(First published Dec 5 2013. Minor edits have been made.)
The story: Luna Lindsey, “Touch of Tides”, Crossed Genres, Issue 8 (August 2013)
Lindsey’s protagonist, Dr. Mara Skyberg, has Asperger syndrome, though this isn’t explicitly explained in the story (Lindsey mentions it in her New Author Spotlight interview). She also experiences synesthesia. Both her synesthesia and her autistic traits prove invaluable when she discovers sentient alien life during her job as a scientist on Europa.
The role of the synesthesia will be obvious to any reader, and is cool to see. The role of the autistic traits is subtler. Mara is impatient with the social compromises and power games which slow her NT co-workers down when a crisis happens, and bravely swims out into Europa’s ocean to solve the problem though the rest of them object. Also, her co-workers frequently make incorrect assumptions about her feelings and needs, thinking she will want the same kind of interaction preferred by NTs (which is a very, very common communication problem that happens in real life). Mara has picked up on this, so she is also quick to figure out when the humans have made incorrect assumptions about the aliens’ needs.
It’s really cool to see a situation where an autistic character’s way of thinking becomes an asset to communication. Instead of assuming that the autistic character will always be bad at it and the NTs will always be good.
Also, I wanted to mention this line:
I also hate when he calls them barns. I can’t help but picture the station full of farm animals.
Which is a throwaway line and not important at all, but it made me happy, because I used to respond to a lot of non-literal statements in this way. Autistic people are famous for taking statements literally, but it’s often more complicated than a simple comprehension problem. I used to strongly picture literal meanings even though I knew perfectly well that the speaker didn’t mean them, and it would bother me, especially if the literal meaning was something hyperbolically emotional or violent.
(As a grown-up, I’ve mellowed out about this, but I still hate the “exaggerated negative emotions as humor” trope. My brain focuses on the negative emotions rather than the absurdity of the exaggeration, and it gets very awkward.)
Anyway, that’s a tangent, but Lindsey is a cool autistic author who’s written a cool autistic story, and you should check it out. I’m certainly adding her other stories to my TBR list.
The Verdict: Recommended-1