A.C. Wise. The Children of Main Street. (Clarkesworld Magazine #51, December 2010)

Online on Clarkesworld Magazine, to read, so why not read the story?

The story opens with “The first thing the children of the colony learned after the ship landed was how to change genders “ which sets the background. What A.C. Wise (an author new to me) is to go beyond gender changing, as we follow the response of a couple of adult settlers who are struggling with life on a new planet, under a dome, and struggling with the changers in their sons/daughters.

There’s some really good writing in the story : “She knew the same vastness, the same vacuum, surrounded earth, but she could feel it here”, and Wise gets just the right balance to make the story work – not too much drama, concentrating very much on the couple of adults as we see them struggling with the changes they are facing, both male and female.

And then the adults learning the knack of changing, and it’s not just gender, as the story closes with a once male/female, once human, standing looking down on the colony dome, eyes, and everything else, very much accustomed to the new planet.

And I’m just loving the cover by Rafael Sarmento – if it appears as a print on his deviantart page, I’m buying it!