ArtsAutosBooksBusinessEducationEntertainmentFamilyFashionFoodGamesGenderHealthHolidaysHomeHubPagesPersonal FinancePetsPoliticsReligionSportsTechnologyTravel

A Long Way Home: A Tale of an Immortal Living Long After the World Ended

Updated on June 10, 2018

A Long Way Home by Jake Lake

So right now I’m actually reading along winded steampunk fantasy by Jim Butcher. And as much as I love Jim Butcher’s work, this book so far is just a little, let’s say “Hard to finish.” Now that doesn’t mean that’s bad. It probably just means I haven’t got to the meat of the story yet. So I had to take a break and read a short story before returning to it. The short story, I once again pulled from 29th edition of The Year’s Best Scifi and this time around the short story is called A Long Way Home by Jake Lake.

So what is it about? The story follows Ask, an enhanced human (the story’s way of saying cyborg) who has been living almost a thousand years. And unlike many other people who live so long, he has not succumbed to madness or suicide because of absolute boredom. He keeps himself busy studying science, specifically geology. At the beginning of this story, he is down in the empty lava tubes of the planet Redghost. And during his research, there is loud noise. An increase as a wave of neutrinos rushes past him and the equipment he’s working with is fried. Also junk from space orbit had seemed to suddenly fall from the sky. He heads back to the camp, and finds everything there is useless and fried as well. He has no ship and no computers. He considers himself lucky that there is nothing inside his own body that shorted out. So he starts walking. He comes across a town. There he finds everyone is missing and elsewhere he finds the same. With no way off the planet. Ask is forced to search until he finds someone alive or a way off of the planet. And seeing how he can just about live forever, he has all the time in the world to search every city and try to solve the mystery.

The good. This is kind of an old tale. I am Legend had similar tropes. But the execution is what makes it great. Though this tale is rather short, the author did a good job expressing the weight of the situation. The loneliness. The madness. The hopelessness. It’s about how he handles this situation. And unlike the novel I listed before, Ask is practically immortal. The story basically tackles the theme of “What does an immortal person do after everything is gone?” And it’s a fascinating concept to be explored. Also the ending I loved. It’s kind of an ominous ending that makes your mind wonder and I expressed in many earlier reviews. If the ending makes me think and doesn’t seem cheap, I like it.

The bad? For some people, the ending I like, many others will hate. I can imagine a lot of people going “What happened next?” and feel that Ask’s story had no ending not knowing what his fate was. So as always these ambiguous endings are love it or hate it endings. Also the reason for the electronics to short out is an increase in neutrinos. Now I know what they are, but not much about them. I just know they are a popular thing being researched in science right now. But I know the majority of the population does not have a clue what they are and I think there should have been just a little bit of detail about them, just to make it more grounded for those who don’t know so it doesn’t sound like magical silliness that is made up for some scifi story.

Overall, this is a good story. Its short and bitter sweet. Its good read and some great science fiction. So if you stumble across this short somewhere. I strongly suggests that you give it a read. You won’t regret it.

4 smoothies out of Four.

Overall Rating: A Tale of an Immortal Living long After The World Ended

Have You Read This Story?

Share You Opinion. What Did You Think

See results
working

This website uses cookies

As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things. To provide a better website experience, hubpages.com uses cookies (and other similar technologies) and may collect, process, and share personal data. Please choose which areas of our service you consent to our doing so.

For more information on managing or withdrawing consents and how we handle data, visit our Privacy Policy at: https://corp.maven.io/privacy-policy

Show Details
Necessary
HubPages Device IDThis is used to identify particular browsers or devices when the access the service, and is used for security reasons.
LoginThis is necessary to sign in to the HubPages Service.
Google RecaptchaThis is used to prevent bots and spam. (Privacy Policy)
AkismetThis is used to detect comment spam. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide data on traffic to our website, all personally identifyable data is anonymized. (Privacy Policy)
HubPages Traffic PixelThis is used to collect data on traffic to articles and other pages on our site. Unless you are signed in to a HubPages account, all personally identifiable information is anonymized.
Amazon Web ServicesThis is a cloud services platform that we used to host our service. (Privacy Policy)
CloudflareThis is a cloud CDN service that we use to efficiently deliver files required for our service to operate such as javascript, cascading style sheets, images, and videos. (Privacy Policy)
Google Hosted LibrariesJavascript software libraries such as jQuery are loaded at endpoints on the googleapis.com or gstatic.com domains, for performance and efficiency reasons. (Privacy Policy)
Features
Google Custom SearchThis is feature allows you to search the site. (Privacy Policy)
Google MapsSome articles have Google Maps embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
Google ChartsThis is used to display charts and graphs on articles and the author center. (Privacy Policy)
Google AdSense Host APIThis service allows you to sign up for or associate a Google AdSense account with HubPages, so that you can earn money from ads on your articles. No data is shared unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Google YouTubeSome articles have YouTube videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
VimeoSome articles have Vimeo videos embedded in them. (Privacy Policy)
PaypalThis is used for a registered author who enrolls in the HubPages Earnings program and requests to be paid via PayPal. No data is shared with Paypal unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook LoginYou can use this to streamline signing up for, or signing in to your Hubpages account. No data is shared with Facebook unless you engage with this feature. (Privacy Policy)
MavenThis supports the Maven widget and search functionality. (Privacy Policy)
Marketing
Google AdSenseThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Google DoubleClickGoogle provides ad serving technology and runs an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Index ExchangeThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
SovrnThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Facebook AdsThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Unified Ad MarketplaceThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
AppNexusThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
OpenxThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Rubicon ProjectThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
TripleLiftThis is an ad network. (Privacy Policy)
Say MediaWe partner with Say Media to deliver ad campaigns on our sites. (Privacy Policy)
Remarketing PixelsWe may use remarketing pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to advertise the HubPages Service to people that have visited our sites.
Conversion Tracking PixelsWe may use conversion tracking pixels from advertising networks such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, and Facebook in order to identify when an advertisement has successfully resulted in the desired action, such as signing up for the HubPages Service or publishing an article on the HubPages Service.
Statistics
Author Google AnalyticsThis is used to provide traffic data and reports to the authors of articles on the HubPages Service. (Privacy Policy)
ComscoreComScore is a media measurement and analytics company providing marketing data and analytics to enterprises, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. Non-consent will result in ComScore only processing obfuscated personal data. (Privacy Policy)
Amazon Tracking PixelSome articles display amazon products as part of the Amazon Affiliate program, this pixel provides traffic statistics for those products (Privacy Policy)
ClickscoThis is a data management platform studying reader behavior (Privacy Policy)