As I continued to read through the August issue of Clarkesworld, I next read this story. Put simply, it tells of a young Chinese person working in the city hoping to make enough money to get back home to the country for New Year’s. That’s a pretty common story. What makes this somewhat unique is that the city is a floating city in an unspecified future. Oh, and the worker has just been laid off. And the worker is you. That’s right, the story is told using the second person.
The overall theme here is exploring how we change and how the places we visit and change while we are not there. Sort of a take on Thomas Wolfe’s idea that you can’t go home again. And as such, there isn’t that much different here for me. I also found the second person very distracting here. But if you are looking for a simple, touching, poignant story of a young person’s quest to get home for the holidays, you can’t go wrong.
My rating: 3/5
