{"id":164,"date":"2020-12-27T22:04:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-27T22:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=164"},"modified":"2020-12-27T22:04:50","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T22:04:50","slug":"upstart-by-steven-utley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=164","title":{"rendered":"Upstart by Steven Utley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>Upstart <\/em><\/strong>by Steven Utley (<em>F&amp;SF<\/em>, February 1977) has a (vaguely Malzbergian) opening in which the captain of an Earth spaceship becomes increasing irritated with the intermediaries of the superior alien race which has snatched his ship from FTL flight:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-style-default is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>\u201cYou take us in to talk to the Sreen,\u201d the captain tells them, \u201cyou take us in right now, do you hear me?\u201d His voice is like a sword coming out of its scabbard, an angry, menacing, deadly metal-on-metal rasp. \u201cYou take us to these God-damned Sreen of yours and let us talk to them.\u201d<br>The Intermediaries shrink before him, fluttering their pallid appendages in obvious dismay, and bleat in unison, \u201cNo, no, what you request is impossible. The decision of the Sreen is final, and, anyway, they\u2019re very busy right now, they can\u2019t be bothered.\u201d\u00a0 p. 61<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>The captain eventually loses his temper and physically (and brutally) fights his way through to the Sreen and a climactic encounter. <br>The amusing last paragraphs crystallise this tongue-in-cheek story\u2019s points about humanity\u2019s belligerence and exceptionalism. (Spoiler: when the titanic Sreen, \u201cmasters of the universe, lords of Creation,\u201d etc., ask the captain who he is, he thrusts out his jaw and asks \u201cWho wants to know?\u201d)<br>This is a slight piece, but it raises a wry smile or two.<br>*** (Good, if minor). 1200 words.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Upstart by Steven Utley (F&amp;SF, February 1977) has a (vaguely Malzbergian) opening in which the captain of an Earth spaceship becomes increasing irritated with the intermediaries of the superior alien race which has snatched his ship from FTL flight: \u201cYou take us in to talk to the Sreen,\u201d the captain tells them, \u201cyou take us [&hellip;]<\/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_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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38],"tags":[40,24,25,12,39],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steven-utley","tag-40","tag-3-2","tag-fsf","tag-short-story","tag-steven-utley"],"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\/164","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=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":170,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}