads Official Community.

- 📚☕♥
Goodreads Official Star Representation
5 - It was amazing
4 - I really liked it
3 - I liked it
2 - It was okay
1 - Did not like it.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The sole outfitter left in the engineering department on a spaceship on a failed mission to find an habitable planet is tasked with outfitting a team of surveyors for planetary exploration without adequate supplies to ensure the survival of all three.

The spaceship Guiding Light has been sent on a mission to find a planet suitable for colonization after their homeworld Noralon becomes uninhabitable. This is year 15. Three years earlier the exploration of their target planet of Civers had abruptly ended when a fever killed a significant number of their crew. The nearby planet of Teridabe provides the last chance of accomplishing their mission and returning to Noralon with the hope of leading the population to a settlement on new planet.

Stephani is the sole remaining member of the engineering department, her two senior coworker having died on Civers. She has been ordered by the bridge, i.e. the starship's highest ranking officers, to outfit a three member surveying team to collect data on the planet. With most of their supplies and equipment either lost on Civers or damaged by the decontamination process, there are only enough materials to create one useable suit, not three.

Stephani meets with the bridge and explains the situation, but they are committed to this final effort before admitting defeat, allowing the mission to be declared a failure, and returning to their dying planet. They refuse to listen and insist that she create three spacesuits for the surveyors as ordered. Stephani complies, but she feels that she is sewing their coffins.

With the deaths of the surveying team already on her conscience, she discovers to her horror that, Ariadne, the one person on the ship with whom she feels an emotional connection will be on the surveying team. Stefanie has the make a decision. She decides to give the suit with the highest chance of survival to Ariadne.

After the surveyors descend to the planet's surface she can only watch, wait, and hope with the rest of the ship to see if any of them will return alive.

This short story is about hard choices. If you could protect only one person, who would it be? Whom would you be willing to sacrifice? I was initially surprised that Stephani gave the best spacesuit to the person whom she cared about the most and not to the person who had the most important role in the mission or who had the most physically demanding assignment. Normally in stories where the conflict is duty versus love, the character will chose duty over love. But Stefani chose love over duty. I felt for her, and I was glad that she did.

The background of the story really hit me. Climate change is making our planet uninhabitable, and reading about people on a failed mission to find a new planet because their own planet will soon be uninhabitable amped up my despair.

[Skye · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars, not rounded
Listened to audiobook via LeVar Burton Reads

The story was fine. It's definitely appropriate for a "in the car" read, but I wouldn't go out of my way to read it either. But that moment when she dropped the word "coffin" in the story? Chef's kiss. No notes. 10/10

[Lena Downey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow that was emotional but also it had a better ending then I thought it might. I think I might be a lot more cynical than levarbert was when he was reading this the first time. Because I did not think we were getting a happy ish ending.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heartbreaking space exploration story. Really enjoyed the characterization going on, almost all of it through one POV.

[Jessica Fields · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea 🤷🏽‍♀️

[Катерина Майковська · Rating 4 out of 5]

being human is weird, and nothing highlights it as well as sci-fi.

i am not sure if science in this short story made sense, but well, it was still interesting.