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The Kite Maker
The Kite Maker is Brenda Peynado's science fiction novella of of how humans cope with alien contact.
After aliens arrive on earth, humans do the unthinkable out of fear. When an alien walks into a human kite maker's store, coveting her kites, the human struggles with her guilt over her part in the alien massacres, while neo-Nazis draw a violent line between alien and human.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
After aliens arrive on earth, humans do the unthinkable out of fear. When an alien walks into a human kite maker's store, coveting her kites, the human struggles with her guilt over her part in the alien massacres, while neo-Nazis draw a violent line between alien and human.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
28 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 29, 2018
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113 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 36 reviews
September 1, 2018
...the kids roamed the neighborhood playing humans and aliens, hitting each other with electronic wands that dissipated on contact so that no damage could be done. We didn’t have any aliens on our side of town; the children considered weak played the aliens, eyes big, offering no resistance. If they fought back, they were scolded, That’s not how it happened.
this story is strong in emotional appeal and would probably be better appreciated by readers with feelings. i'm not one who typically experiences any book-related feels, and as far as book reports go, i'm generally only good for assessing how it all works; cogs and cognates, not for what emotions it gives rise to. i can see the signposts where other readers will pause to admire the scenic emotional vistas, but for me it's just looking at other people's vacation photos on the instagram. that's not to say this doesn't have literary merit, it does, but it's a little on-the-nose as far as its message. it would be a fresh and contemporary way to introduce students to the concept of allegory, and i don't think there's anything in it that would be too difficult or scandalous for high school readers, but someone more qualified than me on teenmatters should probably be consulted before you run out to slap a syllabus together.
check it out and tell me all about your human feelings.
read it for yourself here:
https://www.tor.com/2018/08/29/the-ki...
come to my blog!
September 10, 2018
Review posted on Fantasy Literature:
“The Kite Maker” is an alien invasion with a reverse twist: when the alien ships landed, humans attacked the dragonfly-like aliens who emerged from the ships, killing and maiming many of them. Eventually humanity figured out that the Dragonflies were friendly refugees from a dying planet and allowed them to settle among us on Earth. But shame, prejudice and xenophobia have made the arrangement an uneasy one. The narrator, a kite-maker and -seller whose homemade kites are adored by the Dragonflies, struggles with her own conflicting feelings and fears.
It’s an odd but thought-provoking tale, using both aliens and kites as obvious metaphors. The story is punctuated by a weird sexual assault perpetrated by the narrator on an alien for murky reasons. Not a comfortable story in any way, it carries a strong message.
Read it free online here at Tor.com.
“The Kite Maker” is an alien invasion with a reverse twist: when the alien ships landed, humans attacked the dragonfly-like aliens who emerged from the ships, killing and maiming many of them. Eventually humanity figured out that the Dragonflies were friendly refugees from a dying planet and allowed them to settle among us on Earth. But shame, prejudice and xenophobia have made the arrangement an uneasy one. The narrator, a kite-maker and -seller whose homemade kites are adored by the Dragonflies, struggles with her own conflicting feelings and fears.
It’s an odd but thought-provoking tale, using both aliens and kites as obvious metaphors. The story is punctuated by a weird sexual assault perpetrated by the narrator on an alien for murky reasons. Not a comfortable story in any way, it carries a strong message.
Read it free online here at Tor.com.
October 9, 2018
It is hard to describe how I feel about this strange and melancholy tale of an unusual alien invasion. I really loved a lot of the messages and themes explored in the story and was definitely emotionally engaged but a few other moments quite annoyed me and I never managed to really warm to any of the characters. I think I'd have to still rate this short story as a very good one as despite its flaws it did engage me emotionally and left me thinking!
Set 15 years in the aftermath of the arrival of the Dragonfly, a humanoid bug like type of alien, who fled their own planet in search of sanctuary after their sun reached the end of its lifespan and had to set down on earth with no hope of ever going back as resources had run out.
It turned out to be an interesting tale as the Dragonfly were a pacifist race who found humanity to be violent and bigoted hosts. Many topics were explored in the story, most focusing on various forms of discrimination, but the big one was obviously the eternally topical issues of the treatment and reception of refugees.
I loved a lot, but not all, of the social messages in this one but did have a few issues with some of it. A weird thing in the writing itself was there was no use of quotation marks for the dialogue. I found that a bit weird and wonder if Brenda Peynado went that way to give the story a slightly alien and unusual feel even just in the form of the visual medium?
All the brawny, tough-man jobs were sources of human pride, if you could have them. In this way, I was more like the Dragonflies than the humans, my craft something that had become disgusting to most people, a sign of weakness.
I did love the many subtle ways this story highlighted societal discrimination.
Of course, no human would ever be confused with being an alien, of looking like a Dragonfly, but you might be confused with looking poor, and sometimes that was almost as bad.
This story did a great job of showing that even with a main target for hatred and bigotry to be found there is still plenty to go around for those on the bottom rungs of the accepted members of society.
Mom, Benon whined, I want to know what it was like.
I didn’t say, How could you own up to all the things you’ve ever done that shamed you? How could you look backwards while stepping over the dead bodies in the way?
It changed everything, I said.
The other big topic explored in this one was the theme of guilt and regret. It was one of the reasons the story managed such a sad and melancholy tone as Peynado did a great job of making the reader feel the main characters shame and guilt over stuff that happened around the time of the invasion and how it still badly effected her life.
Our species were so different we couldn’t procreate together and the religious zealots claimed that without the sanctification of children, the union was unnatural, disgusting.
No need to work the brain too hard to figure out what this is an analogy for!
The Dragonfly looked at me and popped gum from his tiny, pursed mouth. I waited for him to announce himself the way his kind did. It was hard to tell their ages, but this one must have been born here, was already starting to lose the customs of his parents.
I'm never sure why the casting aside of old cultural behaviours and traditions is always cast by people in such a negative light? Always annoys me. And I'm not just talking about people adapting to new cultures but more to people casting aside old cultural indoctrinations and traditions in general.
One of the other big flaws in this story was the scene involving questionable consent in a sexual situation. I'm not quite sure what purpose it was supposed to serve especially as it never felt like Peynado was casting it in a negative light. I just found it disturbing!
All in all I found this to be an excellent short story even considering its flaws.
Rating: 4.5 stars.
Set 15 years in the aftermath of the arrival of the Dragonfly, a humanoid bug like type of alien, who fled their own planet in search of sanctuary after their sun reached the end of its lifespan and had to set down on earth with no hope of ever going back as resources had run out.
It turned out to be an interesting tale as the Dragonfly were a pacifist race who found humanity to be violent and bigoted hosts. Many topics were explored in the story, most focusing on various forms of discrimination, but the big one was obviously the eternally topical issues of the treatment and reception of refugees.
I loved a lot, but not all, of the social messages in this one but did have a few issues with some of it. A weird thing in the writing itself was there was no use of quotation marks for the dialogue. I found that a bit weird and wonder if Brenda Peynado went that way to give the story a slightly alien and unusual feel even just in the form of the visual medium?
All the brawny, tough-man jobs were sources of human pride, if you could have them. In this way, I was more like the Dragonflies than the humans, my craft something that had become disgusting to most people, a sign of weakness.
I did love the many subtle ways this story highlighted societal discrimination.
Of course, no human would ever be confused with being an alien, of looking like a Dragonfly, but you might be confused with looking poor, and sometimes that was almost as bad.
This story did a great job of showing that even with a main target for hatred and bigotry to be found there is still plenty to go around for those on the bottom rungs of the accepted members of society.
Mom, Benon whined, I want to know what it was like.
I didn’t say, How could you own up to all the things you’ve ever done that shamed you? How could you look backwards while stepping over the dead bodies in the way?
It changed everything, I said.
The other big topic explored in this one was the theme of guilt and regret. It was one of the reasons the story managed such a sad and melancholy tone as Peynado did a great job of making the reader feel the main characters shame and guilt over stuff that happened around the time of the invasion and how it still badly effected her life.
Our species were so different we couldn’t procreate together and the religious zealots claimed that without the sanctification of children, the union was unnatural, disgusting.
No need to work the brain too hard to figure out what this is an analogy for!
The Dragonfly looked at me and popped gum from his tiny, pursed mouth. I waited for him to announce himself the way his kind did. It was hard to tell their ages, but this one must have been born here, was already starting to lose the customs of his parents.
I'm never sure why the casting aside of old cultural behaviours and traditions is always cast by people in such a negative light? Always annoys me. And I'm not just talking about people adapting to new cultures but more to people casting aside old cultural indoctrinations and traditions in general.
One of the other big flaws in this story was the scene involving questionable consent in a sexual situation. I'm not quite sure what purpose it was supposed to serve especially as it never felt like Peynado was casting it in a negative light. I just found it disturbing!
All in all I found this to be an excellent short story even considering its flaws.
Rating: 4.5 stars.
September 11, 2018
Treat-read, a free novella from Tor.
Alien massacres. That is, we massacred them. Just because they were passive refugees.
Honestly, I think the tale works on a lot of levels, from an idea of not just aliens on the top layer but from the idea of normal, regular people who are naturally passive to begin with. You know, the whole Yin/Yang argument. If a person doesn't stand up and fight, do they deserve to be maltreated? How about rape victims? Did they have it coming to them?
You see where I'm going with this? It's a real thing. A lot of people are observers or hate the whole rat-race or just cherish PEACE. It's not a bad thing. At all. In fact, being one of the people who naturally leans toward the same outlook as these poor aliens, I'm naturally horrified and shocked into squeamishness by the horror displayed here.
Think about monks being burned alive, or passive non-violent demonstrations, or Gandhi... you get the idea of where I'm coming from.
Maybe no one else will see it the way I do and the over-message being kinda like a Christian guilt kind of thing doesn't really cut it for me. Humans can be real shits to each other and anyone classified as "other".
Decent read, not the best thing I've ever read, but I love how many levels can be interpreted within it. :)
Alien massacres. That is, we massacred them. Just because they were passive refugees.
Honestly, I think the tale works on a lot of levels, from an idea of not just aliens on the top layer but from the idea of normal, regular people who are naturally passive to begin with. You know, the whole Yin/Yang argument. If a person doesn't stand up and fight, do they deserve to be maltreated? How about rape victims? Did they have it coming to them?
You see where I'm going with this? It's a real thing. A lot of people are observers or hate the whole rat-race or just cherish PEACE. It's not a bad thing. At all. In fact, being one of the people who naturally leans toward the same outlook as these poor aliens, I'm naturally horrified and shocked into squeamishness by the horror displayed here.
Think about monks being burned alive, or passive non-violent demonstrations, or Gandhi... you get the idea of where I'm coming from.
Maybe no one else will see it the way I do and the over-message being kinda like a Christian guilt kind of thing doesn't really cut it for me. Humans can be real shits to each other and anyone classified as "other".
Decent read, not the best thing I've ever read, but I love how many levels can be interpreted within it. :)
August 30, 2018
I understood Tove, wanting the biggest, best thing you couldn’t have. I wanted his unexhausted hope, that’s what I wanted. I wanted forgiveness without having to name my sins, I wanted tenderness to feel real to me again. Some part of me wanted to fly in the face of everything those skinheads represented, but another part of me wanted the world before the Dragonflies fell in, the world we couldn’t have. Were we tender before? Could we be tender again? Or did the Fallings only awaken the violence we’d always had?
While it's not subtle in it's allegory, the Kite Maker, by Brenda Peynado, is an absolutely beautiful piece of writing. Full of grief for unchangeable past actions, the bitterness of knowing that even though history will leave hateful people behind where they belong but that won't stop them from affecting you now, the bittersweet knowledge that your children will never fully understand the moments of your life that shaped their world - and all of it breathless in it's sadness.
And yet that sadness only underpins just how much better the author believes humanity can be. There would be nothing to grieve if brutality and hate was all we were capable of. Though this is not a subtle story, it is a beautiful one, it made me cry, and it's available free here: https://www.tor.com/2018/08/29/the-ki...
While it's not subtle in it's allegory, the Kite Maker, by Brenda Peynado, is an absolutely beautiful piece of writing. Full of grief for unchangeable past actions, the bitterness of knowing that even though history will leave hateful people behind where they belong but that won't stop them from affecting you now, the bittersweet knowledge that your children will never fully understand the moments of your life that shaped their world - and all of it breathless in it's sadness.
And yet that sadness only underpins just how much better the author believes humanity can be. There would be nothing to grieve if brutality and hate was all we were capable of. Though this is not a subtle story, it is a beautiful one, it made me cry, and it's available free here: https://www.tor.com/2018/08/29/the-ki...
September 22, 2018
When the Dragonflies first landed on Earth seeking refuge from the destruction of their home world, frightened humans reacted with violence. The unnamed narrator was one of those reactionaries, but now she tries to make up for her ghastly behavior with extra kindness. She makes kites, and when a Dragonfly named Tove comes into her shop, she wants to please him. But political and cultural realities complicate interactions between humans and Dragonflies, and continue to make it dangerous for Dragonflies to call Earth their new home.
This is one of those stories where agreeing with its basic positions (refugees need help, Nazis are bad, etc.) doesn’t translate to a positive response to the story. There are too many conveniences, and few real stakes, built into the premise to generate any dramatic tension. Everything feels staged, like characters only enter the scene to fill their function and exit when they are no longer useful to the story. The narrator’s behavior toward Tove comes across as unwanted harassment, which soured my opinion of her. Intentional or not, the story does not address the issue satisfactorily.
This is one of those stories where agreeing with its basic positions (refugees need help, Nazis are bad, etc.) doesn’t translate to a positive response to the story. There are too many conveniences, and few real stakes, built into the premise to generate any dramatic tension. Everything feels staged, like characters only enter the scene to fill their function and exit when they are no longer useful to the story. The narrator’s behavior toward Tove comes across as unwanted harassment, which soured my opinion of her. Intentional or not, the story does not address the issue satisfactorily.
July 5, 2021
You’ve never seen a kite fly until you’ve seen an alien fly one. Dragonfly wings on their backs trembling with anticipation, these deep sighs from their purple mouths as they’re unrolling the spool.
A world has been invaded by the dragonfly lookalike aliens and humans do anything to save themselves. Only later they discover that the aliens are here for refuge as their own planet is dying. Even though the aliens don't mean any harm, fear does strange things to humans.
This story is told from the POV of a kite maker. And I am so glad that I discovered this gem of a story by accident. This is such a compelling story that forces you to think about being human and humane. The lengths we go to eradicate anything or anyone that seems different. This was a beautiful but sad story that made me feel emotions that I only few reads can make me feel. This isn't for everyone but I absolutely loved it.
5 stars
A world has been invaded by the dragonfly lookalike aliens and humans do anything to save themselves. Only later they discover that the aliens are here for refuge as their own planet is dying. Even though the aliens don't mean any harm, fear does strange things to humans.
This story is told from the POV of a kite maker. And I am so glad that I discovered this gem of a story by accident. This is such a compelling story that forces you to think about being human and humane. The lengths we go to eradicate anything or anyone that seems different. This was a beautiful but sad story that made me feel emotions that I only few reads can make me feel. This isn't for everyone but I absolutely loved it.
5 stars
September 11, 2018
This, for me, was a strange story.
About 15 years ago, a race of aliens fell from the sky. It wasn't an invasion. They were more crash-landing, losing their ships and some anatomical abilities thanks to our atmosphere.
By now, they've tried to integrate, working certain jobs for almost nothing and, of course, there are tensions as some people don't want them on Earth at all while others are riddled with guilt about what we humans did to them when they arrived out of fear of an alien invasion.
On one hand, I know what the author intended with this story as it was very much on the nose. On the other, while there were some poignant observations, I can neither agree with the intended message(s) (at least not all, or unconditionally) nor do I feel comfortable with that scene when .
That, in fact is the most important scene in my opinion as it illustrates the passiveness of Tove's race as well as the more confident / direct way of the humans. However, just because a person is scared or generally more passive, doesn't mean another has the right to do whatever to them.
And to have the kite maker almost kill herself with guilt but then to become such a kind of predator was disgusting.
Moreover, the rest of the story was one massive guilt trip that strongly reminded me of Christian lessons from my childhood. The amount of self-loathing was staggering. After all, there is a fine line between actual guilt and subsequent atonement and this.
So yeah, I'm not sure what exactly to think of the story. Could have been wonderful but unfortunately, it wasn't for me.
About 15 years ago, a race of aliens fell from the sky. It wasn't an invasion. They were more crash-landing, losing their ships and some anatomical abilities thanks to our atmosphere.
By now, they've tried to integrate, working certain jobs for almost nothing and, of course, there are tensions as some people don't want them on Earth at all while others are riddled with guilt about what we humans did to them when they arrived out of fear of an alien invasion.
On one hand, I know what the author intended with this story as it was very much on the nose. On the other, while there were some poignant observations, I can neither agree with the intended message(s) (at least not all, or unconditionally) nor do I feel comfortable with that scene when .
That, in fact is the most important scene in my opinion as it illustrates the passiveness of Tove's race as well as the more confident / direct way of the humans. However, just because a person is scared or generally more passive, doesn't mean another has the right to do whatever to them.
And to have the kite maker almost kill herself with guilt but then to become such a kind of predator was disgusting.
Moreover, the rest of the story was one massive guilt trip that strongly reminded me of Christian lessons from my childhood. The amount of self-loathing was staggering. After all, there is a fine line between actual guilt and subsequent atonement and this.
So yeah, I'm not sure what exactly to think of the story. Could have been wonderful but unfortunately, it wasn't for me.
September 6, 2018
Okay, look: if you're going to be all artsy and avoid using standard punctuation, you need to make sure that you actually know what you're doing. You know that saying about needing to know the rules before you can break them? Well, it seems that this author ignored that. The text is riddled with what appear to be typos (missing words, missing punctuation, etc.), so when I'm trying to read all this dialogue without punctuation, I end up confused because I don't know where one person's speech begins and ends, or even if it begins or ends.
This was a complete and utter waste of time. If you enjoy reading confusing narratives with unpleasant, selfish (to the point of being pathological) narrators, go ahead and read this one. I was appalled by how the narrator thought and acted. She claimed to feel guilty about taking part in the alien massacres fifteen years earlier, but her guilt had little to do with the aliens. It was all about her. And she did some really awful things: nearly killing herself by driving into oncoming traffic (selfishly ignoring the people in the other vehicles who might be hurt or killed as well); coming on to an alien when she could tell he didn't want it and was uncomfortable, all to satisfy her own twisted needs; wishing emotional anguish on the aliens because... well, I don't even know why. So someone else could be as miserable as her?
The characters (including our sociopathic narrator) were so badly developed that I couldn't even care. Even the aliens were badly described with a mish-mash of traits that left me confused rather than able to picture them in my mind. Her sons are almost as bad as she is, and since she's the only parent left to guide them, I don't hold out much hope.
I don't know if this was a thinly veiled allegory about what's going on right now in our world with xenophobia and hate crimes, but if it was, it was heavy-handed and rather stupid. Skinheads are allowed to run riot and burn down people's businesses... just because? There's no such thing as insurance? (She wanted to kill herself after a bunch of skinheads burned down her toy store, which seems like a bit of an extreme reaction, especially if your business is properly insured and you've already loaded most of your valuable inventory safely into your car.)
The writing was just bad. Aside from the lack of punctuation in the dialogue, there were a lot of phrases that I just couldn't make sense of. I read some of them multiple times, wondering if I was just missing the context or something. But, come on... reading a short story shouldn't be this hard! I can't even imagine reading a full-length novel by this author.
Quotable moment:
This was a complete and utter waste of time. If you enjoy reading confusing narratives with unpleasant, selfish (to the point of being pathological) narrators, go ahead and read this one. I was appalled by how the narrator thought and acted. She claimed to feel guilty about taking part in the alien massacres fifteen years earlier, but her guilt had little to do with the aliens. It was all about her. And she did some really awful things: nearly killing herself by driving into oncoming traffic (selfishly ignoring the people in the other vehicles who might be hurt or killed as well); coming on to an alien when she could tell he didn't want it and was uncomfortable, all to satisfy her own twisted needs; wishing emotional anguish on the aliens because... well, I don't even know why. So someone else could be as miserable as her?
The characters (including our sociopathic narrator) were so badly developed that I couldn't even care. Even the aliens were badly described with a mish-mash of traits that left me confused rather than able to picture them in my mind. Her sons are almost as bad as she is, and since she's the only parent left to guide them, I don't hold out much hope.
I don't know if this was a thinly veiled allegory about what's going on right now in our world with xenophobia and hate crimes, but if it was, it was heavy-handed and rather stupid. Skinheads are allowed to run riot and burn down people's businesses... just because? There's no such thing as insurance? (She wanted to kill herself after a bunch of skinheads burned down her toy store, which seems like a bit of an extreme reaction, especially if your business is properly insured and you've already loaded most of your valuable inventory safely into your car.)
The writing was just bad. Aside from the lack of punctuation in the dialogue, there were a lot of phrases that I just couldn't make sense of. I read some of them multiple times, wondering if I was just missing the context or something. But, come on... reading a short story shouldn't be this hard! I can't even imagine reading a full-length novel by this author.
Quotable moment:
All the brawny, tough-man jobs were sources of human pride, if you could have them. In this way, I was more like the Dragonflies than the humans, my craft something that had become disgusting to most people, a sign of weakness.
August 29, 2018
You’ve never seen a kite fly until you’ve seen an alien fly one
A sweet and endearing short story. Free read on Tor The Kite Maker.
August 17, 2022
Don't bug me.
This seems to be an allegory for racism; only substitute aliens for African Americans and other non-whites. It's an okay shortie.
This seems to be an allegory for racism; only substitute aliens for African Americans and other non-whites. It's an okay shortie.
September 5, 2018
This covers somewhat similar ground to Sweetheart, which Tor.com republished earlier in the month--bug-like aliens live among us, and humans wrestle with their own complicity in acts of systematic prejudice and violence. I wonder what the rising popularity for stories with aliens as victim of humans rather than aggressors says about the current cultural zeitgeist. Anyway, while I liked the tone of Sweetheart better, the descriptions and material details here--of the kites, of the alien's physicality, of the games children play--give this story its own distinctive flavor worth reading.
September 3, 2018
This hurt my heart. It was also weird.
Also, it involved a sexual assault of the weirdest sort I've ever even heard of but it was still awful.
Also, it involved a sexual assault of the weirdest sort I've ever even heard of but it was still awful.
October 8, 2018
Darkly beautiful, unabashedly emotional, far from subtle.
January 19, 2021
Histórias sobre invasões alienígenas são repletas de tensão, conspiração e medo. Brenda Peynado quebrou esse clichê ao pensar de uma maneira invertida. E se os alienígenas fossem criaturas frágeis e os seres humanos se tornassem os verdadeiros agressores? Ao inverter a dinâmica, a autora pensa de forma ainda mais avançada: quem seriam os alienígenas? Em um determinado momento da noveleta, a protagonista se pega pensando em quem seria o mais alienígena após as chegada das Libélulas, os seres que vieram de outro mundo. Isso porque os humanos revelam uma faceta de sua personalidade que é tão estranha que os torna de outro mundo.
A protagonista (em uma história narrada em primeira pessoa) é uma mulher que faz pipas para sobreviver. Trabalha também com outros tipos de brinquedos para crianças como ioiôs, mas suas pipas são basicamente pequenas obras de arte por conta de suas figuras e detalhes. A Terra tem agora novos habitantes: as Libélulas, seres insetóides que vieram de outro planeta, este destruído por uma explosão solar. Ao chegarem na Terra acabaram sendo vítimas da violência humana, que não os compreendi e os rejeita como seres inteligentes. Por terem corpos frágeis, as Libélulas foram relegados a lugares improvisados onde eles lutam para sobreviver. Tove, um Libélula pai de jovens meninos, vai até a loja da protagonista comprar uma pipa. Por conta de seus corpos tão leves quanto folhas de papel, as pipas são usadas pelos Libélulas para se alçarem no ar e não sentirem tanto a dor provocada pela gravidade pesada (para eles) da Terra. O contato com Tove faz com que a protagonista tenha amargas lembranças em relação ao passado.
Parando para pensar no pós leitura, esse é um conto que tem uma série de camadas. Não é uma história que tenha me fisgado e por isso minha avaliação pode até ser um pouco injusta, mas mesmo assim ela tem tanto a dizer. É uma narrativa que trata de xenofobia e intolerância no sentido de que não conseguimos conviver com o diferente. O ser humano precisa se estabelecer como o superior. E reage quase como um cão protegendo o seu território quando outro pisa em seu lugar. O curioso é que Brenda Peynado quase não fala sobre como os governos reagiram à chegada das Libélulas; a perspectiva aqui é a do homem comum. E a protagonista se envolveu em uma escaramuça com os alienígenas. Ela conta suas ações tenebrosas de quando ela tomou parte na expulsão deles de seu bairro. Depois, observando-os com mais calma, percebeu o quanto são delicados e enxergam as coisas de uma forma muito diferente. Para ela, suas ações foram vergonhosas e quando os neonazistas atacam sua loja ela se recorda imediatamente destes momentos terríveis.
As Libélulas são seres frágeis e pacíficos. Não entendem a ideia de ordens, de comandos. Sua maneira de ver o mundo é que cada um tem seu direito de escolha. Mesmo em situações trágicas ou de perigo, eles mantém essa postura blasé, Quando seu mundo foi destruído, eles não choraram ou se desesperaram pelos seus entes queridos. Apenas deram adeus. Esse comportamento é estranho demais tanto para nós, leitores, quanto para a própria protagonista. Mas é interessante pensarmos: imagina se tirássemos todos os verbos de comando do nosso alfabeto. Será que isso implicaria em uma mudança na maneira como enxergamos o mundo?
The Kite Maker é uma bela história escrita nesse mundo tão estranho e polarizado que vivemos hoje em dia. Em o quanto a incompreensão e o medo nos torna menos humanos e mais alienígenas. E o quanto ações simples podem ajudar a construir pontes tão necessárias para alcançarmos um desenvolvimento e um futuro diferentes.
A protagonista (em uma história narrada em primeira pessoa) é uma mulher que faz pipas para sobreviver. Trabalha também com outros tipos de brinquedos para crianças como ioiôs, mas suas pipas são basicamente pequenas obras de arte por conta de suas figuras e detalhes. A Terra tem agora novos habitantes: as Libélulas, seres insetóides que vieram de outro planeta, este destruído por uma explosão solar. Ao chegarem na Terra acabaram sendo vítimas da violência humana, que não os compreendi e os rejeita como seres inteligentes. Por terem corpos frágeis, as Libélulas foram relegados a lugares improvisados onde eles lutam para sobreviver. Tove, um Libélula pai de jovens meninos, vai até a loja da protagonista comprar uma pipa. Por conta de seus corpos tão leves quanto folhas de papel, as pipas são usadas pelos Libélulas para se alçarem no ar e não sentirem tanto a dor provocada pela gravidade pesada (para eles) da Terra. O contato com Tove faz com que a protagonista tenha amargas lembranças em relação ao passado.
Parando para pensar no pós leitura, esse é um conto que tem uma série de camadas. Não é uma história que tenha me fisgado e por isso minha avaliação pode até ser um pouco injusta, mas mesmo assim ela tem tanto a dizer. É uma narrativa que trata de xenofobia e intolerância no sentido de que não conseguimos conviver com o diferente. O ser humano precisa se estabelecer como o superior. E reage quase como um cão protegendo o seu território quando outro pisa em seu lugar. O curioso é que Brenda Peynado quase não fala sobre como os governos reagiram à chegada das Libélulas; a perspectiva aqui é a do homem comum. E a protagonista se envolveu em uma escaramuça com os alienígenas. Ela conta suas ações tenebrosas de quando ela tomou parte na expulsão deles de seu bairro. Depois, observando-os com mais calma, percebeu o quanto são delicados e enxergam as coisas de uma forma muito diferente. Para ela, suas ações foram vergonhosas e quando os neonazistas atacam sua loja ela se recorda imediatamente destes momentos terríveis.
As Libélulas são seres frágeis e pacíficos. Não entendem a ideia de ordens, de comandos. Sua maneira de ver o mundo é que cada um tem seu direito de escolha. Mesmo em situações trágicas ou de perigo, eles mantém essa postura blasé, Quando seu mundo foi destruído, eles não choraram ou se desesperaram pelos seus entes queridos. Apenas deram adeus. Esse comportamento é estranho demais tanto para nós, leitores, quanto para a própria protagonista. Mas é interessante pensarmos: imagina se tirássemos todos os verbos de comando do nosso alfabeto. Será que isso implicaria em uma mudança na maneira como enxergamos o mundo?
The Kite Maker é uma bela história escrita nesse mundo tão estranho e polarizado que vivemos hoje em dia. Em o quanto a incompreensão e o medo nos torna menos humanos e mais alienígenas. E o quanto ações simples podem ajudar a construir pontes tão necessárias para alcançarmos um desenvolvimento e um futuro diferentes.
September 1, 2024
The Kite Maker by Dominican American writer Brenda Peynado is marketed as a novella, but at only 28 pages, I would call it a short story. Be that as it may. The story works as a metaphorical comment on racism and succinctly accomplishes what other stories have taken much longer to do. Our narrator makes old-fashioned kites that only alien refugees, called dragonflies, appreciate. The fragile, passive aliens are easy targets for abuse by humans. The story asks how you can make amends for wrongs the victims do not resent. The first few sentences establish the tone: “You’ve never seen a kite fly until you’ve seen an alien fly one. Dragonfly wings on their backs trembling with anticipation, these deep sighs from their purple mouths as they’re unrolling the spool. They run with their slow, spindly legs to let the kite pick up speed.”
December 16, 2021
After aliens arrive on earth, humans do the unthinkable out of fear. When an alien walks into a human kite maker’s store, coveting her kites, the human struggles with her guilt over her part in the alien massacres, while neo-Nazis draw a violent line between alien and human.
The Kite Maker by Brenda Peynado is a sci-fi fiction novella of how humans cope with alien contact.
Sad and compelling, by no means easy read, but so well done. I really begin to like Paynado’s work.
I read it on Scribd, but you can also read it for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2018/08/29/the-ki...
4 Stars
The Kite Maker by Brenda Peynado is a sci-fi fiction novella of how humans cope with alien contact.
Sad and compelling, by no means easy read, but so well done. I really begin to like Paynado’s work.
I read it on Scribd, but you can also read it for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2018/08/29/the-ki...
4 Stars
December 4, 2023
2 for 2 with this author. Loved this short story, and like The Touches, I wish this short story was a full novel. I melt into the world so seamlessly, the speculation of what our real world ways would look in another present always seems so accurate. Themes of power and control are shown through the same tools of oppression exerted on the Indigenous and immigrant peoples in our real world. The “human” way we handle what is “alien”, fear and ignorance sliding into violence and contempt, the regret, guilt and shame of existing in hindsight of such violence, the desire for atonement and pardon. So, so good.
December 20, 2018
Feels like it wants to be a Wild Cards story, but as far as I know isn't one, which is a bit of a shame, because it would have been better than most other stories in that collection, but as a story otherwise it's a bit lacking. In its need to implement the ingredients for its Main Argument, it leaps through several different genres, which makes it tonally dissonant, and takes away from its designated outcome and Inevitable Ending. A longer work would have dealt with this more comfortably and less awkwardly.
October 31, 2018
[The Kite Maker](https://www.tor.com/2018/08/29/the-ki...) is a short story playing on Earth, 15 years after a peaceful alien race arrived. The Dragonflies, as they were called, were greeted with violence, and now that they are somewhat integrated into society, the right mob moves against them. Heavy-handed metaphore is mixed with good characterization, leading to an intentionally painful, okay-but-not-quite-good short story.
September 11, 2018
Strange, ugly and truthful. It leaves little for the imagination, though.
"I'm sorry we make you sleep here, Aleo said. It's so horrible.
For a moment I was proud. I would have pointed out every failure in the warehouses so they would learn how much we had.
Then the mother said, It's our home."
May 25, 2020
What did you do when they came? You’re just like us.
That was before I knew, I said.
Such a short but powerful story!
Read for the PopSugar Challenge 2020, a book with a made-up language.
That was before I knew, I said.
Such a short but powerful story!
Read for the PopSugar Challenge 2020, a book with a made-up language.
September 1, 2018
Best thing I have read from Tor.com, and that’s saying a lot.
September 17, 2018
Nice take on Human condicionado/behaviour.
September 18, 2018
3.5 Stars
A allegory about immigration and racism.
A allegory about immigration and racism.
October 11, 2018
A lot to unpack in this one. Very disturbing, yet some lovely writing. Clearly the monsters are us.
December 14, 2018
The concepts and the theme behind this were good, but the writing was just too disjointed. I really wanted to like this one more than I did, but it just didn't really click with me.
December 3, 2020
This short story is beautiful and punches you in the gut because people are terrible and this would totally happen.
July 1, 2021
A story of aliens coming to Earth as a thinly veiled story of what humans do to "other" humans.
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