{"id":2673,"date":"2022-02-06T13:52:34","date_gmt":"2022-02-06T13:52:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2022-02-12T17:05:38","modified_gmt":"2022-02-12T17:05:38","slug":"goldie-by-sean-monaghan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=2673","title":{"rendered":"Goldie by Sean Monaghan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Goldie <\/em><\/strong>by Sean Monaghan (Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, January-February 2022) opens with Charlotte out running on a tabletop mountain on an alien planet called Karella. She falls and breaks her ankle when something in the jungle below distracts her:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gray-white vines stretched out, long catenaries, swooping down, then back up, connecting the edge of Ikenni with the edge of Malale. As the teppu crawled along, its hands would be refreshing and strengthening the vines.
Charlotte crawled closer to the edge for a better view. The pain from her ankle was ebbing, drifting away courtesy of the belt\u2019s injection.
The vines were as thick as the deck of one of those eight lane bridges that connected headlands across harbors.
The teppu was a big one. The size of a whale. She was beautiful. Her downy, furry hide was a greenish shade of beige. Her long, convex body hung beneath the vines, thick strong arms clinging on above. Tentacles and fingers gripping, spinnerets releasing thin filaments.  p. 162<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

After Charlotte is rescued and taken back to base the members of the expedition watch drone footage of the teppu. Becs, their boss, knows the creature from an earlier visit to the planet and reveals (while trying to hide her emotions) that the creature is called Goldie, and it is a forty-eight year old teppu who she didn\u2019t expect to see again (their normal life span is thirty-five years or so).
Now, having set up the big cuddly alien (see the magazine cover), and Bec\u2019s emotional attachment to the animal, you would think this is what would become the main arc of the story\u2014but what we get instead are the activities of an exploration team that appears to be made up of idiotic teenagers who, when they aren\u2019t endlessly shoving food down their cakeholes (in typical Asimov\u2019s<\/em> fashion), cultivate their love lives and blunder about on the planet\u2019s surface. As an example of this latter, peak stupidity is achieved when a group of them\u2014sans Becs (who actually knows more about the planet than the rest of them put together)\u2014go to see a teppu (not Goldie) that has young. Jody gets swatted by the teppu (this one is about three times the size of an elephant) when she ignores its growls in order to take a few more pictures. When Becs learns of this encounter she sends Jody back home. (It\u2019s a pity she didn\u2019t get rid of them all, and then I wouldn\u2019t had to waste more time watching them eat, gossip, and hook up.)
Eventually, much later on in the story, we get back to Goldie, who arrives at the end of a vine that is near their camp. The remaining members of the group go to observe her and see she is old and probably dying. When Becs sits in front of Goldie, the creature extends a tentacle towards her, before closing its eyes.
The group have dinner that evening (more eating and social babble), and the next morning (spoiler) realise that Becs is missing. When they later find Goldie with a drone (the teppu has started retracing its route), they see Becs has died and is lying in the \u201cgarden\u201d on top of Goldie (a planted area where the teppus raise their young if I remember correctly).
The last section takes place a year later, when Goldie comes back to the camp area. The group go to meet the creature, and Goldie lifts Charlotte on to its back. There she sees Bec\u2019s bones and, nearby, a young teppu suckling. Goldie then leaves the camp area once again.
This last quarter or so of the story is much better than the blather than constitutes the central part of the piece because it actually produces what was promised at the start. That said, overall the piece still fails Chekov\u2019s gun test (if there is a gun on the mantelpiece in act one, it must be used in act three): this story opens with an elderly teppu, apparently on its last legs, but ends with it departing the camp after Bec\u2019s death, return with young it has produced a year later, and then leave once more!
There is probably an okay YA novelette buried somewhere in this bloated mess, but in its current form it is, for the most part, a tedious and borderline irritating read.
* (Mediocre). 18,450 words.

1. I ended up highlighting the eating and drinking as I went through the story to keep myself amused:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Niall sipped from his coffee cup.  p. 163

The kitchenette had offered her fried chicken with biscuit, or makhani dahl with a roti.  p. 164

\u201cIndian sounds good. Mine made me a Masala Dosa a few days back. Great big pancake.\u201d p. 165

The curry was delicious, and Charlotte surprised herself by consuming the whole thing. Ibid.
<\/em>
Charlotte scooped another mouthful of breakfast cereal into her mouth. Oaty and sweet.  p. 166

Jody coaxed the little food dispenser into delivering them coffees and chocolatey mini-croissants.  p. 168

There was the smell of tea and sweet cookies inside.  p. 171

Charlotte sipped on the tea and nibbled on the sweet cookies\u2014chocolate chip, as if the cabin knew her inside out\u2014and worked on datasets.  p. 171

She chewed on a piece of dried fruit the landing ship\u2019s dispenser had supplied. The trip had taken a couple of hours, and it was good to have tasty snacks.  p. 172

Would her cabin\u2019s kitchenette make fire chili coffee?  p. 175

\u201cTea please,\u201d Charlotte said. A panel opened, revealing the bench, and the kitchenette, began whirring.  p. 177

Charlotte sipped from her tea too. Chamomile. Sweet and floral.  p. 178

\u201cCome on,\u201d Therassa said. \u201cI\u2019ll buy breakfast. I\u2019m thinking hash browns, omelet, and some of that guava juice I just found out about.  p. 179

[The] food dispenser delivered the best it could do at fresh vegetables, rather than prepared meals. Sienna and Cain set to chopping and mixing. The smell was heavenly, full of spices and herbs.  p. 185

There were sweet potatoes and greens, a bright leafy salad, something that was probably a chicken, though might well have been snared somewhere out on the mountaintop. Gravy boats and both red and white wine, and water.  p. 186

Charlotte sighed and ate some of the spinach and carrot. It was remarkably fresh and tasty.  p. 186

And the meal went on without any more talk of sensors or data or results, just about family and how amazing the pavlova dessert was [. . .]  p. 186

But he had chocolate and a new fireplace [. . .]  p. 187

Charlotte took her coffee and sipped. Perfect. The tiny dash of chili Sienna had added just set it off.  P. 187

Niall and Cain made a stack of burritos and kept them coming.  p. 188

\u201cI\u2019d enjoy it more,\u201d Therassa told Charlotte over a cask of moderate wine, \u201cif our departure wasn\u2019t hanging over us.  p. 189

Charlotte was in the data processing room, enjoying the sweet taste of one of Sienna\u2019s coffees.  p. 193<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

And there is this, about a year after Bec\u2019s death, by which time the characters must weigh about twenty stones (about 130 kg):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re toasting marshmallows,\u201d Charlotte said. \u201cWant to join?\u201d
\u201cIt is summer,\u201d Sienna said. \u201cWhy would you toast the marshmallows?\u201d
It was definitely warmer, and the sun went down later each day, but the evening still picked up a quick chill. Marshmallows and hot chocolate were always a good solution to that.
\u201cTry one,\u201d Charlotte said. \u201cYou might like it.\u201d
\u201cYes. All right.\u201d Sienna came and sat with them on the sofa. Niall stuck one of the fat, pink marshmallows on the end of a skewer.
\u201cAnd now?\u201d Sienna said.
\u201cLike this.\u201d Charlotte demonstrated, skillfully holding her own marshmallow in the flames to get just the outside singed to a browny-black.
\u201cIs easy.\u201d Sienna proceeded to set fire to hers.
Niall laughed. \u201cIs easy, but takes practice.\u201d
\u201cIs stupid. I have come to tell you that I believe that Goldie has settled into nesting spot and will give birth to some cubs soon. I hope it proceeds better than last time.\u201d
\u201cHave mine,\u201d Charlotte held her skewer out to Sienna. \u201cAnd thanks for that. Yes, let\u2019s hope that it goes better than last time.\u201d
Sienna accepted the marshmallow and popped it in her mouth.
\u201cOh my gosh!\u201d she said, breathing over it. \u201cHot. Hot but good. Oh, yum!\u201d
By the end of the evening, Sienna had gotten pretty good at making her marshmallows nicely crisp on the outside, and runny in the middle.  p. 191<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I note that all these food items are 20th<\/sup> Century dishes. Does culinary development stop with the development of interstellar drives?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Goldie by Sean Monaghan (Asimov\u2019s SF, January-February 2022) opens with Charlotte out running on a tabletop mountain on an alien planet called Karella. She falls and breaks her ankle when something in the jungle below distracts her: The gray-white vines stretched out, long catenaries, swooping down, then back up, connecting the edge of Ikenni with […]<\/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":[677],"tags":[21,539,4,680,29,679,678],"class_list":["post-2673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sean-monaghan","tag-21","tag-539","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-exobiology","tag-novella","tag-planetary-expedition","tag-sean-monaghan"],"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\/2673","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=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2772,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions\/2772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}