Exploding, Like Fireworks

by Pat Murphy

On the space station known as Moon Talk, engineers and poets work together to prototype and manufacture communications satellites. The founder of the station decided to include poets because they specialize in communicating high-density information in very short bursts.Angel, a 20-year-old robotics engineer, is visiting Moon Talk on a poetry/engineering internship when an accident on the station’s hull leaves her paralyzed. Unable to return to Earth where the relentless pull of gravity would kill her, Angel must make the station her home.Though her body is trapped, the poets and engineers who run Moon Talk find a way for Angel’s consciousness to escape the confines of the station. The robotics staff jacks Angel first into a robotic unit on the station’s hull, and then into a body that can move about the station’s interior. She inhabits a robotic probe that prospects among the orbiting rocks of the asteroid belt. But that's just the beginning of Angel's journey.A novelette.

16 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2012

About the author

Pat Murphy’s latest short story collection is called "Women Up to No Good," a title that describes Pat’s attitude in general. Pat writes about strong women who are not afraid of making trouble.

Pat's fiction has won multiple awards for her science fiction and fantasy works, including the Nebula Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Philip K Dick Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and the Christopher Award. Her latest novel, "The Adventures of Mary Darling," is a historic fantasy -- a subversive take on Peter Pan (with a side helping of Sherlock Holmes). It will be out in May 2025 from Tachyon Publications.

Reviews

[Judy & Marianne from Long and Short Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally posted at: http://www.longandshortreviews.com/bo...

How would you adapt to a new sense? Can machines absorb the personality of their human host?

Angel’s predicament is a terrible one. How does one grow accustomed to spending the rest of your life in a space station clinic after a horrific accident leaves you too medically fragile to return to earth? In her shoes I would have felt just as angry as she does at the thought of never returning home. Luckily she is able to channel her disappointment into the determination she needs to conquer new technology. I can’t imagine controlling several robots at once with my mind or experiencing the wonders of space without ever actually leaving my bed. Her adventures becomes even more poignant when Angel is given an unusual choice and makes a decision that changes the course of human history forever.

I would have preferred to see a more thorough explanation of how Angel survived the accident. While the space station she lives on is quite technologically advanced it was a stretch to believe they’d have access to all of the specialized equipment necessary to keep a quadriplegic alive. While it is certainly possible that such items could be shipped from earth I had some trouble believing they would have arrived in time to save Angel’s life. The damage to her spinal cord was extensive and sounded like the kind of injury that would grow even more dangerous over time if the patient isn’t stabilized.

Exploding, Like Fireworks reads like the first chapter in a novel. For every question that is answered another one is born and while it ends quite satisfactorily I certainly wouldn’t mind hearing more from these characters. In the meantime this is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wished they could float through space and discover the wonders out there no human eye has ever seen.

[Icy-Cobwebs-In-Space · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review of Exploding Like Fireworks by Pat Murphy
5 stars

Reading Pat Murphy’s outstanding science fiction is always mind-expanding, the equivalent of traveling to other worlds from the comfort of my armchair. In this entry, Angel is a twenty-year-old intern on Moon Talk, an artificial colony-space station founded by a combination of poets and engineers from the U.S.’s prestigious M.I.T., and named for a Mark Twain quote. In a freakish accident, Angel finds herself paralyzed, and of course despair follows; but the inhabitants of Moon Talk are nothing if not creative, in both robotics and poetry. They refuse to accept that her physiological condition should be the end.

I so love the process in this book: from normal routine life (okay, in the future, because most of us don’t live on or visit space stations), to total unending despair, to the light at the end of the tunnel-and beyond. I think I could reread this story over and over again. Definitely I shall not easily forget or forgo its ending.
I reviewed an e-book copy from the publisher, via Goodreads Group Making Connections, in return for my fair and impartial review.

[Deborah Sastroredjo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very nice short read. Very scifi and thought out well. I liked the story, the development and then...you are left to imagine. There is character development, even though the story is short. And I wonder if all these things are possible. Maybe one dahy... I would recommend :)