The House Beyond Your Sky
by Benjamin Rosenbaum
• Word count: 3835
• Page count: 11
The House Beyond Your Sky is a science fiction short story by Benjamin Rosenbaum that was nominated for the 2007 Hugo Award for Best Short Story. The story follows Matthias, a priest of an extremely ancient and highly advanced race of beings. As he watches a sorrowful little girl in one of his own virtual worlds, he and his parakeet prepare for the arrival of a pilgrim who has an interesting proposal.
The House Beyond Your Sky is an abstract story that draws upon the ideas of virtual reality. Several of the concepts in this story can be related to computing, mathematics and the hard sciences. A unique and enjoyable blend of abstract literature and hard science - with a touch of tenderness and heartfelt emotions thrown in to balance things out.
"They're in pain, Geoffrey. Ignorant, afraid, punishing each other . . ."
"Come on, Matthias. Life is full of pain. Pain is the herald of life. Scarcity! Competition! The doomed ambition of infinite replication in a finite world! The sources of pain are the sources of life. And you like intelligent life, worse yet. External pain mirrored and reified in internal states!" The parakeet cocks its head to the other side. "Stop making so many of us, if you don't like pain."
The priest looks miserable.
Where you can find The House Beyond Your Sky:
• The House Beyond Your Sky was originally published in the September 4, 2006 edition of the web-based magazine Strange Horizons.
• You can read a nice HTML version of The House Beyond Your Sky, complete with some cool abstract art, for free at an archive of Strange Horizon's web site.
Benjamin Rosenbaum, the author of The House Beyond Your Sky , is a computer programmer who works for the National Science Foundation. He claims that one of the coolest things he ever built is the online computer game Sanctum. Take a moment to learn more about him by reading the biography on his website.
(This is a revised version of a post which was originally published on BestScienceFictionStories.com on Jan 29th, 2008.)
