View source for Chimera by Mark Lingane

{{infobox1
|title=Chimera
|author=Mark Lingane
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=A short story-come-novella with a devastating sense of menace. A survivor struggles to remember how she came to be the last known surviving human while in constant peril from predatory aliens. This story covers environmental collapse, AI technology, civilisational collapse without ever letting up on the action or tension. 
|rating=4.5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=64
|publisher=
|date=December 2024
|isbn=
|website=http://www.mark-mywords.co
|cover=B0DNVWMYP2
|aznuk=B0DNVWMYP2
|aznus=B0DNVWMYP2
}}
''The survivor stumbles forward, her steps echoing in the oppressive silence. Her heartpounds like a jackhammer. She doesn’t know where she’s heading. All she remembers is running. Terror chasing. Everything lost.''

''Broken and fragmented recollections tumble around her head. Fear courses through her body. Her breaths come in shallow, ragged gasps as desperation claws at her throat. Dehydration consumes her, and a raging thirst feels unquenchable.''

''There must be a way out. As she moves through the foreign area, memories begin to gel.Disaster had ploughed through her life—not just hers, everyone’s.''

As our survivor struggles to orient herself, she's guided by a robot, which looks human-made, but she can't be sure. It says it is. It says she must try not to injure herself. Guided to an interview with an eerie, terrifying group of aliens, she desperately tries to make sense of flashes of memory - environmental degradation, deals done and then betrayed, horrifying rituals covering desperate attempts to survive - and to attempt to explain how she came to be here, apparently the last human being alive.

Who can she trust? The robot? The group aliens who assure her, ''if you survive, we survive''? The single alien, calling himself Scar, who appears to be some kind of insurgent, and who assures her that he will help her to escape? No-one? And in any case, is there anyone or anywhere to escape to?

''Chimera'' is a short story-come-novella of less than one hundred pages, but it has a lot to tell you and it comes at you like a steam train (or a warp-factor starship). It's an unforgiving look at the possible end game for humanity and a commentary on the hubris and recklessness of our species. But it's also a frantic, gripping, thriller of a chase, the likely outcome of which you piece together as the survivor's memories coalesce even as she desperately tries to save her own life. It's quite the read and you'll find yourself reading at a sprint, just as the narrative is a present tense sprint in itself.

One of the things I like best about Mark Lingane's writing - and there's a lot to like - is his utter commitment to his ideas. ''Chimera'' is a final battle of a story and that's exactly how he approaches it. It's fast-paced, it's ruthless, it's unforgiving. It doesn't spend time building you up to an inevitable climax - instead, you're plunged right into the climax and he sustains a relentless pace over a few short, sharp chapters. This is how it feels when everything is just.... too late.

Recommended.



If you enjoy blood and guts in your science fiction but are looking for a bit less nihilism, you could try [[Galaxy  by Mark Lingane|Galaxy]], also by Lingane.
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