{"id":1531,"date":"2021-08-17T17:00:36","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T17:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1531"},"modified":"2021-08-20T11:47:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-20T11:47:13","slug":"flyboys-by-stanley-schimidt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=1531","title":{"rendered":"Flyboys by Stanley Schimidt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Flyboys<\/em><\/strong> by Stanley Schimidt (Analog<\/em>, July-August 2020) is a sequel to his novel Night Ride and Sunrise<\/em> (Analog<\/em>, July-August to November 2015), and opens with an alien called \u201cBob\u201d watching his son Junior make his first flight from his mother\u2019s home to an all-male settlement called Surfcrag. During the pair\u2019s transit there, and also from later on in the story, we learn that (a) the flying adult males live separately from the females on this planet, (b) they are nocturnal and eat flying insects, and (c) that humans have settled on other parts of their continent. We also find out about a recent conflict between the humans and the aliens which ended with an agreement to peacefully co-exist (as the humans are stranded on the planet and cannot leave).
The day after Junior has been welcomed to the lodge at Surfcrag, Bob is approached by another male called Highguard, who tries to recruit him to a movement that will drive the humans off their land (during this we learn that there is yet another, malevolent, group of humans on a different part of the planet). Bob tells Highguard he will have nothing to do with his plans.
Shortly after this conversation Junior disappears, and the story then alternates between his point of view and Bob\u2019s. Junior is taken by two males to another place called High and Mighty, where Highguard makes another recruiting effort. Junior isn\u2019t having any of it though, and escapes, giving his pursuers the slip before he goes to hide with his mother in Surfcrag:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He found Sylvie in her shop, absorbed in tinkering with a new variation of her steam engine.
He rushed right in after a hasty \u201cHere I am\u201d from the hall. He closed the door behind him as he said, \u201cHi, Mom.\u201d
She looked up with a quick kaleidoscope of emotions on her face: surprise, confusion, delight, and deep concern. \u201cJunior?\u201d she said, in Shetalk, since that was what she could speak.
\u201cWhat are you doing here? You just left. What brings you back so soon?\u201d She looked him up and down, and the concern became dominant. \u201cWhat happened to you?\u201d She hop-slithered down off her workbench and skittered over on her four short legs to paw and sniff at him.
\u201cI\u2019m all right,\u201d he said reassuringly, in He-talk (since that was what he could speak). \u201cBut something\u2019s come up. Maybe a danger for all of us. I need to talk to you.\u201d He gestured toward her bench. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you climb back up there and make yourself comfortable?\u201d As she did, he hopped onto one of the room\u2019s two male-perches so they could talk on each other\u2019s eye level.
\u201cOkay, first,\u201d he said, \u201cyou want to know what happened to me because I look like I\u2019ve been through some ordeal. It\u2019s not quite that bad, but I\u2019ve been flying longer, harder, and faster than I should without a break. Two guys were chasing me. Bad guys, in my opinion, and I think you\u2019ll agree.\u201d  p. 64<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The passage above illustrates some of the story\u2019s problems. First, it reads like clunky YA; second, aliens speaking and acting like a 1950\u2019s American suburban family is a real suspension-of-disbelief killer (the physical differences, sex-separation, nocturnal flying, and insect eating all feel pretty much tacked on); third, it has pages of talking heads who describe things that have already happened in the story.
The rest of the this piece doesn\u2019t improve (spoiler): Junior goes to see his girl, Coppersmith; Bob contacts the humans to inform them of the threat from Highguard, and also to ask for help in locating his son; Bob and a human called Luke find Junior after a helicopter search; the matter goes to the alien council\u2014who then catch and try the conspirators. The story ends with clash-of-culture speeches from Highguard and Junior (who is renamed Peacesaver).
There is too much dialogue in this, and too much running around; it\u2019s also derivative, and longer than it needs to be. All in all it resembles a dull story from a 1960\u2019s issue of the magazine.
* (Mediocre). 21,000 words.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flyboys by Stanley Schimidt (Analog, July-August 2020) is a sequel to his novel Night Ride and Sunrise (Analog, July-August to November 2015), and opens with an alien called \u201cBob\u201d watching his son Junior make his first flight from his mother\u2019s home to an all-male settlement called Surfcrag. During the pair\u2019s transit there, and also from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[374],"tags":[21,296,33,29,375],"class_list":["post-1531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stanley-schmidt","tag-21","tag-296","tag-analog","tag-novella","tag-stanley-schmidt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1531"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1558,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1531\/revisions\/1558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}