Amara's Giraffe

Lady Astronaut Universe #4.3

by Mary Robinette Kowal

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Alternate History, Fiction, Speculative Fiction

1 pages, ebook

First published May 14, 2018

About the author

Mary 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.

Reviews

[Kaethe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very short, but cool. I am in awe of the ability to tell a complete, cogent, satisfying tale in hardly any space. The craft is elegant. It's almost certainly taken me longer to write this stupid review as it took Kowal to write the story.

Available online.

Happy birthday, Alyshondra! The Teddy Bear Habit is a favorite from my childhood that isn't especially well known. It has a kid who lives in The Village, and who actually gets to audition for a boy band, and when I was eight and living in the back of beyond, it was so sophisticated and contemporary and hip to me who had mostly read books already established as classics, which meant terribly dated.

[luiloth · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Phobos Experience (Lady Astronaut 4.1) By Mary Robinette Kowal can be found:
http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal...

Amara's Giraffe (Lady Astronaut 4.3) by Mary Robinette Kowal can be found:
http://maryrobinettekowal.com/journal...

[Minnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

4*

Equally fluffy as Rocket's Red, but this one was actually really cute!

[Lis Carey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very short story in the Lady Astronaut series.

Alyshondra is taking her eleven-month-old daughter on a visit to Grandma, at Grandma's new homestead, on the Moon. They're in the zero-G part of their trip when baby Amara's stuffed giraffe starts falling toward the floor. This should not be happening. Where's the force coming from, with no thrust?

Alyshondra has to figure this out, get them back on their correct course, and calm the now crying Amara.

It's a story that's both charming and interesting.

Recommended.

I received this story as part of the 2021 Hugo Voters packet, and am reviewing it voluntarily.

[Marco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Every year I read all the finalists of the most prestigious science fiction awards (at least in the English speaking world): the Hugo awards. This year the lady astronaut series, the series this short story is part of, was a finalist for the "Best Series" award. While I usually skip that particular category, since I had already read all the previous instalment of the series, and utterly loved some of them (in particular The Calculating Stars and The Lady Astronaut of Mars) I decided to go ahead and read all the remaining instalments that I had not previously read.
I have not much to say about this instalment: it is super short to qualify as "flash fiction", more a vignette than a story. I like the mixture of hard science and human emotions but... I wish it was longer.

[Florian Holzner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is bite sized, exactly in a way that leaves you not content but wanting more. It is pretty cool to see a story told in so little worlds, and if you have read the rest of the books in the series, how much progress is implicit in this story.

I initially gave it three stars, but I am upping it to four, because it is good even though it is annoyingly short.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This piece introduced me to the term flash fiction. Seeing as I generally don't love normal length short stories, it's not surprising that I wasn't overwhelmed with this tiny story. Goodreads rating: 2 stars (it was ok)

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is FAR too short to give you all of the things you want from a Kowal story, but it's awfully cute, and it's still Kowal. I'd read her grocery lists if that was the only new writing of hers I could find.

[Cmoore · Rating 3 out of 5]

This cute fun piece of flash fiction... is just what I wanted... I expect that the happy accident with the giraffe saved lives... why only 3★'s, well wouldn't you know I want more!

[Lark of The Bookwyrm's Hoard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flash fiction set in the Lady Astronaut universe. Short, but even in a few paragraphs, I learned something.

[Anelia Dobreva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little short story.

[easofia]

Cute, very short story set in the Lady Astronaut/Punchcard Punk universe.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://maryrobinettekowal.com/journa...

Cute snippet (~a page).

[Anna Hepworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very cute short short that does clever things with parenting and science. Not obvious how it fits in to the series though.

[Linda · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a flash than a short story, but very cute.

[Jana · Rating 2 out of 5]

super short

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very short and very sweet!! Thanks for sharing this with us!!

[Meg GlitteryOtters · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Stephanie Dyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute short (one page) story of a mom and her baby on Mars

[Ulrike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read on the author's blog.

[Else · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice worldbuilding for the series.

[StephanieNicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and sweet short story in the Lady Astronaut universe

[davaar]

eh, the other short stories were better