"This wasn’t on any of the city maps."

October 7, 2024 10:57 AM

"Shruti’s mind swarmed with ecosystem inputs and outputs, and her anxiety curdled into wrath." "The Almond Pirates" is a short science fiction story by Annalee Newitz, in which the successful search for a lost cat leads to a discovery of water theft and a proceeding in accordance with the Restorative Justice Act of 2165. Anthropocene Magazine published "The Almond Pirates" in 2022 in its Climate Parables speculative fiction series.
posted by brainwane (4 comments total)

Thanks for another story!
posted by librosegretti at 11:37 AM on October 7 [1 favorite]

I like Newitz. Stories like this always raise so many world building questions for me:
- is it really efficient to substitute labor credits for money ( and won't that discriminate against disabled people)? Also food.
-if you have one feral cat there are likely more
-it' s hard to be mad at someone for missing almonds/ seems like someone should be working on making them less resource-intensive to grow
-is there a way to imagine a stable and resource -managed future society that doesn't feel like "get used to scarcity"?
posted by emjaybee at 1:10 PM on October 7 [1 favorite]

Pet cats are not compatible with delicately maintained homeostasis.
posted by Dr. Curare at 8:36 AM on October 8

eep, 20 minutes of labor for a bus day pass?
4 days for avocado add-on on a sandwich?

this is too close to real.
posted by wym at 5:47 PM on October 9