A M Dellamonica's "Five Good Things About Meghan Sheedy" (short story, science fiction, free): Aliens now own earth!

Well written & with colorful imagery, but I just could not feel anything about its plot. It's obviously a take on US occupation of Iraq.

Story is set in Seattle, Washington, US.

Story summary.

At an unspecified time in future, aliens called Kabu have overrun humanity, & now are effectively rulers of earth - though there is resistance, guerrilla style. Current human generation has always had them - so they've been around long.

This is the story of Dinah, a woman with two kids who has lost her husband apparently to resistance fighting. She lives in Seattle with her childhood friend Meghan Sheedy, also a widow - along with her own two kids. And it's a very hard life of poverty.

Dinah works in an office of Kabu. By the end of the story, she has been enrolled by an underground group resisting Kabu via acts of terrorism; they've just bombed a school full of human kids!

Title is actually arbitrary. Role of Meghan Sheedy is minor in the story, & she is in fact called just Meg. "Five Good Things" are also arbitrary & unimportant to story.

Fact sheet.

First published: Strange Horizons, 21 & 28 April 2008 as two part serial.
Rating: B
Download full text: part 1 & part 2.