The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers

by Jeremy Packert Burke

The Ashes of Around Twenty-Three Strangers is a Tor.com original science fiction story from Jeremy Packert Burke.The world doesn't make sense. All rain has moved indoors--wrecking houses from the inside out while the skies remain cloudless. With ever greater devotion, people worship giant, inert, humanoid bodies as gods as civilization falls apart. Lucy has never been religious, but her brother becomes more and more sucked into the church. She has no way to properly mourn him after his untimely death. Now, a year later, with the help of her best friend Carve, who was once himself a believer, she will travel south on a makeshift pilgrimage, trying to find peace and some better means of understanding the world.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Dystopia

26 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2020

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

They pass old billboard PSAs reminding people that interior rain can come at any moment, advising them to get their houses in order. Clouds might form above their beds in the middle of the night; they might wake gasping, half-drowning. Lucy can attest that no one ever believes the rains will hit their home. How could you believe such a thing? How would you live your life?

But this is the way the world is: all the storms have moved inside. A cloud hasn’t touched the sky for over two years.

i have no strong feelings about this story one way or t'other. to be honest, i don't think i fully grasped the whatness of it. it seems maybe a bit ambitious for its length, and i have so many questions about the world itself that its message was lost on me as i made my way through the muddle of nature and religion and guilt and accountability. this is perhaps what i get for trying to read a short story in the bleary early-morning prework hours i have at my disposal these days, but, like this story itself, we're all doing the best we can with what we have, and sometimes the best we can do is scoop up the ashes of around twenty-three strangers and hope the gods will accept the intent behind our offering.

today, these are my ashes.



read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2020/09/30/twenty...



come to my blog!

[S.A Reidman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just picturing my life in one long soggy wet mess of soaked furniture and walls ready to burst - I mean it's been a premature unnatural rainy season for a couple of weeks on and off - this is my nightmare. It's literally pitter pattering light rain record scratch and update welp, it's damn near hailing now🌧️ as I read. No matter how lush it looks out there - I'd still like to classify this as horror.

So, of course I love this horrid imagining of a post-climate catastrophe world where somehow, mother nature (in the form of "benevolent being) rains on our collective homo sapien parade ... Inside our freaking shelters and absolutely nowhere to hide.

"Rain roars on the second floor. Dark stains splinter and meet across the plaster sky. There is the small echo of thunder in empty rooms, the smell of ozone." uhm yeah no thanks.

That Character:  Earth as a wackadoodled watery planet
That scene:  Lucy and the former fanatic conversating after Noel skulks away
Favorite /Unique Quotes:
🖤  "Things come and go. Even losing my legs didn’t put me out. I thought the gods might like it, me kneeling all the time." (Carve The Heretic)
She knows he only wants her to be safe. But what do you do with that? What do you do when what is best and what you need do not match?. (relatable)
Curious/Unique Concepts:
■ Interior rain as a destructive force
Cover Cause I'm a Bird: I was drawn in by the color blends, didn't even see the title.
Re-readability: Yeah I enjoyed this
GR Rating: 3.5⭐
CAWPILE:6
StoryGraph Challenge: 1800 Books by 2027
Challenge Prompt: 150 Existential Fiction by 2027

[Mehsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting novella about a world in which it doesn't rain outside any more. Instead.. rain is inside. Not always, some people are still safe, but who knows your house may be next. It is a story also about loss (her brother died and they lost the house) and friendship, about mourning, and about a very strange but also strangely beautiful world. I would love to know more about this. Is there a reason why rain stopped being outside? Why is everyone so into gods in this world? Are they trying to fix the storms happening inside? I also love that the title came back in the story. Wow, that is one way.. but it was a bit disturbing as well.

[Radwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

English Review Below.

جذبتني نبذة هذه القصة القصيرة الخيالية، والتي تدور في عالم بدأت الأمطار تهطل فيه داخل المنازل وليس خارجها. أحيانا يكون المطر مفاجئا بعاصفة رعدية ويقتل سكان المنزل قبل أن تتاح لهم فرصة الهروب، وأحيانا يبدأ المطر ببطء ويمنحهم فرصة للهرب من منزل لم يعد قابلا للسكن وسيظل غارقا بالماء. الحبكة نفسها مثيرة للاهتمام، ولكنني وجدت نفسي غير مهتمة للتنفيذ نفسه، فلم أكره القصة ولكنني لم أحبها أيضا، وظهور الآلهة والديانة الجديدة والشخصية الرئيسية التائهة كلها أشياء لم تثر اهتمامي للأسف.
القصة متاحة مجانا لمن يود قراءتها: https://www.tor.com/2020/09/30/twenty...

I was intrigued by the synopsis of this short story, which is simply put, one day the rain started falling inside the houses not outside, sometimes it would be sudden with thunder and storming intensity, killing the people and demolishing their homes, other times it would start slowly, giving people a chance to escape that home which will be no longer fit to be lived in. It was interesting, but I found myself lukewarm towards the story, I didn't hate but I didn't love it either, the whole gods and religion and the lost main character didn't intrigue me enough to like this story beyond that interesting synopsis.

If it sounds like something you'd like, you can find it for free on Tor's Website: https://www.tor.com/2020/09/30/twenty...

[Maritina Mela · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

Kinda enjoyed the idea behind the story (water falling inside people's houses, while the sky remains clear) but I really didn't vibe with the pace, the characters and in the end, I was left with some questions.

It's not a bad story, don't get me wrong.
But it's not very good either.

Also yes, I am posting a review almost a whole year after actually reading this one. I wasn't in the mood to write one back then and right now, I am not in the mood to go further into the details of the story. It is what it is 😝

[Badseedgirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I rarely finish one of these short stories and say “I wish I had a little more background going into this story.” but in this case I wish I knew more about who or what the gods are. I’m not sure that is a negative or a positive trait for a story. In my opinion, a good short story should stand on it’s own. But is wanting to know more about a world built in a short story a bad thing, I don’t think that is true either.

[Erin Franklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt sure I'd love this from the title alone and I was not wrong.

[Rebecca Crunden]

But this is the way the world is: all the storms have moved inside.

Haunting.

[OldBird · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was surprised by how much I liked this one, even if I felt the ending fizzled out without giving us much in the way of resolution.

The world building done to set up some kind of weird religious post-apocalypse where it only ever rains indoors was bizarre yet very effective. It does leave a load of unanswered questions, not least what the "Gods" are or why these seemingly modern Western people venerate them. The actual plot following a woman wanting to bury some ashes traveling with her snarky best friend was an unusual buddy road trip and I loved how natural their dialogue was.

I felt it just stopped right when it was going somewhere, turning into musings that didn't feel overly satisfying in ending the scene that had been so meticulously set.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was pleasantly surprised here: this was inventive, engaging, and super creative. i definitely would have appreciated a little more description and refinement of how the world is drawn and communicated to us, but there is something to be said for intentional scarcity. interesting (and poignant) enough for a 4 star rating.

[emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lonely, homesick story that almost brought me to tears. Reminded me in some ways of Station Eleven -- the intrusion of a common, human thing like grief onto a world that has utterly changed, and how we deal with it. Very poignant.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange story!

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goD.
OMG.
Please.
Please write more.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one just didn't really resonate with me. I don't think the worldbuilding was completely there. We were just supposed to accept the changes to our world without much of an explanation.

[Mark Will Never Cry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this short story! The setup was extremely interesting and I really enjoyed reading the story. Overall - slay.

[S.E. Martens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this dreamlike glimpse into a post-apocalyptic otherworld, where it rains indoors and the gods are these giant, slumbering scaly mounds. Intriguing stuff, but I do think it ends a bit too abruptly.

[Shelby · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The ashes belong to nearly two dozen dead strangers—a substitute for the body of her brother, Noel. It is, more or less, what he would have wanted."

A nice little story about grief and belief in a world where rain no longer falls from the sky, but from inside houses instead.