Short Fiction Friday: The Light Brigade

The Light Brigade by Kameron Hurley, Lightspeed Magazine Issue 66

[no synopsis provided] 

Kameron Hurley is far from a stranger in the Fantasy world. Being the bestselling author of the Bel Dame series and her most recent Epic Fantasy series the Worldbreaker series. Earlier this year I read a short story by Kameron Hurley, Elephants and Corpses which blew me away. So when I found out that Lightspeed Magazine reprinted one of her stories. What else was there left to do!

The Light Brigade definitely picks up with one of the catchiest introductions. Stating that the war has turned them into light and that light is the fastest way to travel. You have to take this last bit very literal. People have literally been turned into light making them heroes. Because aliens once took over in a more than hostile way and this was the only way to fight them. In this introduction you meet a young man who turned from being a soldier into an light hero. There is something very unique to this story, you are given a quite dire situation of Earth how it was ravaged for a long time by the aliens. But partly this isn't the focus of The Light Brigade in my opinion. 

The focus for me is on the soldier that narrates the story and his personal beliefs. He was loaded up with stuff and turned into light. Without any explanation he had to learn on the go on how to handle his abilities. He questioned somethings like what truly happens when you dissolve into light particles. Do you leave something behind when you travel so fast, are there multiverses and what do you see when you are a light particle, he made some very interesting observations. However he has to throw this all overboard by his psychiatrist, well he has to participate in a program to make him forget... So he wisely learns never to mention that again.   Bascially he learns a lot the hard way and this makes up for a more than interesting ending. 

The Light Brigade will enlighten you guaranteed!