“The Sounds of Old Earth”
Nebula Awards Showcase 2015
Ed. Greg Bear
December 8, 2015
Reprint

“There are strong examples of more traditional science fiction and fantasy from Aliette de Bodard, Matthew Kressel, and Christopher Barzak, but the main sense we come away with is that the line between genre and literary fiction is increasingly arbitrary.” — The Chicago Tribune

“The category nominees also uniformly impress, but the standout among them is surely Matthew Kressel’s ‘The Sounds of Old Earth’, the story of an old man on a largely evacuated and denuded Earth awaiting its destruction by space-based laser in order to use the resultant raw materials for a gigantic piece of space engineering. The sense of resignation has extraordinary resonance in today’s world, in which the destruction of people’s homes through flooding and natural disaster is becoming worryingly commonplace, and the image of the Earth being sliced into pieces like a hard-boiled egg is one that will stay in the memory. This was Kressel’s first Nebula nomination but, one feels, almost certainly not his last.” — Pop Matters