Painless

by Rich Larson

A man who can't feel pain has been bio-engineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate.

Genres: Short Stories, Science Fiction, Horror, Military Science Fiction

24 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 10, 2019

About the author

Rich Larson was born in Galmi, Niger, has studied in Rhode Island and worked in the south of Spain, and now lives in Ottawa, Canada. Since he began writing in 2011, he’s sold over a hundred stories, the majority of them speculative fiction published in magazines like Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, F&SF, Lightspeed, and Tor.com.

His work appears in numerous Year’s Best anthologies and has been translated into Chinese, Vietnamese, Polish, French and Italian. Annex, his debut novel and first book of The Violet Wars trilogy, comes out in July 2018 with Orbit Books. Tomorrow Factory, his debut collection, follows in October 2018 with Talos Press.

Besides writing, he enjoys travelling, learning languages, playing soccer, watching basketball, shooting pool, and dancing kizomba.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mars takes out his nanoknife, the last piece of military equipment he carries. The stray recognizes it and starts to salivate.

“I spoil you, dog.”

Mars dices up his thumb and then his index, flicking the bloody chunks to the ground. The stray pounces on each one and whines when Mars stops at the gray-white knucklebone of his middle finger.

“I give you any more, you’ll throw it all up.”

i love rich larson so damn much—he's always surprising, always a little off-genre, and there's an ease to his writing that scoops me right up and into his world every time. this world is a near-future west africa, where a boy with congenital insensitivity to pain* is discovered, enhanced by science and shaped into an unstoppable assassin of a man. or, unstoppable by any outward force. inside, he's still human, and capable of choice and regret.

He decides there are two sorts of pain: the sharp red kind that twists a person’s face and makes them scream, and a slick black kind that coats a person’s insides like tar. He realizes that he has been feeling the second kind for most of his life.

so, an unfortunate design flaw for his creators, but a more relatable character for us, and the story is a perfect combo of bloody squirm and emotional awww. (which that scene of him feeding his own fingies to a starving dog pretty much nutshelled for you already)

if you've never read any rich larson and want to see what else he's got, know that he has two different profiles here on goodreads; the one attached to this story and this one:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show....

i tried to merge them, but, Sorry, this author is on Goodreads and is responsible for editing their own data. i guess he's too busy writing stories like this to merge his own data, which is forgivable. just know that he has more than what's showing on this page, much of it free over at tor.com.



read it for yourself here:

https://www.tor.com/2019/04/10/painle...

* like when abigail breslin was on grey's anatomy, yelling at karev



come to my blog!

[Silvana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Logan the movie but set in post apocalyptic (?) Africa. If you love anything about bioengineered super soldier, you'll love this. As expected from the prolific and talented Rich Larson.

[Phoenix2 · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Painless" had a good concept, but the execution was not ideal as to make the reader engrossed in the story. The cultural touches were nice and the message about loss, pain and belonging were well crafted into the story. However, I've found it difficult to get into the story. It also felt a bit too short to get to know the characters and the whole universe of the story.

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll also put the name of the story here, in case Goodreads decides to merge it into some other work...Painless by Rich Larson - 4/5★

As it says in the synopsis, this is about a man who can't feel pain and has been bioengineered to be a killing machine. I liked getting to know the details through retrospection and the hopeful note of the ending.

The short story is found in Some of the Best from Tor.com, 2019 edition and can also be read on Tor.com.

[Beige · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is dark and disturbing, but oh so well written. I just learned how prolific this author is, apparently he has published 100+ short stories in the last few years. I will definitely read more.

Read for free: https://www.tor.com/2019/04/10/painle...

[Dev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very rarely do I give such a short story 5 stars, but this was a really good one. Set somewhere in West Africa, it follows a man who cannot feel pain and has been genetically engineered to be a super soldier. It definitely wasn't what I was expecting and manages to flip quite a few tropes on their heads in a relatively short amount of time. I really liked the ending as well.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superb novelette by the prolific and multi-talented Rich Larson. The setting is a near-future West Africa. A foreigner has created an almost-invulnerable supersoldier from a local boy, and uses him -- Mars -- as an assassin. Mars is getting sick of the killing, and thinking of suicide. The ending is unexpected, and hopeful.

Lovely grace notes, such as the maciyinas robas, robot plastivores designed in a Kenyan genelab to clean up plastic trash.

Near-perfect SF thriller, with a caution for disturbing scenes of violent killing. This is by far the best Larson story I have read. 5 stars!

Story link:https://www.tor.com/2019/04/10/painle...

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent military SF short, with a fascinating bad-ass, Jason Borne type genetically engineered mercenary in a setting somewhere deep within Western Africa. Highly recommended.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mars stands in the middle of the highway, knees locked, head tipped back. The sky overhead is choked with harmattan dust. There is so much dust he can stare directly at the rising sun, a lemon-yellow smear in the dull gray. There is so much dust it looks like everything—the scraggly trees, the sandy fields, the road itself—is disappearing, as he often wishes to disappear.

[Cass · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5

[Shane Hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb sci-fi short dealing with pain and belonging. This is my second Rich Larson short story after Meat Salt and Sparks which I also recommend. His imagination and writing skill leave me slightly envious but mostly awed and inspired.

[Raf · Rating 4 out of 5]

✨⭐8 stars out of 10⭐✨
Too short, I need more :(

Keywords: science fiction, dystopia, novella, dark; trigger warning: gore, violence, suicide

Painless is a short story about a man hired as a killer, he can not feel pain nor can he die. His body is that of a God, but in his heart he is just a human.

What I like:
- The writing is pretty good and main lead we can sympathize with
The writing is between hard and easy to understand. Rich Larson use sentences that don't feel too flowery but still a bit poetic. At first it's a bit hard to read but after few pages we can easily get used to the writing. The main lead is a character we can connect with, he feel so humane. I could feel his sadness and desperation bled to me from the pages.

- Bleak atmosphere and nice worldbuilding
The setting is in Africa somewhere in the future. The tech in this world is advanced than ours but mostly used in military and terrorism. Along with Mars' point of view which is not so bright nor happy, the setting adds more bleak tone to the story. The description is quite vivid too and easy to imagine.

What I dislike:
- Nothing but I wish it was longer
It has no loose end and the plot is simplistic that fits the 20-ish page. But it feels a bit anticlimatic and I wish I could read more.

Conclusion
I like it. It has potential. It's a short read but good. This makes me want to read Rich Larson's other works.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rich Larson has burst on to the SF scene like a supernova with a prolific series of excellent short stories. He has just started to publish novels but it is his short stories for which he is mainly known. I am reminded of the early career of Orson Scott Card.
This is an interesting story about a man who can feel no pain and can regenerate from all injuries etc. Not one of his best stories but very enjoyable nevertheless.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best short stories do a great job of painting a picture quickly, and this story does exactly that. It set a mood, and then gets into the story quickly.

This feels a little bit like it could be an episode of Black Mirror - a near future bit of tech gone weird, supersoldiers, and of course echoing on the child soldiers of the region.

It's written with heart and emotion, and might have caused the room to be a little dusty at the end.

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong opening, the autotruck, Mars seeking it out, wanting to kill himself, but then deciding he wants to live! It’s not until the very end that we realize what REALLY happened here, right? The scene with the dog is intense. So much great detail in this story—setting, sensory, world, culture—but him slicing off parts of his own body to feed to the dog, knowing he’ll heal and regrow the flesh quickly is pretty insane LOL. Plastivores—wild. I hear we are actually working on putting these things in the ocean to eat the plastic waste. The Muslim prayers is an interesting touch. The use of foreign languages (Nigerian, I think—Hausa?) throughout is done very well. We get the words, and then enough context to understand what is being said. (Rich is, as far as I know, a white man, but he does a great job with his protagonist and a diverse cast, I think. He was born in Niger, and lived in Canada, the USA, and Spain—currently in the Czech Republic. Wow.) I like the conversation with the chief, and the exchange of funds, in francs! The boy in the village, the electricity—wow, that’s intense. Larson works in the past in very subtle notes, just a hint of a past life, the cartoons, a brother. Well done. The organism—I mean, we knew SOMETHING was coming. The cigar cutter—jeez. There is violence in this story but see how the author handles it? We don’t always see it on the page—more of the ECHO of violence. When he finds his other half—literally—it’s pretty powerful. It’s him, but as a boy, somehow. He rescues him, not to turn him in to the authorities, but to have a friend, to save him from this life that HE has lived, somebody that won’t look at him like a freak. Powerful ending. Really worked for me. This is a story that gets better the more you read it. One of my favorite stories that I taught in my workshops this year.

[Vik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story felt very unfinished.

Man who doesn’t feel pain and can regrow his limbs by eating meat (doesn’t matter what kind, there’s some past cannibalism mentioned).
I’ve read “How Quini the squid replaced his Klobučar” before I read this story. There are some themes that were the same: futuristic, some gory parts, foreign languages and I liked the world building/descriptions of the world we get. This here is set somewhere in West Africa, instead of Barcelona tho. There were more gory, graphic (tho the descriptions aren’t super detailed which was good in my opinion) parts in this book and even tho I’m not much a fan of gore, I liked this story more since there were less made up names for different objects. This story is a character driven one and to fair, there doesn’t seem to be happening much and it ends with an open end which doesn’t help much. I was quite irritated when I finished it because the ending felt like the story would (finally) pick up its speed but then it’s suddenly just cut off. This story should have been longer, in my opinion, because when you end the story after finally giving it plot…hell, Idk what to say. It’s wasted potential in my opinion because the story up until this end felt like story and character introduction but before much really can happen plot wise, it’s over? It was strange and felt unfinished, more like a prequel to a story. It was more a character study than anything else.

I still give it 4 stars because I did like the world and character building.

[Lizabeth Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mars is a child when he is first found by the men who have been searching for someone like him, a genetic mutation who cannot feel pain. There’s an organism put inside his body, that can make him stronger and able to repair himself, even grow body parts back. He is trained to be a soldier, a mercenary, a killer. He yearns for freedom and someone to be his friend and family.

The story jumps a bit from present to past and back again. It took me a while to get into the author’s rhythm, but once I did it was well worth it. I can see so many countries and organizations who would kill to have someone like Mars under their control. Good read. 3.5 out of 5.

[Verity Moon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right from the beginning, it's clear that there's already an established macabre tone to the story, and it lingers. I don't normally like morbid stuff but the world-building is intriguing enough to attenuate that feeling. Moreover, each section demands curiosity from the readers, even perhaps reminding them--as I've been--a little bit of Resident Evil and An Orison of Sonmi-451, and ultimately provides satisfying answers. It is engaging, compelling, and for a short story, complete. It comes full circle in the end and it's truly quintessential.

[Corrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Painless by author Rich Larson is a short story you can read for free on the Tor.com site https://www.tor.com/2019/04/10/painle...

A man who can’t feel pain has been bioengineered to be a killing machine, but he refuses to give in to his fate.

After devouring all his short stories I can say I’m a big fan of Larson now. His world building is so solid and imaginative. Every story he puts out is pure gold. Ready for one of his full-length books now.

4 Stars

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

"He decides there are two sorts of pain: the sharp red kind that twists a person’s face and makes them scream, and a slick black kind that coats a person’s insides like tar. He realizes that he has been feeling the second kind for most of his life."

I had not come across Larson's writing before but this short story is brilliant. It is very dark, though, with references to cannibalism and suicidal ideation so it may be triggering for some.

[JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was very interesting. I dug the Post-Apocalyptic Africa setting and the language is very evocative. For instance, the part at the beginning where the stray dog is described and Mars feeds it a couple of his fingers was an interesting scene.

[rick. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun concept in a great culture and setting, but the action scenes aren't visceral and the conflict lacks stakes. If we had a better understanding of the physical toll and limits of his ability then it would build the urgency it needs to draw in the reader.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A supersoldier story with a surprising twist ending!

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich Larson is always worth it.
Read the story here: https://www.tor.com/2019/04/10/painle...

[Reading Monk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emn

[Benjamin DeHaan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Military SF fans need to read this. So good.

[Erwan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've only read so far 3 short stories from Rich Larson, but I think I can tell already he is a brilliant SF writer.
Painless is an immersive story with a strong plot.
Highly recommended

[Griffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is incredible. It's beautiful just the length it is, but I would also love to read more stories about Mars.

[Callie · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh i like this!

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Violent, weird, great.