I listened to this new story as a podcast on Clarkesworld (click here), rather than reading the story online (click here). And I would urge you to do one or the other of these before reading further.
The story is read by Kate Baker, and I have to admit to finding myself feeling much more inclined to listening to stories than I have in the past, on account of her reading style, which I very much enjoy. In the past I have found myself unable to listen to stories purely due to finding the narrator’s voice a grating one – one other well-established source of SF podcasts has stories read by someone whose voice I find is almost as grating as nails drawn down a blackboard.
Here she gives good emotional emphasis to a story that calls out for it – a story of a man looking back on his relationship with his father : from the early years when his father would look forward to when his son would be be able to take a step forward into the future of SF magazines and books, to the waning years of his father’s life, when that singularity has singularly not happened, but when a vast distance is however separating them. Cooper’s tone is just right, not too mawkish, and it leaves the reader/listener to ponder some big questions.
