★★★★★ Guns and portal fantasy

The Sound of Children Screaming

Rachel K. Jones

I read and am reviewing only the Rachael K. Jones story "The Sound of Children Screaming". It is a finalist for the 2024 Best Short story Hugo Award, and it is, in my opinion, by far the best of the finalists (except possibly "Tasting the Future Delicacy Three Times", which I have not yet managed to read).

You will already have figured out from the title of the story and of the magazine that this is not a happy fun story. You will learn within the first few paragraphs that it is a political story, concerned with that stubbornly insoluble problem that only the USA has. Within the first few paragraphs you will find these sentences "Everyone has a right to a gun. Nothing can take that away from you. What you lack is a right to the lives of your children." If you are what we in the USA cryptically call a Second Amendment supporter, you're not going to like the politics of this story, and you will probably feel that it ascribes to you views you do not hold.

The story is about a school shooting. The school in question has a new survival device installed, called "The Portal". A teacher and eight students enter the Portal and learn the price of survival.

This is a dark and disturbing story, but it is oddly less dark and disturbing than the real thing the story is about.

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