Rachel Swirsky's "Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind": Last days of humanity

This is actually a very readable doomsday story. Only I don't like negative stories - where everyone gives up, & lets the world go to dogs.

Download full story text here.

Story summary.
A good sized asteroid is going to hit earth. When it is detected, there is no way to deflect it, because space travel has long been underfunded.

There is technology to absorb shock at city scale - "pressure shields". Only there are budget issues. And self-serving politicians decided to save their own city, & let other be the inevitable casualties.

Only some of the others don't like it. Men at a biology lab in a place that won't be saved release a dangerous virus into the atmosphere. Most people will be killed long before asteroid hits. When it does hit, it hits at a place where nuclear waste is stored - contaminating the atmosphere, & killing pretty much everyone. Only a few isolated tribes survive with primitive technology; they will die out in a few generations as pathogen reaches them.

Story is primarily told from a human interest angle. Which is what makes it readable.

Fact sheet.
"Dispersed by the Sun, Melting in the Wind", short story, review
First published: Subterranean magazine, Summer 2007.
Rating: B