"Her Husband's Hands" is a
science fiction short story by
Adam-Troy Castro. It was first published in ''
Lightspeed
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...
'' in October 2011.
Synopsis
When Rebecca's husband Bob is killed in combat, the Army sends her all that they were able to salvage: his severed hands, with (as is standard) a backup copy of his personality and memories embedded within them. Rebecca must now deal with the fact that her husband has been reduced to a pair of disembodied animate hands with life-support bracelets, sensor patches in the fingertips... and
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Reception
"Her Husband's Hands" was a finalist for the
Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 2011
[Her Husband's Hands]
at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved September 1, 2019 and the 2011
Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction;
[Adam-Troy Castro]
at TheBramStokerAwards.com; retrieved September 1, 2019 the French translation, "Les mains de son mari", was a finalist for the 2013
Grand prix de l'Imaginaire for foreign-language short fiction.
[GPI 2013]
at GPI.Noosfere.org; retrieved September 1, 2019
Rachel Swirsky said that she was "awed" by it, and described it as "dark, intensely written, and intimately and compassionately characterized".
[Rachel Swirsky's Short Story Recommendations from 2011]
at LiveJournal; published January 31, 2012; retrieved September 1, 2019 ''
Locus'' called it "emotionally devastating".
[Amy Goldschlager Reviews ''And Other Stories'' Audiobook by Adam-Troy Castro]
by Amy Goldschlager, at '' Locus''; published June 6, 2019; retrieved September 1, 2019 ''
Tangent Online
''Tangent Online'' is an online magazine launched in its online incarnation in 1997, though it began as a print magazine in 1993. ''Tangent Online'' is edited by Dave Truesdale, with web-hoster Eric James Stone. The magazine covers reviews of sci ...
'' praised it as "dark and delightful", and appreciated the contrast between serious and "outlandish" elements, but admitted to some difficulties with
suspension of disbelief
Suspension of disbelief, sometimes called willing suspension of disbelief, is the avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something unreal or impossible in reality, such as a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for ...
— not in terms of the technology that keeps shreds of tissue alive and embedded with human minds, but rather in terms of why the military would go to the trouble of salvaging body parts and embedding them with human personalities, instead of "something more useful, like returning the veterans as small robots or attaching them to animals".
[Lightspeed #17, October 2011]
reviewed by Richard Aphron, at ''Tangent Online
''Tangent Online'' is an online magazine launched in its online incarnation in 1997, though it began as a print magazine in 1993. ''Tangent Online'' is edited by Dave Truesdale, with web-hoster Eric James Stone. The magazine covers reviews of sci ...
''; published October 20, 2011; retrieved September 30, 2020
References
External links
Text of the story at ''
Lightspeed
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...
''
Interview with Castro about the process of writing the story at ''Lightspeed''
*
2011 short stories
Works originally published in online magazines
Science fiction short stories
Post-traumatic stress disorder in fiction
{{2010s-sf-story-stub