The Man Who Bridged the Mist

Novella by Kij Johnson

Construction story turned love story. Kit is the architect sent by the empire to build the first bridge across a corrosive river of some sort of mist dense enough to sail a boat across. Rasali operates the ferry which Kit's bridge will put out of business, if she doesn't die an early death to one of the giant "fish" living in the river first.

More than just romance against an intriguing fantasyish SF background with 19th century-level technology, Johnson makes a mega-construction project interesting without any of the predictable disasters, terrorist plots, or over-the-top human drama. She makes a better story by focusing on just the normal difficulties of large-scale construction, and a quiet character-study of the architect himself.

Lots of obvious thought about how the bridge changes the town and the townspeople illustrates the deeper theme: how the bridge changes Kit himself. By the end of construction, I think he's more capable of happiness than he was before, but he's certainly not on the path he originally imagined for his life.

The story is aptly titled, it's all about Kit, but the rest of the novella: the world around him, the townsfolk, the details of construction, the mystery of the mist and the Big Ones living in it all provide a fun background for a character-study of a mildly-unhappy man who builds big things.

4 Medium-Large Ones out of 5.

Names For Water

Short Story by Kij Johnson
First Published in Asimov's October/November 2010
Free Audio Reprint from StarshipSofa, January 2011, read by Lizanne Herd

A college engineering student gets a strange phone call. She keeps talking even though no one is there because she is worried and unsure about the future and doesn't really want to go to class. Kij Johnson basically makes a thoughtful SF story out of a meaningless scene and a girl's imagination.

This is a neat little story, especially for how short it is. Not a lot to it, but it is rather nice. The only real SF seems to be from the girl's imagination and/or informed by omniscient narration. Not much here, but it is a little taste of sweetness. Worth the 5 minutes it will take to read.

3 names out of 5 bodies of water.

Spar

Short Story by Kij Johnson

WINNER: 2009 Nebula Award

Published in Clarkesworld

Podcast by Kate Baker

Vulgar, horrible, beautiful. An astronaut crashes into an alien ship. It rescues her. But it is a tiny ship and the alien is amoeboid. So they have constant sex with varying degrees of consent until they are rescued and can stop occupying the same space. The whole terrifying thing is a metaphor for a bad relationship, or maybe she just projects her feelings for her boyfriend who left her onto the alien. Maybe it isn't even intelligent. It is her sex toy/houseplant, and she is its. By the time they ever get anywhere, the thing will be her whole world.

This is like reading a detailed account of psychological breakdown under torture. But I liked it. The language was vivid and the horror of being in such a close space, with no contact, no communication, and this thing was very well done. And I love the title. 4 Ins out of 5.