Combustion Hour

by Yoon Ha Lee

This story is about the eschatology of shadow puppets.
At the publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Space, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

32 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 18, 2014

About the author

Yoon Ha Lee is an American science fiction writer born on January 26, 1979 in Houston, Texas. His first published story, “The Hundredth Question,” appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1999; since then, over two dozen further stories have appeared. He lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Reviews

[Phoenix2 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish this one. I just couldn't get into it and I had the strange feeling that it was way too short and rushy for the universe that it wanted to present.

[Andria Potter · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. Dnf.

[Maggie Gordon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Combustion Hour contains a lot of interesting imagery and some delightful prose, but there wasn't enough story for me to really sink into this piece. There was an interesting world in this short story, but the length of the piece just doesn't do it justice.

[Netanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eschatology - a branch of theology concerned with the final events in the history of the world or of humankind.

What if a kingdom of shadow puppets truly existed, separate and apart from the real world of solid creatures? What if one day the light source of the shadow puppets was threatened?

It's the end of the world for shadow puppets!

This is a story of how they reacted. And it's really, really cool.

[Hannah Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short story combines beautiful imagery with a haunting landscape of shadow puppets in a world where the lanterns are going dim. I loved how Lee brought hard science fiction concepts into a very fairy-tale-like world and just made it work (shadow spaceship, for one example). It took a little bit for me to get hooked, since I've never read anything like a 2D world that is conscious of the existence of a 3D world... but once I figured things out, the story really took off. And the ending was unexpectedly chilling and hopeful at the same time.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lee writes brilliant stories and this one is no exception. It's about shadow puppets trying to cope with the end of their world (the lanterns are going out). Second person and present tense can be a bit jarring but she pulls it off easily. Such beautiful imagery.

[Alex Sarll]

"This story is about the eschatology of shadow puppets." Entropy considered from a powerfully strange angle.

[tb-or-not-tb · Rating 3 out of 5]

I imagine this might need some familiarity with the author's other work. They make reference to things that should be known to the reader but (in my case, at least) aren't. Still, the writing is awesome enough that I could guess what those references meant in this context.

This short story is a single scene, of a knight presenting himself before his queen. It has a very good flow of scene description, character description, and emotional description. In just a few pages I understood what the knight's feelings about the queen and about the situation she as putting him in were.

This author, although known for sci-fi writing, is also very capable at creating fantasy worlds: that's that this story told me. I absolutely loved the idea of knights and queens waging war against "philosopher kings" using magical weapons, to restore the health of their sun/star. Very cool.

Short read, definitely recommended.

[Corrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Combustion Hour by author Yoon Ha Lee is a short story you can read for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2014/06/18/combus...

This story is about the eschatology of shadow puppets.

My ongoing quest to get current with the Tor short stories. This was not the easiest story to read, 2nd person present tense was maybe part of that. Beautiful imagery though.

4 Stars

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

(read on hoopla)
You can see in this short story the germ of a character that became Jedao and the ideas explored in the Hexarchate series, and it's an interesting read as an almost -companion piece.

It's also just a good short story! A paper-cut knight with a gun, serving a paper-cut queen, as the lanterns flicker and the world grows dark.

[Manuela Trindade · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tendi foi nada

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I can't say I understood this story the writing was lovely.

[༺Kiki༻ · Rating 4 out of 5]

You might also enjoy:

✱ A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers
✱ Daughter of Necessity
✱ What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

[Maki ⌒☆ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The imagery in the story was very pretty.

...

That's about all I can really say for the story.

The whole end-of-the-world, needs-of-the-many morality debate was fine, it just didn't hold my interest. I kept getting distracted by the prose. Or maybe it was the second person POV. Maybe it was a combination of both.

There is only a binary of colors in your existence, just as you are supposed to narrow everything into the binary of target and not-target. Nevertheless, your language has words for colors. They are not red or ochre or azure. They are not even white or black, the logical defaults. But there is a word for the color of a string just as it is slit. Another for the color of the queen’s favorite flowers, which coil so promisingly from each doorway. One for the color of fire. That last is rarely spoken, especially in the queen’s presence.

Your uniform is the same color as the queen’s gloves; it is defined that way.

I suppose if nothing else, this short has made me want to read more by the same author. So, there's that, at least.

[Ines · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to give this 5 stars. And I want to give it a 1, simply because I'm furious at this story. Because of the second person point of view, which fits but I still hate it. Because it's too short. Because I want more. Because I see the parallels not only to the world of shadow puppets but to the heat death of our universe as well (which is mentioned in the story anyway).

And to a Dark Lord ending of Dark Souls, which is for some stupid reason very dear to me (even though I've never actually finished the game). There is such heartwrenching beauty in decision to plunge the world into darkness when you realize that light is so much crueler.

So I'm compromising and giving it 3.5 stars. But really, I loved this.

[Akiva ꙮ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult not to mix this up in my head with the world of Ancillary Mercy, which I just finished reading. (Maybe too soon to move onto another book.) Still, Breq is the Knight is Breq, and Anaander Mianaai is the Queen is Anaander Mianaai, and their power struggle is strangely similar.

The asides about astronomy and physics were wonderful, emotionally affecting, and very imaginative, but the characters and their actions didn't make much sense, and they're not what's going to stay with me. That's a weird thing to say about a story, but it's a weird story.

[Mayumi]

Li aqui, marquei lido aqui: Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2014 edition.

Não gostei. Achei a construção de mundo muito intrincada pra fazer sentido, misturando ideias de fato muito interessantes, mas no final das contas não foi bom. Eu entendi muito bem o que estava acontecendo e quem estava falando, mas a explosão de cabeça que deveria vir só me deu um eh.

[Nathanael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like giving this only two stars is a bit harsh, because the writing really is quite lovely in spots. But. I just really did not enjoy this story. Maybe I read it too late at night, maybe it's too complicated for me to get, but I spent the entire span of time reading this trying to figure out if the characters actually were puppets or if it was supposed to be completely metaphorical and by the time I was finished, I was baffled and a little irritated. So if excessively opaque narratives are your thing, you might enjoy this.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 2nd person style was a bit harder to follow, however it fit the 2 dimensional world in a way that nothing else would have.

This short story succeeded. It left me feeling like I had a glimpse into a world - the ending of a world - that while I would like to hear more of, I am also content with this glimpse. That is a hard thing to do.

[Marco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am enjoying reading The Machineries of Empire series, and I was curious to read more stories by the same author. This one is quite intriguing, with fantastic two dimensional characters from the world of shadow puppets. I was left wondering if the story would have benefited from a longer format, to give more space to the world building and to the characters' histories.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you're a genre person (by which I mean, science fiction, fantasy, and everything else along those lines), you should read this story. It is excellent. And it is a study in how to do 2nd person fiction.

[Amy Mills · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd extended metaphor for the heat death of the universe, told through (I think) figures on a 2-dimensional tapestry with a limited color palette. Beautifully written, very interesting, but very, very odd.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A heart isn’t what you have. It’s what you do

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

The prose is stunning. I don't understand people who get annoyed with 2nd person POV. Can't believe I waited to read this for so long.

[Sara J. (kefuwa) · Rating 3 out of 5]

" A heart isn’t what you have. It’s what you do.”

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

A short that begins, This story is about the eschatology of shadow puppets. If you like that you'll like the rest.

[mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

queen + knight.. my fav

[Emilie]

Too weird and out-there for me, I guess I didn't really get it?

[R.L. White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story about the heat death of the universe, as told by paper shadow puppet creatures, presented to the reader in a fairy tale. Yes it's as weird as it sounds.