Birds

by Sheila Finch

Eleven year-old Ursula Neilsen never believed NASA's verdict that carelessness caused the death of her older sister, an astronaut on a routine mission...

212 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Sheila Finch was born in London, England, and attended Bishop Otter College before coming to the United States in 1957, where she did graduate work in medieval literature and linguistics at Indiana University. She has lived in California since 1962, and teaches Creative Writing, and the Literature of Science Fiction at El Camino College in Torrance. She also runs workshops in fiction writing each summer at Idyllwild Arts Academy in the San Jacinto Mountains. She has three daughters, six grandchildren, and two cats, all of whom supply enough ideas to keep a writer busy. She has published seven science fiction novels. The first one, "Infinity's Web," won the Compton Crook Award, and the most recent, "Tiger in the Sky," won the San Diego Book Award for best juvenile fiction. She has published short stories in F&SF, Amazing Stories, Asimov's, Fantasy Book, and a number of anthologies, as well as several articles about science fiction. "Reading the Bones," won the Nebula Award for best novella of 1998.

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Reviews

[Roddy Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bear Neilsen is only a child when she witnesses her astronaut sister, just returned from a mission to a satellite, being put into a Faraday cage before convulsing and dying. Her sister, it appears, encountered something and may have brought some of it back.
Ten years later, someone is killing off all witnesses to the incident. Bear, who is having trouble in her living accommodation because she has adopted a homeless malamute dog, gets a call to tell her that there is better accommodation on offer. The caller is the Divine Cleopatra, a drag queen who works at the Serengeti restaurant, owned and run by Alex, an old friend of Bear’s sister. Meanwhile, something is glitching satellites around the world and a millennial Jesus the Astronaut cult is growing in strength.
It becomes clear that someone is keen to silence anyone involved with the original project and Bear that she herself must go into space to deal with whatever it is.
It’s a short read which combines first contact, native American mysticism, cross dressing, satellites and a quick visit to the Thames barrier in London.
It’s a workmanlike novel, but nothing out of the ordinary. Sheila Finch wrote an outstanding short story (‘Out of the Mouths’ F&SF 1996) based around one her specialities, linguistics. I cannot see that the magic has transferred to the longer form here, but I have every faith that she will get there.

[Darryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting concept tied to satellite communications technology. Unfortunately, I was looking for a little more hard science describing how the world became so reliant on satellites. I think the main characters needed a bit more depth and more interaction, and the story should have gone deeper into solving the mystery of why the communications system was failing. The background with Hughes Space Communications was a nice reminder of the 80s and early 90s, where the industry was back then.