Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

This is our discussion of the short story....

"What Is" by Jeffrey Ford

From the anthology Drowned Worlds edited by Jonathan Strahan. See the Drowned Worlds anthology discussion hub for more info on the anthology and pointers to discussion of its other stories.

This is the darkest story in the collection so far. Mutants, shootouts in the desert, packs of wild dogs, only political organization left is the army. This is Fallout fanfiction! I liked it.

It's strange to have a story in an anthology titled "Drowned Worlds" where there is not a drop of water to be seen. Rather, it's about a huge drought that's reduced Oklahoma to desert. Maybe they're drowning in sand? I suppose the implication of the anthology is that the stories are about Global warming, and it attributes the drought to that, so there's some tangential relationship I suppose. (Or it's a story Ford had sitting around on his desk and decided to submit anyway.) It also both say pretty strong political point of view (though it's not clear how you could write a story for this anthology and not be refuting the climate deniers.)

Anyhow, things actually happen in the story, which is a post-apocalyptic survival tale as much as anything else, a few isolated farmers still clinging to life out in the new desert. It's got an action piece as well, described in some detail and refreshingly messy.

On the whole I like the story, possibly because it's the first story since Brownsville that's an actual story. It even has an actual villain.

There are a couple of strange elements in the story the caused me to scratch my head. One was the "green shakes" disease, as if one needed to add a plague to the ultimate drought. That it left the lone survivor's (Martin Pell's) skin green and thick is a bit of extra weird.

More puzzling was green Pell's story to the other remnants that he'd found a fissure that had broken open a missile silo and (for some reason) consequently thought the recently dropped food pallet was booby-trapped in some way. Neither appears to have been the case, though Pell didn't otherwise seem to be a madman. Not sure what that whole subplot was supposed to be about. Oh well.

Floats. ★★★1/2★

Well that was a change of pace

G33z3r wrote: "It's strange to have a story in an anthology titled "Drowned Worlds" where there is not a drop of water to be seen. Rather, it's about a huge drought that's reduced Oklahoma to desert. Maybe they'r..."

Pretty much agree with all of this. It is nice gritty story. I've seen film of the 1930's 'Dust Bowl' and the imagery here really does capture that hostile environment very well.

I was a little disappointed with the end. The inclusion of the missile silo did seem odd, especially as it was none existent. I thought the author was going to do something clever, and have the booby trap being the fact that these desperate people had been told that this would be the last supply drop, thus making them turn on each other. Easier than wasting valuable resources on blowing them up or poisoning them.
But, no, nothing like that.

Still, this is a good story. Dark and not very optimistic, but a nice change of pace.

I was waiting for the villains to open the packet and explode or something satisfying like that but nope, lots of little pieces to this puzzle that don't really amount to anything.

My main reaction was the lacking of water considering it's a drowned world anthology. It goes well in some other anthologies but not here.

Overall, I didn't love it but it was far more interesting than the last couple I read.

I (just) got it!!! It IS a drowned world - just not drowned by water but rather by sand/dirt from another Great Dust Bowl event.

And it is a pretty likely future for that part of the country, sadly.