I'm not a reader of short stories generally, and fungi aren't a particular interest of mine (I _hate_ mushrooms);-) However, I really enjoyed this! I loved the voice in particular, and I thought it made some lovely and really profound points about grief and how people react to and with and around it, and I loved (and am awed by) the depth of characterisation you squeezed into the short space! Thank you for sharing! :-)

Thank you so much!

This is a great story, compassionate and merciless in the right directions.

P.

Thank you!

Is that a short story? I think it's got a good shot at one of my Hugo nominations next year, and I want to put it in the right place.

Yes, definitely in the short story category. Thanks!

Oh, excellent story! Sharp and observant and perfectly sketched in sfnal world.

Thanks!

. . . and it really feels like the opening of an awesome novel . . .

It's the same universe as an upcoming Tor.com story, which is about 500 years in its future. I won't swear what length of thing will come out with this particular thread of built history/characters, but a novel is neither planned nor out of the question.

(But if you're thinking that this is a pretty solid origin story for an important mycogeneticist, you'd be right.)

Oooh. I look forward to the first, and hope the second comes to pass. It's such a solid YA, and a dystopia setting I can actually believe in.

I am probably pretty alarming in my ideas of what is and is not dystopic, because the idea that tons of people are dying of fungal plagues...did not actually strike me as dystopic until you said so.

Well, maybe we have different definitions, but that is pretty solidly dystopic to me! *g*

Oh, I'm crying right now. (Albeit for other shitty reasons today not related to anyone dying, so this just kinda piggybacked on.) But it's beautiful.

Thank you! and also I'm sorry!

This was beautiful and painfully accurate. The narrator's voice, and their combination of sharp insights and blind spots!

Thanks!

Brilliant! The narrator's voice, the scene setting, the all too accurate description of the way the barely connected express extravagant grief and the pressure on the close to express grief in a way others find acceptable. A gem.

Thank you.