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The Boy Who Cast No Shadow
Jul. 23rd, 2013 08:03 pmOnwards to Thomas Olde Heuvelt's The Boy Who Cast No Shadow, another contender for the Hugo novellette category.
The story is the first person account of a sharp-voiced teenager called Look, the boy of the title, who not only casts no shadow but is invisible to cameras of all types and suntans on both sides simultanously. Dismissing the reasons for his lack of shadow early on — "It’s something to do with my genes, they say, but they don’t know what. Molecular structures and the effects of light, blah-blah-blah." — the story concentrates on Look's friendship with Splinter, another teen made entirely of mirrored glass. Horribly fragile and with limited flexibility, Splinter has been so coddled by his parents that he had the freedom to follow up on any of his own dreams. When Look realises this, he decides to help his friend fulfil some of his ambitions.
The story is short and focused, with a strong narrative voice and a quiet message about parents' desires to keep their children safe versus the child's need to live their own life and take risks to follow their dreams. Definitely a contender.
The story is the first person account of a sharp-voiced teenager called Look, the boy of the title, who not only casts no shadow but is invisible to cameras of all types and suntans on both sides simultanously. Dismissing the reasons for his lack of shadow early on — "It’s something to do with my genes, they say, but they don’t know what. Molecular structures and the effects of light, blah-blah-blah." — the story concentrates on Look's friendship with Splinter, another teen made entirely of mirrored glass. Horribly fragile and with limited flexibility, Splinter has been so coddled by his parents that he had the freedom to follow up on any of his own dreams. When Look realises this, he decides to help his friend fulfil some of his ambitions.
The story is short and focused, with a strong narrative voice and a quiet message about parents' desires to keep their children safe versus the child's need to live their own life and take risks to follow their dreams. Definitely a contender.
