Rime, by Tim Lebbon, was my first Kindle Single that I got my hands on and I will say that I was not disappointed, in fact, far from it. The title is an homage to Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and the story itself is a sci-fi repackaging of Coleridge’s poem. For contemporary readers, who have read the original, this story adds a fun wrinkle and for those who have not, it may be fun to go back and check out the classic after reading Rime.
I’m aware of the beats of the classic, but Rime goes a step further by making the stakes entirely Earth-shattering. We follow a ship born control room tech, who was just going about routine maintenance on the colony ship, Cradle. Things are normal up until they are not and five unknown entities come across the radar, and our tech tries to comprehend the unimaginable.
Lebbon is a horror writer by trade, but I thought his management of world building and the other genre hallmarks of science fiction were done quite well. He brings us almost immediately with our protagonist being interviewed of the encounter after the fact and with a story this length(Kindle Singles are novellas.)
I will keep my eye out for these shorter stories in the future, now that I was so pleasantly surprised by Rime. I recommend Rime to any reader really, especially those who enjoy science fiction. This was a fun way to spend an hour of my day.
Rime (Kindle Single)
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