"Three thousand bucks a blast. The council only bought one shot."

October 17, 2020 5:59 PM

Two short, exciting scifi stories in which underdogs fight battles. "The Hard Quarry" by Caleb Huitt, published this year, has a solo asteroid miner outwitting pirates: "The only statement the regs make on going extravehicular at speed is not to." "Corporate Robo Renegade Piston" by Nicholas Sugarman (2017) has an underfunded mecha pilot strapping in to fight a kaiju: "it hurt his pride knowing his face was plastered onto a waffle iron. He sighed, comforting himself with the knowledge that at least he wasn't on the kaiju cleanup team."
posted by brainwane (4 comments total)

Both were excellent, thanks for pointing them out.
posted by tiamat at 9:13 PM on October 17, 2020

Thanks for posting these, I enjoyably lost myself reading Hard Quarry.
posted by unearthed at 11:45 PM on October 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I enjoyed these! Especially Hard Quarry.

Corporate Robo Renegade Piston has an interesting message: of "he drank the koolaid" is capitalism positive, despite being critical of it, he decides to stay.
posted by freethefeet at 4:12 PM on October 19, 2020

I have been thinking about how "The Hard Quarry" was SO ENJOYABLE in, like, an old-school, Golden Age of Science Fiction way! A cerebral puzzle with lots of tense suspense and action, microgravity and spaceships.

Also, did anyone catch whether the author genders our point-of-view character? I think Hollie's gender goes unmarked...
posted by brainwane at 6:42 AM on October 23, 2020