Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse

Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse is a short story by Andy Duncan that is a Nebula award finalist, and for good reason. The story is fascinating, the characters are efficiently and elegantly fleshed out, and there are some phenomenal turns of phrase (ex: describing lips as resembling the dent a thumb leaves in a bad tomato).

The story, which you can read here slowly fills with religious issues and implications as it progresses until, what? I don't know. I won't spoil the ending, but suffice to say I didn't understand it.

This is precisely the sort of story I categorize as "school reading". Meaning, a story that I can tell is excellent, but I don't get the point because I have not meditated on the story or re-read it. For godsake I read it over my lunch break. I could lament that I don't spend more time dredging deeper meaning out of things I read, but I won't, because I don't regret it. I'm busy, but how am I supposed to keep my website up to date, publish a novel, write a video game, stay in competitive running shape, and work 8-5 without being busy? I can't and I won't give up any of those things. So sometimes, often in fact, I want to get the point. I hate saying that because it makes me sound like the lowest common denominator television audience, but it is how I feel.

Is that so much to ask?

Other tags this item is listed under include: smartamusement,