We Are The Cloud

Great story up at Lightspeed right now, We Are the Cloud by Sam J. Miller. You can read it here: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/cloud/

 Many times, I don't go for stories that seem at first to under-utilize the science fictional elements within them, but the solid writing carried me through this one until it felt like the New Wave stories of yore that I used to read years ago. In many of those stories, as in this one, the characters carried the day. Too many stories that I've been reading lately show that the author is trying to create a character-driven story, but can't quite pull it off, as far as I'm concerned. Rather, it is character-driven in that many of the elements are in place, but it's not compelling as such. Sam J. Miller nailed it. I wish I knew exactly how, so I could do it too. I'll have to re-read it. You can take a look for yourself and tell me if you catch the trick.