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4.0 

The Tale of Ak and Humanity

By Alex Shvartsman & Yefim Zozulya
The Tale of Ak and Humanity by Alex Shvartsman & Yefim Zozulya digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

"The Tale of Ak and Humanity" is a Tor.com Original from sci-fi author Yefim Zozula.

Citizens are distraught to learn of the latest decree from their leaders: each person is to be evaluated as to whether they deserve to live. Those found "unnecessary for life" will be asked to "leave life within 24 hours."

Panic is alleviated when citizens learn that Ak, "a luminous person," will be in charge of the panels that are to evaluate citizens. Surely, only the "human rubbish" would be eliminated.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

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3 Reviews

4.0
“Seems pretty simple and unnecessary by the time we end the story, but while reading it was quite interesting. It’s slightly dated but that’s not surprising considering it was published during the 1920s and the misogynistic descriptions of women are quite awful. If I’m to understand correctly, the author is using satire to criticize the government authorities who use absolutely nonsense metrics to decide who is a good citizen and who isn’t, who deserves respect and dignity and who doesn’t. Very fascinating premise about the importance of life and humanity.”

About Alex Shvartsman

ALEX SHVARTSMAN is the author of political fantasy novel Eridani’s Crown and over 120 short stories, published in Analog, Nature, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. He won the WSFA Small Press Award for Short Fiction in 2014 and was a two-time finalist (2015 & 2017) for the Canopus Award for Excellence in Interstellar Fiction. His translations from Russian have appeared in F&SF, Asimov's, Apex, and Strange Horizons. Alex has edited over a dozen anthologies, including the long-running Unidentified Funny Objects series, and he is the editor-in-chief of Future Science Fiction Digest. He resides in Brooklyn, NY.

Yefim Zozulya

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