‘The Lucky Strike’ at Strange Horizons
This week Strange Horizons reprints my favorite Kim Stanley Robinson story, “The Lucky Strike” (podcast), though for my money it’s really worth getting the PM Press edition that pairs it with his great “A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions” essay.
Gerry Canavan 
Personally, I’d call “A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions” — one of my favorite KSR pieces — a short story. Sure, it has the *form* of an essay, but then again, so do lots of short stories (see Borges, almost passim).
(I don’t know if KSR himself called it an essay — maybe he did — but as a preemptive strike (see what I did there?) against that line of counter-argument, KSR himself is committed to the idea that an author’s placing something in a particular genre isn’t dispositive, given his (correct!) piece on Spufford’s RED PLENTY in the Crooked Timber forum.)
KSR has written essays — my favorite is his Notes/Cecelia Holland piece — but I’d argue ASDOIK isn’t one.
Stephen Frug
September 25, 2014 at 8:31 pm
Is it a story, though? It’s meta-discourse on the other story, so I’m not sure I agree it’s a story itself. It is great though, maybe that’s enough…
gerrycanavan
September 25, 2014 at 11:25 pm
(Re)read KSR’s “Red Plenty is a Novel”, substituting “short story” for “novel” and “A Sensitive Dependence…” for “Red Plenty”. I find it persuasive.
(IKYMI, the KSR piece is here: http://crookedtimber.org/2012/05/29/red-plenty-is-a-novel/)
Stephen Frug
September 27, 2014 at 7:20 pm