Book Review: “The Art of Space Travel” by Nina Allan
Four Stars
“It was time to shut up. For the first time in my life I was feeling another person’s pain like it was my own.”
Ah. A refreshing short story, which takes the reader deep inside a character in a recognizably near future. No fantasy; very little science, but pretty of good storytelling.
“What did fathers ever do for the world in any case, except saddle unsuspecting women with unwanted children?”
Another markedly feminist tale. This year’s Hugo Awards finalists include a host of socially-relevant (and some irrelevant) topics. This tale was among the best of them.
“When she goes, all her stories will go with her, the ones she makes up as well as the ones that happen to be true. Once she’s gone, I’ll never know which were which.”
Quibbles: Apparently Allan doesn’t understand what the deleted in depleted uranium means. There are issues, but not so dramatic as portrayed. “… ends with the doomed one taking off his or her helmet, making a quick and noble end of it.” It’s really, really hard to take off your helmet in a vacuum; if you bleed the air out you’ll be dead before you get it off.
“In leaving this world, she makes me feel more properly a part of it.”
As a Matter of Fancy 
““What did fathers ever do for the world in any case, except saddle unsuspecting women with unwanted children?””
With a sentence like that, I’ll never read this…
It was the lament of a female character, not necessarily reflective of the author’s overall tone. I thought it was a provocative statement. I was right.
It certainly was 🙂
Thinking back to Hugh Howey’s book Wool. They pulled off helmets going in and out of the silos. Wonder if it was possible or not. Don’t know much about such things. The book was sci-fi.
Yes, we wore safety helmets whenever we went down into a missile silo. Things that fall on your head hurt … badly.
In a vacuum, the helmet would seal on unless the pressure was equalized, i.e., reduced to zero inside.