![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Don't call me a liar if I'm wrong, but I think I read both of these stories on the Tor.com site. If you haven't visited the site yet, you really should. There's bloggy goodness and free stroies. Interviews and more. Here's my opinion on two stories.
A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon
By Ken Scholes
Czar Frederico takes into his possession a sacred artifact of the Lunarists. It's a crescent moon of dazzling silver. Frederico places it to his ear and hears burbling water and the music of summer frogs. One night he hears something else, a young woman's voice. To the consternation of his Ministers, Frederico retreats to his bedroom and spends his days and nights talking with his distant love. He sends emissaries searching the world for her, but cannot find her.
Scholes creates a complete world here, full of intrigue and myth, a Czar's total rule, treason, and lost love. I was drawn in immediately, full of curiousity about this world and the lost artifact brought to the Czar. Beautiful writing. This is the second story I've read of Scholes, and I'm really looking forward to reading his debut novel, Lamentation.
Eros, Philia, Agape
By Rachel Swirsky
Lucian packs his favorite beautiful things and leaves Adriana and their daughter Rose. Lucian loves his daughter and he loves Adriana, but he must find his own way. The year her father died, Adriana ordered Lucian. She wanted him to be malleable, wanted him to have as much free will as an AI could have. When Lucian left, he took all his beautiful things and threw them into the ocean. He had owned them, and then he had thrown them away, and now he seeks to understand what possessing something means. Adriana tries to pick up the pieces of her life, but misses Lucian. Rose is heartbroken in the way only a four-year-old can be when the man she knows as her father leaves. This is a beautiful, bittersweet story and the words were like a song.
A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon
By Ken Scholes
Czar Frederico takes into his possession a sacred artifact of the Lunarists. It's a crescent moon of dazzling silver. Frederico places it to his ear and hears burbling water and the music of summer frogs. One night he hears something else, a young woman's voice. To the consternation of his Ministers, Frederico retreats to his bedroom and spends his days and nights talking with his distant love. He sends emissaries searching the world for her, but cannot find her.
Scholes creates a complete world here, full of intrigue and myth, a Czar's total rule, treason, and lost love. I was drawn in immediately, full of curiousity about this world and the lost artifact brought to the Czar. Beautiful writing. This is the second story I've read of Scholes, and I'm really looking forward to reading his debut novel, Lamentation.
Eros, Philia, Agape
By Rachel Swirsky
Lucian packs his favorite beautiful things and leaves Adriana and their daughter Rose. Lucian loves his daughter and he loves Adriana, but he must find his own way. The year her father died, Adriana ordered Lucian. She wanted him to be malleable, wanted him to have as much free will as an AI could have. When Lucian left, he took all his beautiful things and threw them into the ocean. He had owned them, and then he had thrown them away, and now he seeks to understand what possessing something means. Adriana tries to pick up the pieces of her life, but misses Lucian. Rose is heartbroken in the way only a four-year-old can be when the man she knows as her father leaves. This is a beautiful, bittersweet story and the words were like a song.
