Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley

Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Length: Short Story (28 pages)
Rating: 4 Stars
Reviewed by Astilbe

Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was by Paul McAuley is a complex sf story about politics and xenophobia when human colonists on an Earth-like planet are faced with the possibility of reaching out to alien cultures, especially when a big organization that has previously done harm is in charge of the operation.

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The world building was phenomenal. There was so much attention paid to describing the history of this community and the corporation that founded it that I couldn’t stop reading. I can’t give too many specific examples of the things Mr. McAuley included in the descriptions without sharing some pretty huge spoilers, but the things he said about what that land looked like before humans started living on it were particularly interesting.

I only have one minor criticism, and it has to do with the character development. There simply wasn’t enough attention paid to showing the audience who the characters were as individuals and how they were evolving as I would have preferred to see. The characters were surrounded by so many incredible things that I was surprised by how little they were affected by them or changed as a result of them.

One of the other things I loved about this story was its accurate depictions of small-town politics. Not all of the characters in this community liked each other, and it showed in both small and big ways as they discussed the possibility of the Omega Point Foundation being allowed to install radio communications equipment just outside of town that would give them the possibility of communicating with alien species. Since this foundation had been involved with some pretty shady deals when humans first began living on this new planet, not all of the townsfolk were comfortable with them having another chance to potentially hurt innocent people. I was fascinated by both sides of the argument and looked forward to seeing which one might win.

If you love futuristic science fiction, I’d highly recommend checking out Something Happened Here, But We’re Not Quite Sure What It Was.