This is my favorite short story from the Forward Collection.

A compelling short story on a traveller returning to earth”Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.”The stories in the Forward short story collection of Amazon are till now turning out to be quite optimistic.Emergency Skin narrates a story of an unnamed traveller going to an abandoned earth. What unfolds is firmly in the spoiler area, but we are drip fed information skillfully by Jemisin. Our scout is accompani...

One of the most brilliant short stories I've ever read. There's so much in this tale that I cannot possibly hold enough of it in my hands. I will recommend it every day.

I went back and forth on this rating because I seriously loved the story, but there was this cynical little voice in my head questioning whether it was too oversimplified. In the end, though, I rate based on personal enjoyment and I enjoyed Emergency Skin so much. It was my personal favourite from the Forward collection.When I started to see where this story was going, I think I actually let out a little delighted laugh! Many years into the future, a small group of humans have fled a dying Earth...

I wanted science fiction, not a comically heavy-handed political statement with caricatures of the extremeists on both sides. The evil people are all rich, white capitalists who check of literally every possible ticky-box for bigotry there is: gender, race, age, disability, financial/working class status, hair type, sexuality, body size. The good people are all purely communist, non-white, predominantly female, patronizing and blindly accepting of violence from outsiders. There's no moderation h...

Strange, dreary, and confusing short-story. I didn’t like the writing style. A very disappointing and dismal read.

3.75 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:A single spaceman arrives on Earth (which he calls “Tellus,” a Latin word similar to Terra) on an important mission from a far-off planet that was colonized by a group of rich white men who left Earth centuries ago. The spaceman, as well as the collective AI that was implanted in his brain and constantly speaks to him in his mind, expected to find a world completely barren of life, decimated by climate change and toxic pollution. What they ac...

What a fun lunchtime read this was. NK Jemisin is so fucking cool.

Look, I'm as woke as the next intersectional Twitter feminist, but this.. just no.Would I want to see all the libertarian, right wing nutjobs shooting themselves into space in the Elon Musk's rocket? Yes, yes of course.Would it be fun to see them flounder and stutter when they realise they were wrong, we were right and everything is just so much better without them? You bet. But this sort of daydreaming doesn't make good literature. It was a very heavy-handed piece propaganda, that was already p...

Yes creepy as hell, do you smell the smoke? Yes, it’s coming from my brain cells and they’re BBQed now, ready to serve inside bun! Four amazing, smoking, mind killer, making you an urgent order for fresh new grey cells kind of great stars for different kind of weird, political, ideological but definitely enjoyable story!Wow! This series of stories, written by multiple talented and mostly my favorite authors are really intriguing. And the best part of it, before you feel to urge for dnf-ing, you

LOVED. THIS.I don't know how to categorize it, and I don't know what else to say about it. It was intriguing and then it changed into something else altogether. A fable of sorts? Maybe. A warning of sorts? Maybe. Then again, maybe it was just created as a mirror so we could take a good look at ourselves? How about all of the above?Highly recommended!

Real Rating: 4.75* of fiveThe Publisher Says: What will become of our self-destructed planet? The answer shatters all expectations in this subversive speculation from the Hugo Award–winning author of the Broken Earth trilogy.An explorer returns to gather information from a climate-ravaged Earth that his ancestors, and others among the planet’s finest, fled centuries ago. The mission comes with a warning: a graveyard world awaits him. But so do those left behind—hopeless and unbeautiful wastes of...

Political manifesto/sci-fi. I think this read was too soon after Light Brigade. Whilst political ideas are actual in the current climate, with Brexit madness and all I feel there there is too much politics stuffed down my throat as it is. I want more escapism from my sci-fi and fantasy.That said at least it's short and not grim.Free with Kindle Unlimited.

“Can’t start a revolution with the enemy shouting in your head, after all.” It’s a story told by that little nagging voice inside your head - the one that you can spend your whole life trying to get rid of. You know - one that is an amalgam of the small-minded, closed-off and judgmental influences that are everywhere; the crotchety old guy telling those kids to get off his lawn. “We left because it would’ve cost too much to fix the world. Cheaper to build a new one.” Here that voice

***Winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novelette***The world’s elite, who call themselves the Founders, has left the dying planet and most of its population behind. However, centuries later they send back an explorer to collect some samples which are crucial to their colony’s survival. What he finds, though, is not the graveyard world the Founders expected, but a planet that has flourished. How could that have happened?The thought behind this story is a nice one. Its not very subtle message o...

I am a huge fan of Jemisin's Broken Earth series so I jumped at the chance to read this short story.Emergency Skin is a tale about a traveller sent from an advanced future race to retrieve something vital that they need from Earth, now supposedly a dead planet which they abandoned way in the past. Said traveller is fitted with an AI which is supposed to inform and lead him through the process.This AI is the best part of the story and the dialogue between it and the traveller is hilarious. Jemisi...

A little soft and quite overt for Jemisin's capabilities, but I do appreciate the flip of the wish-fulfillment fantasy. An interesting tone, somewhat playful, that accomplishes that time-honored goal of holding up the mirror so that one recognize's one's own prejudices and environment.An intrepid explorer has landed, expecting a devastated Earth peopled with savages. As he works through his encounters, the reader comes to understand what happened way back when.

3.5 to 4 starsEmergency Skin was my next (and fourth) journey into the Forward series. I have been enjoying these little bites of speculative science fiction. So far, I would highly recommend this group of short stories to any science fiction fan.This entry from N.K. Jemisin focuses on the question of who would really be at fault if we are forced to abandon a ruined Earth someday? In addition to this, do the people with the most money and power know what’s best for our planet as a whole? The one...

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemisin my fourth read of this amazing Forward Collection Series is my favourite one so far. An unnamed main character, sometime in the very distant future, is sent to Earth by a small colony of ex-inhabitants called The Founders. These people left Earth (they now refer to it as Tellus) due to the planet being un-liveable, presumably due to over-population and climate change. The reason for this character being sent to Tellus is not immediately clear, but it is revealed th...

“Six billion people working toward a goal together is much more effective than a few dozen scrabbling for themselves.” Reread: Fun and worthwhile!N.K. Jemisin needs to write more Solarpunk because this little taste was delicious.When things went downhill the rich left Earth, which was all the motivation the rest needed to come together for The Big Cleanup. It was simple:“People just decided to take care of each other.”