Echoes of a Single Sound

I feel the need to start by pointing out that I'm writing these reviews as I encounter a book. I'm probably being silly, but can't get myself to remove that first sentence, so now I must apologize for dithering, and wander into Lois McMaster Bujold. I meant to write this about Shards of Honor, but that will be the next post, because this post is about the Short Story that came with it.

Aftermath

When I was 22, I spent a month traveling around Europe, making an ass of myself, and lucking into perfect timing in nearly everything. Thanks to the people who put up with my insufferable youth. A few days after arriving in London in time for the Queens Jubilee, I got myself south of the river to the Imperial War Museum. It's an interesting place, the exhibits are wonderful, and then there's the section on The War(s)

It's a separate display, and it's entered along a sloping hallway, dimly lit, with 5 pictures on each side, each attached to a quote. I've spent some time online to try to find a public view of this, but to no avail. It's a chilling way to enter the exhibit, the quotes, from first to last, and somewhat unattributed because my camera didn't have that much resolution

Left
"In every parting there is an image of death" with a picture of a old woman embracing a soldier leaving for the front - George Eliot

"The world will little note nor long remember, what we say, but it can never forget what they did" with a picture of a world war two soldier leaping forward - Abraham Lincoln

"One does not pity the people of the town, nor does one hate them. One says 'they did it to us' but one is left just staring. The scene has gone beyond argument." with a picture of an injured boy and an old man in front of the ruins of a bombed town - VS Prichart?

"War is part of God's creation" with a picture of an toddler, with a head injury, in a hospital bed, clinging to a doll - Helmuth von Moltke

"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be, for without victory, there is no survival" with a picture of an ecstatic young woman clutching a newspaper and thrusting it into the air. - Sir Winston Spencer Churchill

Right
"There were great numbers of young men who had never been in a war and were consequently far from unwilling to join in this one." with a picture of a ANZAC soldier departing for Europe. -Thucydides

"The essence of war is violence and moderation in war is imbecility" with a picture of a young officer urging his men forward, with his men prone in the background - Lord Macaulay

"I pray you to believe what I have said. I reported what I saw and heard but only part of it. For most of it I have no words." with a picture of a young man, sitting outside Buchenwald after it's liberation. - Ed Murrow

"Only the dead have seen the end of war" with a picture of a blinded French soldier being led by another member of his company back from the trenches - Plato

Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won." with a picture of a weeping mother, waving from the siding of a railroad station. - The Duke of Wellington

This is what Aftermath was like. Walking down that hallway.

It's about a two person ship, a pilot and a med-tech, working to recover bodies after a space battle. The pilot got out of flight school 3 days after the end of the war ended, the med-tech has been in the service for years upon years. They recover 4 bodies over the course of the story, each one humanizing conflict for the pilot, giving a face to those from his service who died, removing some of the jingoistic veil of hatred for those the invaders, showing the loss suffered by loved ones, and in the end a willingness to respect the innate humanity in oneself, by not refusing to see the humanity in those who were recovered, regardless.

It's interesting to contrast this sense of loss with those given by other writers in the same genre that I've been reading. Weber for instance jumps right to my mind. In the Honor Harrington novels... which I'll probably have to reread and write up some week, there are deaths, but the sadness is seen. Here the grief is experienced. It's a notable difference. I can't explain it better than to say that in a Weber novel, I wondered how the character was going to deal with/avenge/move on from the grief. Reading Aftermath i felt like I did years ago in London, and like then I wept.