Asimov's Magazine - November 2011 - The Man Who Bridged the Mist

Image by Philip Weiss via FlickrKij Johnson is a very busy writer. I say this because of her webpage which is uniquely kijjohnson.com and glimpse at her page on wikipedia.org  to see that she is very active. Apparently, she writes a lot, she publishes a number of her efforts in a variety of venues, and she gets nominated for awards. She's even won a few awards, including the Nebula.She also teaches the craft of writing from time-to-time. That all said, time to dig into the relevant work, "The Man Who Bridged the Mist."

This story is very low profile. There is not a lot of action in it. There is some suspense. I'm not sure it's what I would call science fiction, but more maybe something I would liken to fantasy. I don't see anything wrong with that, and since my experience with Asimov Magazine is limited to just the first two stories in this particular edition, perhaps it's not uncommon, or perhaps it is common, for what I'd call a fantasy work to coexist with science fiction.

I suppose, considering the fact that it is about the building of a bridge, that could be considered science. Kit, the protagonist of the story, is an engineer who is building a  bridge... over some funky mist.

The mist would have to be the main antagonist here. Kit's job is to build a bridge over this sort-of river. It's a river of mist, not water. Within that mist lives fish the size of large whales. These whales-sized-fish are fairly common, and are often attracted to certain types of noise. From time to time, a ferry in the act of crossing this river of mist gets swallowed up by one of these 'big ones'.

The culture in which Kit lives is rather primitive. Locomotion is provided by work animals. The ferries are paddled across. So, there are no engines to speak of. He becomes involved with a semi-celebrity of the area, Rasali Ferry, whose name is no coincidence. She is the one who ferries folks across the river mist in her boat.

The language is very fluid. It is skillfully written and it is well polished. Overall, I enjoyed the story - even if there weren't any laser firing spaceships and light sabre wielding green midgets.