by Elton Gahr

Created on: February 22, 2010

Science fiction is at its best when it allows us to look at ideas or situations that would otherwise be very difficult to discuss without any of the baggage that is normally associated with it, but there is another value of the story which is far more difficult to pull off successfully, that is to take an idea that people are not taking seriously enough, one that people simply dismiss as the way things are or do not even think about at all and write a story which brings it more into focus and closer to home. To actually make a person more uncomfortable about an idea and in some ways that is a more valuable story.

The Good Hand by Robert Reed is a short story which was published in the January 2010 issue of Asimov Magazine. About 9000 words long it is set in a world where the United States was able to gain full control over a great deal of technology including nuclear weapons and space travel. This is meant to mirror the situation today in which we are considering bombing Iran’s nuclear program but in this world it is France who is the target of the United States.

The story is told through the eyes of an American who is taking a trip to Paris as the tensions between France and America rise. Some of the ways that he is treated are quite similar to the stories that I have heard about how Americans are currently treated in France but it is of course a bit more direct in this story since the dangers of American power are aimed at them.

By the end of the story the united states has acted and the danger is far more real to everyone and the questions become far more pronounced and difficult. And this is where the story becomes something that is worth reading. The truth is that I did not care all that much about the main character, who was a bit too passive for my taste but it made me think more because unlike Iranians I know more about France, I understand that they are not all that dangerous and the ultimate question of whether it is a good idea to kill them becomes more pronounced and yet this story doesn’t give the answer it only asks the questions in an interesting way and reminds me that taking life should never be an easy decision no matter whose life it is.

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