"Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites" is a science fiction novelette by

William Shunn William Shunn (born August 14, 1967) is an American science fiction writer and computer programmer. He was raised in a Latter-day Saint household, the oldest of eight children. In 1986, he served a mission to Canada for the Church of Jesus Chris ...

. It appeared in the original anthology ''Vanishing Acts'', edited by Ellen Datlow and published by

Tor Books Tor Books is the primary imprint of Tor Publishing Group (previously Tom Doherty Associates), a publishing company based in New York City. It primarily publishes science fiction and fantasy titles, and is the largest publisher of Chinese scien ...

in 2000. It was nominated for the 2001

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...

for Best Novelette.

Plot

The story takes place in a wildlife reserve on a mostly barren planet named Sutter's Mill. Rescue Star operative Hannah Specter is overseeing the introduction of a new alien animal species into the reserve and must unravel the mystery of the species' seemingly suicidal behavior.

Netherview Station series

"Dance of the Yellow-Breasted Luddites" is part of Shunn's "Netherview Station" story series, which also includes "The Practical Ramifications of Interstellar Packet Loss" and "

Inclination Orbital inclination measures the tilt of an object's orbit around a celestial body. It is expressed as the angle between a Plane of reference, reference plane and the orbital plane or Axis of rotation, axis of direction of the orbiting object ...

References

2000 short stories Science fiction short stories {{2000s-sf-story-stub