{"id":15552,"date":"2017-07-17T11:03:40","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T18:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2017\/07\/17\/15552.html"},"modified":"2017-07-17T11:03:40","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T18:03:40","slug":"sh-flashback-start-with-color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2017\/07\/17\/sh-flashback-start-with-color\/","title":{"rendered":"SH Flashback: “Start with Color,” by Bill Kte’pi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here's the next Strange Horizons<\/cite> Flashback story:<\/p>\n

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“Start with Color<\/a>,” by Bill Kte'pi<\/dt>\n
In a world where everyone's dreams come alive, a strong dreamer tells his family that he's finally being allowed to retire. Lovely and sad. (Published in 2003.) (3,500 words.)<\/dd>\n

Her dreams have been lazing at her elbows, small white elephants and green giraffes, grazing from invisible trees. They move aside, harrumphing at her as the paper interrupts their breakfast.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

(See also the full list of Flashback stories<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

SPOILERS FOLLOW<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

I've seen other stories with this kind of twist ending, of course. (I want to name some of them, but I don't want to spoil their endings, in case you haven't read them.) But I thought this rendition of that trope was particularly well done and particularly sad. The hints are nicely layered throughout the story, subtly enough that I don't think I saw where it was headed when I first read it.<\/p>\n

I also like the worldbuilding. And the prose. And the nice small details of the characterization, like the kid creating one giant-sized pancake. And the fact that the thing the protagonist has been working toward (fixing the living-dream problem) is also the thing that takes away his reconstructed family.<\/p>\n

This is the second of the two stories of Bill's that were set in that dreams-come-alive future; the first was “The Minotaur<\/a>,” which we published in 2002. I don't know if he wrote others; if so, I don't think I saw them. The two stories aren't closely connected, I don't think, just set in the same world.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the next Strange Horizons Flashback story: “Start with Color,” by Bill Kte’pi In a world where everyone’s dreams come…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-stories","category-strange-horizons"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}