Thursday, March 6, 2008

Andy Duncan's "Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse" (short story, humor): An avatar of Jesus Christ!

This is among the more entertaining (but not outstanding) stories from Nebula Awards 2007 short story finalists - what if it's neither science fiction nor fantasy.

Full text of this story is available for download.

Story summary.

5 year old Mary O’Connor is obsessed with a strange idea: that a unique-looking chicken in her family's chicken farm is an avatar of Jesus Christ! She even has supporting evidence: "he's different from all the other chickens, and the other chickens peck him but he never pecks back, and he spends a lot of his time looking up in the air, praying, and in Matthew Jesus says he's a chicken, and if I get a stomachache or an earache or a sore throat, I come out here and play with him and it gets all better just like the lame man beside the well."

A priest, Father Leggett, is called to talk her out of it. While the girl will soon get out of this fixation, the priest will be haunted by strange & magical chickens rest of his life!

Fact sheet.

"Unique Chicken Goes In Reverse", short story, review
First published: Jonathan Strahan (Ed)'s "Eclipse 1: New Science Fiction And Fantasy", October 2007.
Rating: B
Nebula Awards 2007 finalist in short story category.

1 comments:

Rusty said...

I would have to agree with you about this one. While it is a well written and somewhat entertaining short story, I thought the story line (and especially the ending) just didn't have enough "umph" to it.