An Equal Share of the Bone

by Karen Osborne, LeVar Burton (Narrator)

Hoping to make their fortune (or at least climb out of debt), a trio of space traders travel on a dangerous hunt for a space whale.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook

1 pages, Audiobook

First published November 23, 2017

About the author

Karen Osborne is the author of Architects of Memory and Engines of Oblivion, as well as a violinist, videographer and thereminist. Her short fiction appears in Uncanny, Fireside, Escape Pod, Robot Dinosaurs and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. She once won a major event filmmaking award for taping a Klingon wedding.

Karen lives in upstate New York with her family, too many instruments, and a bonkers orange cat.

Reviews

[Mosaic · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was genuinely so interesting. At first I was just like, “wow! space whaling? Sound interesting” and then the intricacies of theridas and the resources they provide and how contact with one will literally transform a person INTO one...yeah. Illegally turning oneself into the AI of a spaceship so you can protect the love of your life who is now a big radioactive space whale until science can get him turned back into a human? That’s a story. Wow.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting short story. A group of space traders have to pay a high price for hunting a space whale...

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

"An Equal Share of the Bone" is the first story that I have read by Karen Osborne. I read this via the LeVar Burton Reads podcast. This is a story about a small group of scavenger hunters who search space for wealth. They hope to accomplish this by trading a special scarce resource "hearts" because they believe that acquiring money and other forms of material wealth will make them happier and enable them to achieve their ultimate goals and dreams in life. They soon learn how misguided their dreams were and of course that material wealth is far from the most important part of human existence and in unexpected ways their greed becomes their undoing as they all undergo various forms of transformation. A cautionary tale of the dangers of not being satisfied when you have more than enough to have a good life and an excellent example of why wealth alone doesn't guarantee happiness, success or prove that you spent your life and existence pursuing anything meaningful. This story is both happy and sad at the same time it is a story of death but also of rebirth and encourages the reader to think about mortality and what it really means to have lived at all. It also points out the hypocrisy and cruelty that arises commonly in modern society when we are unable to be satisfied or feel happy or successful as a human being unless we know we have more material possessions or wealth than another person and our tendency as human beings to look for ethical justifications for this increasingly vast societal inequality and how power or the prospect of power over others can cause many people to lose their humanity or cause others to justify their prejudices and rationalize materialism.

[Ada · Rating 3 out of 5]

***zaterdag 14 oktober 2023, somewhere around 3am***
⭐3, neutral

This was okay. I got the message but didn't really connected to the story. Part of it may be because I was listening to in in the middle of the night while trying to sleep. But is suspect that this just wasn't the story for me.

The only thing I really liked was what happened at the end but that's because I really like everything related to that (I would use the spoiler tag but that would require more braincells I currently have)

[Felicia J.]

Levar Burton Reads Episode 95, originally on Escape Pod.

[Erica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible story. Listened/read as part of LeVar Burton Reads.

[Tamikan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Space whales will always get 5 stars

[Meredith · Rating 2 out of 5]

Three space traders decide to undertake the hunt of a space creature (therida) whose hearts and plasma are essential to human space travel in the hopes of gaining riches.

This is a story about intergalactic space whaling. Theridas are a type of space creatures who eat grains of stars, which form a heart or hearts within them, and these heart stars are used power human spaceships, enable long range human space travel, and allow humans to live in outer space. Like whales, theridas live in pods. They swim through space. They are slaughtered for their hearts and plasma. Theridas can have multiple hearts, having consumed the heart stars of other theridas after their deaths, having eaten multiple grains of stars during their creation, having mated, or having conceived offspring. The latter two are never given an in-story explanation.

The twist is that overexposure to the radiation from the therida's hearts will cause humans to transform into theridas, which the trio of space traders discover when they kill a therida with 40 hearts. The narrator is able to escape by uploading her consciousness to the ship's computer hard drive, but her lover is transformed into a therida. Now in the form of a sentient spaceship, she vows to find and protect him from other space whalers.

I kept waiting for the characters in the story to realize that the animal they were hunting for personal gain, and arguably for their own survival, had a right to exist independent of humans. Like dolphins and whales, theridas have a sentience and an intelligence comparable to humans. But because, like whales, they don't have a language humans can understand and can't use weapons to defend themselves, humans feel entitled to hunt them, kill them, and use them for their own utilitarian purposes. The characters have no compunction about killing a therida, a sentient creature that can live for thousands of years in the depths of space. The narrator only wants to save her lover after he becomes a therida, but she has no real empathy for the rest of the species and has gained no understanding that other life forms have equal value to human beings. She only cares about her lover and not about the other theridas.

The story is still human-centric. It is about a tragedy that befell three independent space contractors who were just trying to stay afloat in a bad economy and keep their spaceship from being repossessed. They gain no greater understanding of the creature they decided to kill to make money. There is no remorse for the therida's murder, no realization that 40 hearts meant the therida had lived for hundreds or thousands of years, borne dozens of offspring, and/or been the sole survivor after the death of its entire pod.

I really felt that realization was missing from the story. There is no final comprehension of what it means to kill these creatures for the benefit of humanity only distress that killing this particular therida would result in their deaths. A human wouldn't kill another human and take his/her heart even if the person whom that human loved most would die without that heart. Humans do not have the right to take the life of fellow humans to save their own lives, but they feel they have the right to take the lives of all plants and animals on the planet and in the universe.

To continue the whaling theme, does Ismael ever discover that Moby Dick was equal to Captain Ahab? That the whale in its own way has the same intrinsic value as a human being and the right not to be killed and hunted for the enrichment, gratification, and survival of another? Is this an understanding that readers are lead towards? I never read Moby-Dick or, The Whale, so I don't know. But I always thought that Captain Ahab should have just left Moby Dick alone. Humans shouldn't go out into the ocean and kill animals just because they want to and just because they can.

[David Blaylock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read to me by LeVar Burton.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

SciFi but also romantic.

Listened to on LeVar Burton Reads podcast.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Space-faring whaler crew story

[Tim W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow this was a good scifi short story.

[Katherine]

Really interesting premise of space whaling, makes for a short but well fleshed out story.

[Chantel · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is important to note that most of the themes explored in this book deal with sensitive subject matters. My review, therefore, touches on these topics as well. Many people might find the book's subject matters & those detailed in my review overwhelming. I would suggest you steer clear of both if this is the case. Please note that from this point forward I will be writing about matters which contain reflections on grief, body decomposition, the death of an animal, the death of a loved one, & others.

Taking into account the greed that rivets the hearts of a pioneer, Osborne transports readers into the universe. Amongst the stars, gigantic planetary spheres, & ominous space creatures, the reader meets a trio of comrades heading back to their space station following a hunt for profit. Having encountered something akin to a whale of the skies, the trio decides to hunt it for the bounty it might bring them back home.

I have little to say about this story because I can’t truly call it to mind. While listening to LeVar Burton’s narration I found myself admittedly uninterested in the plot & rather tied to the story by the narration alone. The efforts that LeVar has put forward in his podcast « LeVar Burton Reads » bring the reader (the listener) into the world of the story after a deep breath & the permission granted to begin.

After massacring the animal they learn that the radiation emitted exceeds anything that their own species (presumably humans) can sustain via exposure. The trio begins to decompose until they are absorbed by new forms—a spaceship, the innards of the dead animal, & the memory of love. Perhaps, had I found myself more immersed in the plot itself I would have been able to draw interest in the malaise that the trio experienced. Rather than be drawn to emote empathy, I found myself wondering why they would have been so careless as to kill something that might lead to their own terrible demise.

Maybe this is the point. Maybe this story is meant to lead the reader to the uncomfortable reminder that things are not always done under the guise of reasonable decision-making. Within this narrative, we are encouraged to remember that two of the members of the ship were in love & therefore, their separation due to mortality is dreadful. Yet, they never run away. They remain with the hope that they might still cultivate profit from their poor choices.

The similarities between, often times cheeky or trite, decisions that we make in life to the narrative at play are stark & rather depleting. I shall leave the final concluding thoughts of reflection to the discretion of the reader. When faced with certain death via a brutal cellular catastrophic breakdown, would you run or would you long see gold mines cascade your legacy, paying ultimately with your life, no matter what. For myself, I rather think that there is a third option—letting life be still & untouched by our soiled hands but, that is not how this story goes.

If you would like to listen to this story, please visit this •LINK•