Maureen McHugh is quite simply one of the finest SF writers around. And with her story, The Naturalist, she is catapulted into the ranks of the really memorable. Not that I haven't enjoyed her stories before: Frankenstein's Daughter took me by surprise with its offhand punch in the gut denouement, which more or less recontextualizes the entire story, and Useless Things, like The Fifth Head of Cerberus, defies analysis because there is simply too much of it that you can do. But with The Naturalist, McHugh has hit a nerve.
At the very end of the story, Cahill, our protagonist, is sad at the prospect of leaving the zombie settlement. He had started understanding them, for once. With that understanding had come an affection. It is quite simply the opposite of an instrumental interest in another species. He is no scientist, or at least, not a rigorous one at that, but his steady observations, his total surrender to the ways of the zombies without having them adhere to a reading, frees him of the human fallacy of control and the pleasure in control.
This is a complicated sentiment, but one McHugh navigates with preternatural ease. I urge everyone to read this story. It is one of the unsung masterpieces.
Rating: *****/5 stars
Read in: After the Apocalypse (anthology)
Bears comparison to: Stylistically, and intent wise, very similar to Karen Joy Fowler's oeuvre. But, interestingly enough, Molly Gloss's The Grinnell Method comes starkly to mind.
At the very end of the story, Cahill, our protagonist, is sad at the prospect of leaving the zombie settlement. He had started understanding them, for once. With that understanding had come an affection. It is quite simply the opposite of an instrumental interest in another species. He is no scientist, or at least, not a rigorous one at that, but his steady observations, his total surrender to the ways of the zombies without having them adhere to a reading, frees him of the human fallacy of control and the pleasure in control.
This is a complicated sentiment, but one McHugh navigates with preternatural ease. I urge everyone to read this story. It is one of the unsung masterpieces.
Rating: *****/5 stars
Read in: After the Apocalypse (anthology)
Bears comparison to: Stylistically, and intent wise, very similar to Karen Joy Fowler's oeuvre. But, interestingly enough, Molly Gloss's The Grinnell Method comes starkly to mind.
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