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A Fire in the Heavens
Part of the Shadows Beneath - The Writing Excuses Anthology
136 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
2 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Mary Robinette Kowal
255 books5,426 followersMary Robinette Kowal is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus award winning alternate history novel The Calculating Stars, the first book in the Lady Astronaut series which continues in 2025 with The Martian Contingency. She is also the author of The Glamourist Histories series, Ghost Talkers, The Spare Man and has received the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, four Hugo awards, the Nebula and Locus awards. Her stories appear in Asimov’s, Uncanny, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Mary Robinette has also worked as a professional puppeteer, is a member of the award-winning podcast Writing Excuses, and performs as a voice actor (SAG/AFTRA), recording fiction for authors including Seanan McGuire, Cory Doctorow, and Neal Stephenson. She lives in Denver with her husband Robert, their dog Guppy, and their “talking” cat Elsie.
Her novel Calculating Stars is one of only eighteen novels to win the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards in a single year.
Her novel Calculating Stars is one of only eighteen novels to win the Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards in a single year.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 19, 2023
"A Fire in the Heavens" follows Katin, a woman persecuted for her religion who has hired a ship to take her towards where her holy text suggests the religion began in hopes of finding a homeland. What they find is not what anyone expected. I enjoyed this story; my only real complaint with this is that I wish it were longer.
Content warnings: gun violence, xenophobia, religiously motivated discrimination, sexism
Content warnings: gun violence, xenophobia, religiously motivated discrimination, sexism
March 3, 2020
I read it as a part of shadow beneath
and it was a good short story
I hope there was some more
and it was a good short story
I hope there was some more
May 28, 2017
What if you went to the promised land and found out it was nothing like you expected it to be?
A short story where a practitioner of a female oriented religion hires a ship to take her to her religious homeland. They navigate to a land where the moon fills the sky and it is never dark. Where she cannot be understood and where the patriarchal society is not used to women without husbands doing pretty much anything on their own.
Nothing is what she expects and she has trouble communicating. At the university, her holy book is thrown in the trash.
***
The ship crew that previously were not that supportive of her, now need her to communicate. But the more she tries, the more she realises this isn’t what she dreamed of. This world has better tech but they just don’t believe the ship has come from the other side of the ocean. It’s a huge clash of cultures.
And it might be more dangerous for the place she’s come from. The place she is more inclined to call home.
3 stars
A short story where a practitioner of a female oriented religion hires a ship to take her to her religious homeland. They navigate to a land where the moon fills the sky and it is never dark. Where she cannot be understood and where the patriarchal society is not used to women without husbands doing pretty much anything on their own.
Nothing is what she expects and she has trouble communicating. At the university, her holy book is thrown in the trash.
***
The ship crew that previously were not that supportive of her, now need her to communicate. But the more she tries, the more she realises this isn’t what she dreamed of. This world has better tech but they just don’t believe the ship has come from the other side of the ocean. It’s a huge clash of cultures.
And it might be more dangerous for the place she’s come from. The place she is more inclined to call home.
3 stars
February 13, 2015
I'll be honest here, I felt a little bit let down at the end of this story. It took me a while to figure out why. I think that it was just too darn short. Everything that was in this story was good. I just wanted more of it.
That said, I really liked the final conversation between the captain and Katin. That was excellent.
That said, I really liked the final conversation between the captain and Katin. That was excellent.
March 6, 2023
Great piece of fantasy.
October 4, 2018
Ebook
Grade: C
Not a review, just some thoughts for personal reference. Spoilers.
A religious group left their homeland on a tidally-locked planet and traveled around the world to a land without the moon. Generations later, a priest hires a ship to return her to the near-mythical land, hoping to find a place where her people will fit in. However, the homecoming is not what she would have hoped--her ancestral homeland is a patriarchal society with a rigid, fanatical religion based on the moon. Nonconformity is not tolerated, and the the zealots have apparently conquered all of the neighboring lands. Conversion at swordpoint. The travelers are arrested, but manage to escape back to their ship, but not before they are attacked by soldiers who apparently have firearms, weapons unknown to the travelers. They set sail for home with the threat that they will be followed--and conquered.
This was an interesting set-up, but the novelette was simply too short to do it justice. It felt like the outline for the first book in a series rather than a complete work, especially as the ending was so inconclusive. It was a miss for me.
Grade: C
Not a review, just some thoughts for personal reference. Spoilers.
A religious group left their homeland on a tidally-locked planet and traveled around the world to a land without the moon. Generations later, a priest hires a ship to return her to the near-mythical land, hoping to find a place where her people will fit in. However, the homecoming is not what she would have hoped--her ancestral homeland is a patriarchal society with a rigid, fanatical religion based on the moon. Nonconformity is not tolerated, and the the zealots have apparently conquered all of the neighboring lands. Conversion at swordpoint. The travelers are arrested, but manage to escape back to their ship, but not before they are attacked by soldiers who apparently have firearms, weapons unknown to the travelers. They set sail for home with the threat that they will be followed--and conquered.
This was an interesting set-up, but the novelette was simply too short to do it justice. It felt like the outline for the first book in a series rather than a complete work, especially as the ending was so inconclusive. It was a miss for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 14, 2024
Found this on my book streaming service and read it in less than an hour. An engaging little story that could easily be expanded. It might come across as fantasy because it's a pre-Industrial world where religion and superstition are frequently conflated, but I would actually call it sci-fi. The science is consistent for a world with a tidally-locked moon, and in fact I could see hints of the writer's interest in astronomy and space which would later give us the Lady Astronaut series.
December 2, 2017
This novelette is powerful, the world building is strong, and the characters "real." A tale where two cultures clash, two religions who don't understand each other. And it is a very contemporary story, even though it is set in another world. I just wish it had been longer. Excellent storytelling!!
October 22, 2019
What a captivating little story. The only gripe that can be held against it is being far too short. I had heard of the author from other authors and how they recommend the Calculating Stars. There was a sale so I picked the first 2 in that series up and this. And now I cannot wait to dig into those... once I knock down my to-read list a little more.
April 15, 2018
Uncertainty, trust and changing beliefs.
July 13, 2020
4.5. Excellent novelette, but I wish it had been longer.
August 7, 2021
I'm not a fan of short stories but this one was superb.
November 22, 2023
Audio read by: Graphic Audio (full cast)
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January 1, 2024Mar 25, 2019
August 22, 2021
Research read. It was cool.
April 21, 2015
I'm a sucker for culture clash stories in scifi and fantasy. Especially enthralling (or enraging) are culture clash stories where religious fanatics are concerned. It's one thing to impose your culture and religion on your own people, but to expect people from a far away land who have never heard of you to automatically know it and to dismiss them or imprison/kill them simply for their unavoidable ignorance, even when they have otherwise been very polite? It's just so damn irrational and unfair that it gets my blood boiling hot. Especially problematic is when the foreigners bring information with them that undermines the local religion or accepted history.
This story has all of those elements and man did it get me mad. It reminds me very much of one of my favorite SG-1 episodes "New Ground" wherein two groups heatedly debate the origins of life on their planet and the arrival of people from Earth through their Stargate causes some serious irrationality, insecurity and fear driven denial from the anti-stargate side.
"Hey, listen, I know it's hard to believe we came from another planet. The Stargate's right behind us. Let us show you how it works and if you still don't believe us we'll just leave and never come back."
"Nope, I refuse to entertain anything that goes against what I already know, so we'll just kill you instead without hearing anything you have to say, and we'll just ignore that giant ring behind you as if it never existed. Sound good?"
GAAAAAAAH! WHY YOU BE SO CLOSE-MINDED YOU HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN?! THINK WITH YOUR BRAIN, NOT YOUR INSECURITIES! *pant*
This story also makes me so frustrated that Mary doesn't write full length novels that are at all similar to her short stories. I hope she writes a legitimate scifi or fantasy novel one of these days instead of her typical Jane Austen love letters. I'll snatch it up in a heartbeat if she does.
This story has all of those elements and man did it get me mad. It reminds me very much of one of my favorite SG-1 episodes "New Ground" wherein two groups heatedly debate the origins of life on their planet and the arrival of people from Earth through their Stargate causes some serious irrationality, insecurity and fear driven denial from the anti-stargate side.
"Hey, listen, I know it's hard to believe we came from another planet. The Stargate's right behind us. Let us show you how it works and if you still don't believe us we'll just leave and never come back."
"Nope, I refuse to entertain anything that goes against what I already know, so we'll just kill you instead without hearing anything you have to say, and we'll just ignore that giant ring behind you as if it never existed. Sound good?"
GAAAAAAAH! WHY YOU BE SO CLOSE-MINDED YOU HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN?! THINK WITH YOUR BRAIN, NOT YOUR INSECURITIES! *pant*
This story also makes me so frustrated that Mary doesn't write full length novels that are at all similar to her short stories. I hope she writes a legitimate scifi or fantasy novel one of these days instead of her typical Jane Austen love letters. I'll snatch it up in a heartbeat if she does.
May 12, 2022
4.5 stars
I originally read this as part of the “Shadows Beneath” collection. It’s the first story written by MRK that I have ever read, and after reading it I had to find more.
It’s a really neat idea; my only complaint is the ease of their conversation at the ending. What would life be like with a tidally-locked moon?
I originally read this as part of the “Shadows Beneath” collection. It’s the first story written by MRK that I have ever read, and after reading it I had to find more.
It’s a really neat idea; my only complaint is the ease of their conversation at the ending. What would life be like with a tidally-locked moon?
October 23, 2015
Read this as part of Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology.
October 30, 2016
One of my favorite pieces of world-building, and it made me fall in love with culture clash stories.
November 7, 2017
I'm not a big fan of short stories because I enjoy longer, complex plots, but as short stories go, this one was really good. It's amazing how quickly I was able to feel like I understand the character and was invested in her. As someone who has struggled understanding people and making myself understood in a country where I had only some grasp of the language, I could relate really well. The religious and cultural conflicts were great. I'd have loved to see this story built out into a larger one. My only complaint was that it felt like the ending was too abrupt.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews