“The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye”
Clarkesworld Magazine #92
Ed. Neil Clarke
May 1, 2014
2014 Nebula Award Nominee for Best Short Story, 2015 BookTubeSFF Winner

Reviews

“‘The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye’ by Matthew Kressel is an excellent story of a single huge creature, the Eye, roaming the universe with its story telling companion…This story is very entertaining, right from the start. You get a strong insight into these odd creatures with huge life times and some hints at all sorts of interesting cultures they have come across. The ending is excellent…I recommend this story – it’s definitely worth reading.” –Tangent Online

“A far-future horror story, an effective game of slow reveal, in which we gradually discover that the true is not what we had supposed.” –Locus Online, Lois Tilton

“The first story is ‘The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye’ by Matthew Kressel. The story opens with ‘As the Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye wandered the galaxy harvesting dead stars, they liked to talk.’ The Eye is a vast computer and the Meeker is her servant. He harvests dead stars to add to her mass. There are no other living creatures, just legends of them. On the current tour, they find an object floating in space. It contains genetic material which can be decoded by Meeker. After one unsuccessful try, the material is encoded to what we know is a woman of Earth. Her name is Beth. But she is sick and dies after telling them just a little about herself. Beth is revived many times and some things are revealed. Much more happens to make for a very good story.” — SFRevu, Sam Tomaino

“an evocative twist on a familiar, far-flung-future template…this story reminded me of both Asimov’s “The Last Question” and Sheckley’s “The Specialist.” I most enjoyed the structural movements in this story–the lulling descriptions of millennia’s-worth of travel in the first section, the gradually unsettling intimations of something Not Quite Right in the middle, and the seamless shift in vantage-points by the end. A quite vivid and controlled bit of sci-fi!” –Maggie Clark

“Matthew Kressel’s story unfolds slowly like an intricate puzzle. There is a beautiful, dreamlike quality to this tale of the far future, where the vast All-Seeing Eye consumes stars and knowledge and finds a problem it can’t quite solve. The dark undertones emerge gradually. A whole universe is unveiled through only three characters. For me this was the highlight of the issue.” –Antonio Urias

“This story is touching on so many levels, and though the story only features three main characters, it fills the mind like the great expanse of the cosmos. The lonely dark is palpable, and its themes ask the great questions of what it is to suffer, and to be used. I would love to see this story, or at the very least this universe, expanded, but it it just perfect as it is now, as well. If you read nothing else from this issue, be sure it’s this one.” –Alex Hurst

“Just like how the Beth tricks the All-Seeing Eye, Matthew Kressel tricks his readers by immersing them in the curiosity shared by the Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye and the empathy of the Meeker towards Beth. Beyond the Beth, the Meeker, and the All-Seeing eye, however, Kressel treats his readers with the vastness of time in space in his short masterpiece, a space orchestra subtle and melodic for the most part but explosive in the right places.” –ibong tikling

“A touching space opera…Thumbs up in terms of reader satisfaction and 4.80 out of 5 stars.” — Imagined Worlds

“I really enjoyed this story. The tone seems light at the beginning, like an intergalactic buddy road trip between the Meeker and the Eye, but as the Eye seeks Beth’s secret’s relentlessly it gets much darker. Solidly entertaining, far future SF.” — Diabolical Plots

“I give this my highest recommendation.” —30-Second Sci-Fi Book Review