{"id":5359,"date":"2022-08-15T21:59:04","date_gmt":"2022-08-15T21:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5359"},"modified":"2022-08-15T21:59:07","modified_gmt":"2022-08-15T21:59:07","slug":"the-rise-of-alpha-gal-by-rich-larson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=5359","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Alpha Gal by Rich Larson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><em>The Rise of Alpha Gal<\/em><\/strong> by Rich Larson (<em>Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, September-October 2022) sees the narrator, Heli, meet her ex-girlfriend Nea in an all-night McDonalds. When Nea questions the choice of meeting place, Heli tells her it is ironic before launching into an explanation that involves (a) her reminding Nea of a cousin who got tick bites and developed an allergy to red meat (\u201cThe allergy\u2019s unusual because it\u2019s triggered by the Alpha Gal carbohydrate instead of by a protein\u201d) and (b) that Heli has developed an Alpha Gal analog that can induce a permanent meat allergy with one dose. Heli then adds that she can make it contagious. . . .<br>After this revelation they debate the rights and wrongs of this type of eco-terrorism, before Heli eventually realises that her ex-girlfriend isn\u2019t as enthusiastic about the prospect as she expected. They finally agree that the analog should be made available as a voluntary injection for those that want to give up eating meat (\u201cSaving the world in slow motion\u201d). After Nea leaves, however (spoiler), Heli inserts the contents of a vial into a sanitizer spray and starts spreading the agent.<br>This is a conversation about an idea, not a story\u2014the novelette or novella that telescopes out from Heli\u2019s final action would have been much more interesting.<br>** (Average). 2,300 words.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Rise of Alpha Gal by Rich Larson (Asimov\u2019s SF, September-October 2022) sees the narrator, Heli, meet her ex-girlfriend Nea in an all-night McDonalds. When Nea questions the choice of meeting place, Heli tells her it is ironic before launching into an explanation that involves (a) her reminding Nea of a cousin who got tick [&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":[309],"tags":[17,539,4,1239,310,1022,12,1238],"class_list":["post-5359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rich-larson","tag-17","tag-539","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-bioterrorism","tag-rich-larson","tag-short-short","tag-short-story","tag-veganism"],"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\/5359","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=5359"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5364,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5359\/revisions\/5364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}