This month for the Signature Background, I featured Carl Holiday's story, Hold 32 from the 2011 Anthology themed: Walk on the Wild Side. A short story I enjoyed then and now, I thought I'd do the review myself! And if you haven't had a chance to download your background yet this month, you can get it here!

Reviewer: Cia
Status: Complete
Length: 1,595

I read A LOT, but this story stuck out to me in 2011 when I first read it. In fact, I said:

I want to know about the animals now! How did they know they were there? Did they hear them opening the door? Are they sentinels? Did the tigers evolve to become sentient? How sentient? Ahhh!!! Too many questions. I like the sort of... okay, looks like we aren't doing that! sarcasm but I wish there were more to this story. Even with the concrete ending it just feels like we don't get to see enough. I think a visual on the tiger at the very least would have helped with that, if it wasn't like what they learned about or had a definite genetic mutation based on being abandoned for millenia.

When I read the story again, I was struck anew by the nuances of the world Carl created in a seriously restricted amount of words. We get a lovely picture of the two main characters' life together outside of work. They live upon a millennia-old ship the size of the moon, humanity going on after leaving Earth but never setting down roots on a planet. But just like some areas here and now, poor decision making and mismanagement have created areas where it is just NOT safe to go.

Places where humans do not hold sway--somewhere no one has gone since things went wrong. And are these two guys soldiers? Nope. Just two work-a-day men who have a job to do, and some piddly stunners to keep themselves safe. That just screams bad idea, because who knows what those critters have gotten up to as they cruised through the stars?

I still want more of this story. I want to see what happens after Jerry and Derrick meet with the written dead-end. Can they fill the order and perform the work? Or will there be other surprises waiting for them? What would happen if those surprised got out?!! As always, the mark of a really good story is the fact I don't want to put it down. Hold 32 definitely qualifies. If you have a few minutes and are looking for a short read to fill your spare time, you definitely need to read this!