Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Bimal K Srivastava's "Translucent Creatures" (short story, monster hunting, free)

Well told variation of two oft repeated themes - monster hunting & invisibility.

A man lists various real cases of the transparent tissue found in animal bodies, & a conjecture that may be there exists a creature that is fully transparent to human eye.

Later parts are a hunt for this creature. Near end, the protagonist begins feeling like a proper mad & paranoid professor, though the hunt itself is not uninteresting.

It's not a bad read if you can ignore a few flaws:

  1. Sometimes badly formed sentences - possibly because it's a translation (at least it felt like one).
  2. Occasionally pedantic.
  3. Unnecessarily set in Boston - making dialogs that feel like from small town north India appear out of place.
  4. Unnecessarily explaining that something is in India, marring the flow.

Fact sheet.

First published: 15 April 2009 at Kalkion. Actually, it felt like a translation, but the site doesn't tells us about that.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your linking is bad. It redirects to your blog. What is the point of this loop? I wanted to go to the site where the story appeared by your blog links it to your blog only

Tinkoo said...

Which link are you clicking? The heading?

Try the one in Fact Sheet section at the bottom of article - "Download full text from publisher's site."

Arvind Mishra said...

Tinkoo ,good short and crisp review ! But basic question is do you really ctegorize the story under sf?

Tinkoo said...

"do you really categorize the story under sf?": Monsters & invisibility - I guess that does it!

More generally, I think science fiction is really about a way of thinking, rather than nuts & bolts - and this one does qualify, in my book anyway.

Arvind Mishra said...

Thanks Tinkoo ,You belong to "all inclusive" definition group ! ok its fine ! You got my confusion cleared !