January 2024 Short Story: "Permanent Fatal Errors" by Jay Lake

[Natalie]

Our short story for January can be found here: https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fi...

[Peter]

Huh. Always a pleasure to come across a new-to-me Jay Lake story. That said, this one ended on a cliffhanger. Did Lake just run dry, or what?

Well, we'll never know now. Still pretty good. 3-star read for me.

[Oleksandr]

I've started the story, I don't think that I've read anything by the author before. One minor detail at the start irked me:

The lounge was a folly of naval architecture, a translucent bubble fitted to the hull, consisting of roughly a third of a sphere of optically corrected artificial diamond grown to nanometer symmetry and smoothness in microgravity. Chances were good that in a catastrophe the rest of the ship would be shredded before the bubble would so much as be scratched.

Yes, protection from scratching is good, but diamond burns, and say a hi-speed micrometeorite won't stretch but turning its kinetic energy to heat upon impact can burn it. Google says diamonds burn at 1562°F (850°C).

[Ryan]

I liked the idea of the story, but I also didn't appreciate the cliffhanger at the end of the story; it made the build-up seem pointless, to some extent. There's a great mystery setup here, and I would have liked to see it solved.

About midway, when Maduabuchi figures out that there's some alien or something in the star, the Captain asks him to stand down. Why? What are the politics at play here?

[Oleksandr]

I cannot say that the story worked for me, maybe because after guessing what these green lights mean the story moved not to exploration and discovery but to local intrigues. Also I cannot suspend disbelief that the narrator was the only one to spot them

[Stephen]

Didn’t do much for me. I’m also unacquainted with the author’s work, though I know he was popular and died young. I wonder if this was an unfinished piece that was published posthumously.

[Jim]

Interesting world the author drew, but too much mystery & anarchy for me. I don't mind an indefinite ending, but between the internal politics & the aliens, it was just too much. Good writing. I think Stephen might have the right idea. There should have been a little more definition.

[Natalie]

I realized I haven't commented on many short stories so I thought I'd add my thoughts.
I liked the mystery element of the story: What is the green glow? Who designed the brown dwarf? Who is plotting on the ship (Inclined Plane)?
But I do agree with other readers: the story opens up several large themes that he doesn't follow up on: mutiny, alien species, long life spans, investigating alien construction. Several of the themes reminded me of Alastair Reynolds but because it's a short story, we don't get much exploration of the ideas.