Flatland-inspired butterfly-collecting aliens
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1Dreaming_Johnny
Short-story found! It was "In Fading Suns and Dying Moons" by John Varley.
Hi.
I'm looking for a short story, it's a science fiction story, I read it in an anthology that was printed more than 12 years ago. The anthology had a title along the lines of "Best SF" followed by a number I unfortunately don't recall.
The story is about a butterfly-expert that is being contacted/drafted by the state after strange creatures show up to collect all the butterflies on Earth. Turns out the strange creatures are entities (or one entity) from a higher dimension, the characters in the story openly refers to the novel Flatland when discussing these higher dimensions.
The story opens with a short poem that goes something along the lines of:
"Within the memories of times gone by,
Afraid to die we learn to lie,
And measure out our time in tiny coffee spoons,
In the light of fading suns and dying moons."
The story ends sadly with the aliens SPOILERS turning of the sun when they are done, planning on coming back to harvest some other beautiful creatures that will thrive on a future Earth provided everything has frozen.
Might be that my google-fu is too weak, but I've tried and tried and not been able to find it. Either because the original Flatland or the T.S Eliot poem floods the search responses.
Grateful for help!
Hi.
I'm looking for a short story, it's a science fiction story, I read it in an anthology that was printed more than 12 years ago. The anthology had a title along the lines of "Best SF" followed by a number I unfortunately don't recall.
The story is about a butterfly-expert that is being contacted/drafted by the state after strange creatures show up to collect all the butterflies on Earth. Turns out the strange creatures are entities (or one entity) from a higher dimension, the characters in the story openly refers to the novel Flatland when discussing these higher dimensions.
The story opens with a short poem that goes something along the lines of:
"Within the memories of times gone by,
Afraid to die we learn to lie,
And measure out our time in tiny coffee spoons,
In the light of fading suns and dying moons."
The story ends sadly with the aliens SPOILERS turning of the sun when they are done, planning on coming back to harvest some other beautiful creatures that will thrive on a future Earth provided everything has frozen.
Might be that my google-fu is too weak, but I've tried and tried and not been able to find it. Either because the original Flatland or the T.S Eliot poem floods the search responses.
Grateful for help!
2indybr12
I think this is the short story "In Fading Suns and Dying Moons" by John Varley. It was published in Year's Best SF 9 edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The poem is from the lyrics to a song "Aftertones" by Janis Ian.
3Dreaming_Johnny
Yes! It is! Thank you!
Oh my god that was starting to drive me nuts!
Oh my god that was starting to drive me nuts!
