Rosebud, by Paul Cornell (Tordotcom)
“The crew of the Rosebud are, currently, and by force
of law, a balloon, a goth with a swagger stick, some sort of science aristocrat
possibly, a ball of hands, and a swarm of insects.” Although they’re not human,
at least not in their current form, they’re most definitely people. And they’re
fanatically devoted to The Company, which for 300 years has placed them out in
the back acres of space. When they come upon a mysterious black sphere, they
arrive at a plan, after much squabbling: to capture the object for the Company,
thereby earning lots of praise.
But the object is not what anyone might expect; it has the
ability manipulate probability and time-lines, thereby controlling the crew of
the Rosebud by selecting the futures with the most benign outcomes. As
the crew attempts to understand what’s happening to them, their own pasts are
revealed, as well as the less-than-benign nature of the Company.
I loved how the crew figures out that their memories are
unreliable and what the object doing. In the end, however, I found the “universe-changing”
revelations opaque. I wanted to like and understand the story, but ended up
just not getting it, which is never a good feeling to leave a reader with.
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