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interesting to have an outsider/family perspective for the aftermath of an experiment gone wrong and i liked the sibling bond but it felt quite superficial thematically and imo, stilted/bland writing, like there wasn't much... depth? idk. anyway
A sadly beautiful science fiction short about familial love and perceptions of reality
That broke my heart.
“Cause I’m reading this book and it says you need some things for consciousness. You need a simulation of reality.”A mysterious lab accident leaves two scientist dead, and one with a traumatic brain injury. What happened? Was the octopus a witness or the attacker?Fascinating tale, and I LOVE this author's writing style. Adding some of her novels to my to-read list NOW.
Yeah, but is it really REAL.One day, while on the bus home from university, I was pondering the concept of color vision. We'd just had a lecture that day on color perception. I thought, "How do I know what I see as 'red' is the same as what the lady next to me sees as 'red'?" Her perception of reality might not be the same as mine. Maureen McHugh explores the concept of reality; a very difficult thing to grasp. She does it with aplomb however in this thought-provoking shorty. Character developme...
TL;DR: Mostly well done, but I have mixed feelingsBeautifully done story that can be summed up as: while doing a cool but horribly cruel thing, a bad thing happened, and now we are all sad.The characterization is excellent. The idea is interesting. I really wish it was longer and had some resolution and a happy ending for the sisters and Claude.But also:(view spoiler)[1. Why the hell were they torturing an octopus of all things?2. I require some more complicated hand waving to justify how puttin...
I found this story engaging and horrifying and educational and poignant. Maddening, and relatable. The illustration by Mary Haasdyk is fabulous. This is a sticky story, it's going to be in me for a long time.https://www.tor.com/2020/07/22/yellow...
Fell in love with the sibling dynamic
A decent short story with good characterization and some reasonably interesting science about the nature and perception of reality. A quick easy read that managed to hold my attention, but perhaps I was expecting a bit more from McHugh. The ending was rather abrupt. I also wish there had been more about Claude, the psychopathic octopus. :-) 3.5 stars.
As far as short stories go, I found Yellow and the Perception of Reality impressive. I would have loved to read a longer version of it and will definitely be checking out more by the author in the future.
A lovely, haunting short story about sisters and things going horrifyingly wrong. McHugh's writing was gorgeous and I'm excited to read more of her work!
More Claude the Octopus, please!!!
“Yellow and the Perception of Reality” by McHugh.Powerful and sad. Women in STEM. Love between sisters. What happens when humans think they have a handle on science. So sad. 4, thoughtful and teary, stars.
She’s touching things a lot lately. I let her touch me. She’s relearning all those colors and edges and sounds and textures the way an infant does. She’s putting that together. She keeps getting better. She’s started dropping things. I know it’s on purpose. She drops and then she looks. They don’t know how much better she’s going to get but I do. Wanda will get well.a long time ago i read this author's short story collection After the Apocalypse, and this free tor shortie reminded me how oh-so-g...
Oh man, this was beautiful and scary and good. It's a story of science gone wrong, of scientists trying to delve into the mysterious of reality and perception and getting brain fucked as a result. But the story is told from the perspective of the sister, the family member that is left behind to deal with the wreckage of her genius sister who is stuck in her wrecked mind. Global perceptual agnosia. "She can see but she can’t put all that together to have it make sense; it’s all parts and pieces.
I wanted a little more from it, but you can tell McHugh is a skilled writer of short stories and a scientifically curious person. Quite complex for its length.
Hits all the right notes. Equal parts murder mystery, sisterly love and sci-fi theorycrafting. And octopodes! Engaging enough to leave you wanting more, but so finely tuned that you can't help but feel that even just another paragraph would ruin it. This short story is available for free on Tor's website.
“We don’t perceive everything. We can’t see X-rays or radio waves, but what we can perceive—I thought that was reality.”“You’re going to tell me it’s not.”“Yeah, I am. Our brains have a kind of interface. Like your phone.” He pulls out his iPhone. He does that thing that a lot of teachers do: He speaks in paragraphs. “These apps,” he says. “What we perceive is not the actual app. The actual app is a computer code running electrons in a pattern in a very sophisticated machine. We don’t see the ch...
Plot: Woman deals with the fallout of her twin sister having a lab accident. Ideas: The nature of reality. How far do we go for science. Family. Thoughts: There's a lot in here about reality and perception, about interfaces and programs. It's also a very complete story- yes there are plenty of questions leftover, but the emotional beats- love and loss and anger and resignation are solid. I think this may actually be one of those stories best left at this length? The idea of perception of reality...
It’s remarkable how much can be conveyed in a short story format. This was a very satisfying read that did a fine job of developing character and plot despite not taking a lot of pages to do so. I think one one of the things I’ve not enjoyed about reading short stories is that there isn’t the time to develop much in the way of characters yet this story did very well. As someone who has studied Avaita Vedanta I found the subject of consciousness and reality especially interesting.
