Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy discussion

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

"Because Change Was The Ocean And We Lived by Her Mercy" by Charlie Jane Anders

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.

I liked the story (not so much the characters - though I empathized with some). I also feel like "I've always been wrong headed." ;)
Plenty of interesting and believable extrapolations from where we are now to what we could be

I'm not sure what this story was about, or how it fit into the theme of the anthology. It takes the sealevel rise as a background apocalypse and create some sort of post-apocalyptic recovery world, then mixes in some antediluvian hippies in whose lives I wasn't interested. One of the pointless, scifi-lite concoctions.

Ran aground. ★1/2★

Charlie Jane Anders is an excellent writer. Her writing is clever and funny, and she's got a knack for describing futuristic/nonexistent subcultures as though she's reporting on them.

Nonetheless I can't say that anything in this story really grabbed me. I found this to be a middle of the pack story for this anthology.

I kind of enjoyed it, in a kind of mindless way, maybe it was the writing as Brendan pointed out. But the story revolves around a scenario that could exist even without any kind of apocalypse setup The drowned world premise could be replaced by anything or nothing at all. Just have a group of people gather is some out of the way place to live some non-standard lifestyle and you have the story. Made me think of Peter Pan's lost boys.

I actually quite liked this one.
It doesn't really focus on the environmental/science issues, but is more concerned with how people function in groups/communities. The point the author makes about having a relationship with a group of people being easier than having one with a single person was interesting, but I don't entirely agree. Individual relationships are all part of living in a community, and one will always impact on the other, as we see with the relationship between the MC and Miranda.

The idea of some of the characters having none specific genders was also interesting, even if getting your head round the different pronouns was a little tricky at times. I liked the fact that Fairbanks featured as a fairly big population center. I took that as some indication that a lot of the major coastal cities had been wiped from the map.

The idea of a commune functioning like this, growing their own food, and weed, and brewing their own vodka, might be a little idealistic (though it's not all plain sailing, what with their food supply going toxic, and having to go to survivalist farmers for help), but I did quite like that aspect of the story.

Maybe I'm a bit of a hippie.

Matt wrote: "It doesn't really focus on the environmental/science issues, but is more concerned with how people function in groups/communities..."

Hence my indifference. :)

Matt wrote: "The idea of some of the characters having none specific genders was also interesting, even if getting your head round the different pronouns was a little tricky at times...."

The use of ze/zir gender-neutral pronouns is a very recent affectation. It may be better than, e.g. Lecke's use of "she" or traditional English's suggestion of "he" for such use, as it at least reminds you no gender is implied, and is less awkward than the singular they/them.

G33z3r wrote: "Hence my indifference. :)"

Yeah; I guess it's one of those things people either like or they don't :)