An absolutely fantastic short story that touches on faith and fanaticism.

'When Stars Are Scattered' by Spencer Ellsworth, is another good addition to the long list of wonderful short stories from Tor.A story that touches on belief and faith in religion, intolerance, as well as the philosophy of suffering and existence, all in a Sci-Fi setting.A new doctor, Ahmed, arrives at a human outpost in space, where tensions between the two religious groups of the colony have become precarious. The groups are also divided over their treatment of the alien race that share their

I have many, many problems with this story, but since it has been praised by more well-informed critics, I expect my problems stem more from ignorance than narrative failures. However, I maintain my main objection, that it is an attempt to hang a flimsy plot on a (hypothetical) religious crisis.

Not a masterwork, but a nice story. It reminds us of the times we live, in a different setting.

Que linda história essa criada por Spencer Ellsworth. Candidata a uma das melhores do ano. É incrível o quanto pode ser dito em uma história curta. Quantas simbologias podem aparecer em uma narrativa sobre contato alienígena. Fiquei tocado com a mensagem final deixada pelo autor e a maneira como ele conseguiu fazer tudo funcionar bem e organicamente. Nesse nosso confuso mundo dos dias atuais, essa é uma narrativa de cabeceira para qualquer um que queira refletir um pouco sobre alma, religiosidad...

I do love me some Tor Stories on Thursday. I love when SciFi makes you think, or makes you work for your story. As someone who isn't Muslim, having the main characters, though technically not the protagonist, because he is an atheist, be Muslim, gives me, at least the "other" that so often happens in well written speculative fiction.The bad guys, the other, are not the kite creatures, that are native to the land, but the Christian settlers that have also taken up living on this planet, and are o...

An ecological and philosophical story about how religion (maybe) poisons everything--but at the same time about the possibilities of transcendence and the hope that lies in our ability to communicate.

Do yourself a favor and read this short story that broke my heart and was beautiful and sad and I love this so much. Awesomely profound, thoughtful, and heartbreaking.

Spencer EllsworthWhen Stars Are Scattered Tor Books52 pages7.0

3.5*

A beautiful story, focusing on two communities all to ready to bring war to each other instead of working together to survive in an harsh new alien world. I would have given this story 5 stars if not for the ending, that was not as great at the rest of the story. Characters are very interesting, and the dynamics between the two communities are quite of interest. When Stars are Scattered is a moving story about alien contact and religious intolerance.This is the story of Ahmed, a doctor working i...

Fantastic novelette, one that leaped right onto my awards shortlist. This is sci-fi at its best as it examines the human condition on an alien world where Muslim and Christian settlers contend with native beings called kites who have converted to Islam. And the kites are dying. There are suspicions that the illness is human-caused. The protagonist is an atheist Muslim doctor--what a wonderful perspective to follow!--who finds himself dropped into an escalating religious conflict--and perhaps a g...

A beautiful exploration into empathy and the universeThis is an emotionally hard-hitting piece. It doesn't shy from the hard questions of existence and suffering, but rather it dives deep right into them. A beautiful experiment in a strange and magnificent world.

Une courte nouvelle qui joue sur le thème de la croyance religieuse, de la colonisation, et d'une conception plutôt original de comment avoir la foi ... Les personnages sont plutôt bien rendus et j'ai lu jusqu'au bout même si j'ai trouvé parfois l'argumentation un peu caricaturale ...

I really liked the premise, and I wanted to like this more, but the writing felt a little bit disjointed, and I also felt that it just fell into the same old tropes of religious conflict.

Such a Great read. It's Such a SLOW burn read. It also is one short story that doesn't overstay its welcome. I really liked how the author mixes things up with quotes like, “We got the flu, yeah, you’re right—real bad one—but I want to know about our heads? What’d you and your pets do to our minds?”“That,” Ahmed said. “I can’t do anything about that.”It's the perfect length that makes you think. A good book (novel, novelette, work of literature, poem, etc) should do that, and this does that, in

I'm not a fan of short stories, but I am a fan of Ellsworth, so I gave this a try. Good sci-fi and fantasy take hard and prevalent social issues and put them in a less close to home context so they can be examined and reflected upon subjectively. Ellsworth didn't hide behind two fake religions. He took Islam, Christianity, and prejudice on a ship, colonized a planet with the sweetest aliens, and then wrote a mystery with a message. This is what I imagine the kites look like:https://www.youtube.c...

Q:“How can you not believe? Look at the sky, the water. Children! It will change when you have children. The universe is such a cold place if you assign everything to chance.”“It is a colder place when you have to know why a merciful God would do horrible things,” ...“You got me there.” (c)

Touches on themes of faith, belief, and the implications of "knowing" something to be true. As a Westerner with a Christian background, I found the perspective of the Muslim protagonists fresh an interesting. The faith-based struggles they go through are certainly not unique to Islam, but they're no less troubling and thorny.Short! But enjoyable.

Three and half stars.A precarious colony on a distant planet. Two settlements, two religions. What could go wrong?A doctor who can cure diseases but can not cure fanaticism.A good tale about science, religion and the some of the mysteries of the universe that await us.