A.M. Dellamonica's The Color of Paradox

This Sunday's Short is another sci-fi story for Sci-Fi November -- A. M. Dellamonica's The Color of Paradox, published via Tor.com.


In this story, we read the experiences of one time traveler in a series of many, sent back in time to Seattle in the 1920s to delay the end of the world (during WWII, I think). The story is full of little references to important events of the later war and Seattle's involvement in some of them (as the child of a Boeing employee, I definitely enjoyed the snippets involving that company!). 

And honestly? I love the character Willie-- the take-no-nonesense time travel agent who has sacrificed so much to help save the world and now help her fellow time travel agents recover from the journey to the past. The narrator (Jules/Julie) is sexist and cocky, but he makes an interesting transformation through-out the story that makes him tolerable. I'd love to see a longer story surrounding these two characters (or at least Willie!), as this short seemed just a glimpse of what would be possible to explore in the telling of their stories.

Favorite line:

But something was wrong with the color of the future, seven weeks out. Seattle, below, the sky above, even the air around me . . . it was all splashed with color I’d never seen before. Everything was off the accepted painter’s wheel of red, blue, yellow.

Rating: 4/5.

Any thoughts on this story or any of the other sci-fi short stories reviewed this month for Sci-Fi November? Leave them in the comments!