| Title | : | This Long Vigil |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 20 |
| Publication | : | First published December 20, 2015 |
Synopsis: After twenty five years serving as the lone human Monitor of the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, Orion is scheduled to be placed back in his hibernation chamber with the other members of the crew. Knowing that he will die there and be replaced before the ship’s voyage is over, he decides that he won’t accept that fate. Whatever it takes he will escape Hermes and see space again, even if it means defying the regulations of his only friend -- the ship-wide artificial intelligence known as Dan.
This Long Vigil Reviews
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Good fair reading.
The author contacted me and I received a copy of this book in exchange of a honest review.
TITANBORN… BORN AGAIN!
This is a short story, part of the literary universe created for the novel Titanborn by Rhett Bruno.
In the middle of the narrative developed in the mentioned novel, you get to know about a big project of sending generational space arks into potential planet with chances of life, economically funded by Pervenio Corporation.
The short tale here is about one of those generational space arks during its voyage in deep space, far beyond the Solar System.
HAL & DAVID MEETS DAN & ORION
You can’t avoid thinking about 2001: A Space Odyssey once you began to read the tale since you find an artificial intelligence running the operations of the generational space ark which have a human helper to deal with certain tasks that the A.I. can’t perform by itself.
However, you will have here a interchange of personalities between computer and astronaut.
Not reaching certain dangerous extentions present in 2001: A Space Odyssey of course.
It’s good to have a computer functioning as it should be for a change in literature, and well…
…you can say a human reacting as he should be too. (considering his existence)
Dan, it’s the artificial intelligence dealing with Orion, its sixth (so far) human, doing monitor duty aboard the interstellar ark Hermes. It’s amusing having a computer with a name so normal as “Dan” while having a human with an odd name as “Orion”, but it’s not so odd at all, since Orion didn’t born on Earth, he born onboard of Hermes during its long trip to reach a planet, in a far distant alien planetary system, with fair chances of sustaining life.
FIXED FOR LIFE
Orion was picked by his predecesor for his lifetime duty to help Dan in any task that Dan can’t do by itself.
An interesting situation (giving you a lot to think) is that instead of your cliché cryogenics to keep the crew of 999 subjects under inanimated suspension, the crew here is technically alive, but sleep and getting old, floating inside of individual tanks. Even women will give birth out of controlled pregnancies, without waking up, and their children sent sleep to occupy a tank where some other crewmember reached the top accepted age. Since the ship’s voyage will take many, many, MANY years, it’s logically conceived that entire generations of humans won’t do anything but sleeping and getting sustenance through cables.
Like The Matrix but without stealing energy from the hosts, but actually, in the tale you aren’t explained how the vessel gets its energy to function. Mmh.
Orion is about to “retire” of his Monitor Duty due reaching the selected age, and he is starting to think about what he did in “life” and what he is supposed to do from now on.
It’s a smart tale with wonderful narrative, but without much “space” to be developed in the restraint boundaries of a short story. Once you’re confortable in the story, it ended.
Still a good reading. -
This is a brilliant short story with a fascinating plot which follows Orion, the human monitor of the Hermes who helps Dan maintain the ship and its inhabitants.
Despite being so short, the story grips you from the start with a compelling protagonist who is quickly approaching his due date for being replaced. He takes matters into his own hands and suddenly questions authority.
This is a beautifully crafted short story with a fantastic concept, a great sci-fi story. I'd 100% recommend reading this, I loved it! -
This Long Vigil is a 2015 science fiction short story by author Rhett Bruno that blends elements of Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke into a very good shorter work.
The Interstellar Ark Hermes is a generational ship travelling at less than light speed to a colonial destination of Tau Ceti. There are exactly 1,000 passengers on board, all but one kept in fluid hibernation chambers. In anticipation of one dying, the onboard computer and captain has a female impregnated. When the anticipated death (recycling) occurs, at exactly age seventy, the newborn child is born and placed in the old tube only minutes before abandoned by the dying passenger.
At each moment of the long voyage there are 999 people in the tanks and one passenger, the Human Monitor, is awake and providing assistance to the onboard computer. The protagonist, Orion, the sixth Monitor in the voyage, has a day left before he turns fifty and must re-enter his one empty tank after selecting his replacement.
But Orion has roamed the empty corridors of the ship alone for thirty years, assisting births, deaths and recyclings, and seeing the faces of his fellow colonists age along with his own. He knows that the journey will last longer than twenty more years and that when he enters his tube for hibernation sleep, he will never awaken.
It is this existential conundrum that Bruno provides as a setting to his story. Orion must decide whether to violate the ship’s programming somehow or to quietly resign to his fate.
Fans of the 2016 Morten Tyldum film Passengers starring Jennifer Lawrence may like this.
An excellent SF short story.
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I am an aficionado of the
Generation Ship subgenre of SF. This short work is in that bailiwick; I was given it by its author some five years ago.
I've now read this concise fiction twice, at different inflection points in my life...first when trying to figure out how to rebuild my sense of self in the wake of the worst mental-health crisis of my life, now looking at the plainly visible (if still comfortingly distant) "The End" sign.
Both times it has spoken to me with a palliative affect in its voice, an "I understand" tone that genuinely eases my unsettledness. Quite an achievement, young Author Bruno. I salute you. -
"In twenty-three hours you will be fifty years old. As you know, I was programmed by my maker to ensure that there is always an able-bodied human on watch - "
Dan runs the ship Hermes, though he needs human help for some tasks. Orion's time as Dan's helper is ending. He needs to choose his successor before he returns to sleep - a sleep that will only end when he reaches age seventy and his body is recycled by the ship.
This is a well-imagined concept turned into a well-written story. We meet a man whose entire life has been spent behind metal walls, his only companion, a computer. Possessing the knowledge that the next time he closes his eyes will be the last, he desperately attempts to savor his remaining hours, all the while wishing for something more.
We all have things we'd like to do before we die. We would all like to control the manner of our deaths. You don't need to be a science fiction fan to love this tale. -
At nineteen pages, this is a cracking little science fiction short story. Very moving; I only wish it had been longer!
If you've not read the author's work before, this would be a good way of dipping your toes in before taking the plunge. -
This is a short story set in the Titanborn universe. It is completely separate from the story unfolding in the novels but mentions a generation Ark by Pervenio corporation.
The thought experiment of humans boarding a ship and travelling through space to a possibly unhabitable planet isn't new. But as usual, the author makes this his own. 18 pages aren't much to give the reader a sense of where they are and to bond with characters, but I find myself having had no troubles at all with either of that. On the contrary, the isolation, cold space, rigid system and preordained destiny all gave a claustrophobic and tragic feel, much like Orion must have felt it.
Thus, although not essential to the novels, do read this and enjoy the world-building and character development (and make sure to read the exceptional novels too). -
A touching and poignant little story of the only man awake on an inter generational ark ship full of sleepers, born in space and destined to die in space, never having met another soul nor lived anywhere outside the confines of the ship.
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BOOK REVIEW: This Long Vigil by Rhett C. Bruno Aboard the Interstellar Arc, Hermes, Orion has spent the last twenty-five years being entertained and educated by Dan, the artificial intelligence that runs the ship and ensures the continued viability of its cargo, only needing human hands occasionally.
As I reached the top of the ladder, zero-g gently lifted my body. I drifted into the space – a tremendous, hollow sphere around which the Living Ring rotated. Rows of plantings and heat lamps wrapped in 360 degree arcs as if I were in a sea of green. Dan’s many appendages tended to the crops, probably using Fish’s remains to fertilize them.
Dan is transporting one thousand people to another star system, some 350 years away from Earth, which has an eighty-three percent chance of being able to harbour human life. Each person on board is suspended in a chamber full of fluid, connected to life-sustaining tubes for oxygen and nourishment from birth to seventy, at which point they are recycled.
When I reached the pregnant inhabitant, I turned my back to her chamber. It never seemed right to me to watch them give birth. The tubes attached to her would lift her legs and spread them so that the spindly apparatus descending from the ceiling could draw out her offspring. When I finally turned around, that metallic arm was lifting a bloody infant up through the opened ceiling. I made sure her readings were satisfactory while I waited for it to disappear. Everything went perfectly, as usual. The red-stained fluid in the chamber was flushed and replaced straight-away, clean as ever.
At any given time, there are 999 people aboard the Hermes living and dying without ever waking up, their ages staggered so as to insure a range of abilities when they reach their destination. One person, a monitor, is allowed to wake for roughly twenty-five years, returning to their slumber once they hit fifty, never to wake again before recycling.
“In twenty-three hours you will be fifty-years-old. As you know, I was programmed by my maker to ensure that there is always an able-bodied human on watch-”“I know that!” I snapped, somewhat unintentionally. Last time he told me it was thirty-seven hours. There was less than one day until my eyes would never open again. It was going by too fast.
Orion, the sixth monitor, isn’t ready to hand over his post just yet. He wants to know another person, he wants to set foot on a planet, he wants to live.And time is running out.
“You only have nineteen hours remaining-”“Stop!” I bellowed, so loud that if the Life-Chambers weren’t filled with liquid I might’ve woken half of the inhabitants outside my quarters. I leaned my head against the cold metal wall beneath the viewport and stopped myself right before my clenched fist slammed into it. “Just stop.”
The rest of this review can be found HERE! -
Do not read the goodreads synopsis, it gives away too much of the story.
Our protagonist Orion is a „monitor“ on a generation ship with 1000 humans in a deep sleep. His sole companion is the ship‘s AI Dan. Orion does menial tasks that Dan can‘t perform himself. Dan serves as his father, friend, teacher, entertainer and sole social contact. Which is why I believe that the story premise is faulty and could never happen like this. Alas, I would spoil you, if I told you more. This is only 20 pages, so have a look yourself. Despite my reservations I enjoyed reading this story. -
Highly entertaining and one of the best narrators out there! Love me some Ray Porter... honestly the only reason why I even stumbled upon it. I so so wish this was longer, would have loved to learn more about Orion!
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Holy shit, this was astonishing. This little book (20 pages) swept me up and then punched me in the gut.
Our main character, Orion, was born on Hermes, an Interstellar Ark (human-farm sent to colonise another planet). He's the one human Monitor who's spent his entire life tending to the lifepods of human cargo. He's watched births and deaths. He lives simply to monitor life, but he's never truly experienced it. He doesn't know what it's like to walk through wet grass, or speak with another human being, see a sunrise, or hold a hand...
There are so many deeper meanings in this deceptive little story, but the main take-home for me, and the one that really hit me hard in the feelz, is what it means to be a human being. We have choices. Our destiny is ours. Fate be damned. Being human means a whole lot more than passing through each day at a time, but only if we grab a hold of opportunity and don't let go.
As Orion says, ''I won’t die dreaming. After seeing all of this, how could I ever go back to sleep?'
Go get this book. It's 20 pages. 99c. Buy it. Read it. It will make you a better human being. -
Review: HIS LONG VIGIL by Rhett C. Bruno
A delightful science fiction vivifying the stultifying sameness of a lengthy interstellar voyage, HIS LONG VIGIL is endearing, saddening, but in my viewpoint has a happy ending. This is the space version of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust." The Hermes is an ark ship, ferrying exactly 999 slumbering passengers throughout space, on a colonizing mission from Earth to Tau Ceti. 998 remain in stasis, while one is awakened by the AI every three decades to act as human custodian. Our protagonist, within hours of reaching age 50, decides not to "go gently into that good night" [Dylan Thomas] and instead to decide his life for himself. -
I received a copy of this short story from the author in exchange for an honest review, and boy am I glad I did
Life. The answer is life.
Wow, what a fantastic Science Fiction story. Only 18 pages long, it sweeps you off your feet and right into space! I loved it, I really truly loved this story. I read it very quickly, but then I read it again a little slower this time. It has this eerie 2001: A Space Odyssey feeling to it, what with Orion's conversations with Dan, which I found fascinating and gripping.
In just a few pages, I found myself incredibly invested with Orion's future, you feel nervous for him, but you also feel quick bursts of happiness and sadness all at once. You know the outcome, but you convince yourself there'll be a different one. A complex, yet simple sci-fi novel that deals with the psychology of human life and the need to live it and experience it to the very end. It shows different aspects of human life as opposed to Dan, the ship's computer.
The story revolves around the Interstellar Ark, Hermes, that is heading towards the star system Tau Ceti that the Pervenio Corporation says has a 83% chance of supporting life, and this mission requires a 1000 years to reach its destination. In this time, there are 999 humans in different stages of growth and age sleeping in life chambers watched over by Dan, and one human who is awakened at the age of 25 to assist Dan in the mission.
But there's a catch, there's always a catch.
Once this human reaches 50 years of age, he is put back to sleep, after choosing his successor to take over his duties in assisting Dan. Once put back to sleep in the life chambers, they are kept alive until they reach the age of 70 and then they are "recycled". Orion has approximately 23 hours left before he turns 50 and is expected to pick his successor and go back to sleep to - quite literally - await his death. He finds himself getting more and more restless as the clock ticks. He's not ready. He tries to speak to Dan, to open up to him...but Dan is only a computer.
This emotional aspect was quite profound in my opinion, and highlighted so strongly that you get frustrated for him and almost want to reach out to give him a hug.
Orion's strong urge to live almost overpowers him, and the way it ends is quite incredible. A fantastic emotional journey through space that will take your very breath away.
I also really enjoyed all the riddles scattered throughout. -
It's life, Jim.
Intriguing short story with strong influences of Philip K. Dick and Arthur C. Clarke. As the story sets out to do, I got a good impression of the future as imagined by Mr Bruno. For my taste, I like a bit more description when reading science fiction and fantasy. Not too much, but just enough to fill in those uninhabited corners of the ship. I expect that level of detail comes out in the novels. The brevity of the story should appeal to readers who like a plot with a steady tempo. This one is refreshingly about the human condition, rather than laser guns and slimy green aliens. -
Great short read. Started and finished it on a lunch break.
The story expresses the base human need to explore and break free of the chains that hold us down.
Bruno delivers. -
This short story reminded me a bit of the film “Moon” – a lone human being (Orion) and an AI robot/computer (Dan) in space, this time travelling through space rather than stuck on the moon. Orion is not actually the only human on board the ship, but he is the only human conscious, as all others are in suspended animation, awaiting wakening for duty as a monitor (to succeed Orion) or at the arrival of the ship at its ultimate destination.
Orion’s stretch of duty is nearing its end, and he starts to question his existence and his future. Dan – as a programmed AI – is unable to contemplate any activity outside the prescribed course of action.
Humans, by nature, are curious, and gregarious – even when evolving in a sheltered environment. So, it is no wonder that the Long Vigil does not go as planned.
I listened to an audio copy of this book provided by the author, and also read the short story on my kindle. The audio book was well presented, with one narrator reading both Dan and Orion’s parts. Dan’s voice had the repetitious, unemotional cadence that one nowadays associates with computer generated beings, as heard in many Scifi films and TV series. Orion’s voice appears at first also unemotional, due to his many years with only Dan for company, but near the end – the speed of his voice varies – and the supressed emotion is finally exposed.
I did like the audio format for this short story, but generally prefer to read books rather than listen to them. I would give both formats five stars.
I received this audio copy from the author in exchange for an honest review -
June 2023
Audiobook edition
56m (1.3x speed)
Now this one I liked. A father son relationship between man and ship ai, solving riddles and keeping the ship going. I liked both Dan and Orion. It was heartbreaking how close they were but the MC is reaching fifty, needing to pick a successor before he goes into stasis, essentially death. Dan's tactless countdown gave urgency and a clinical feel to the situation. Instead of doing as he's told, Orion rebels and takes matters into his own hands, choosing his own death. It would've been nice to know what Dan had said. -
*Audible audio *
Narration and story: 4 stars 🌟 🤩 -
I like to read a variety of books, looking for a gem. I found one. Orion is a man aboard the spaceship Hermes. His sole purpose is to assist the Artificial Intelligence, named Dan, that actually runs the ship. Orion is fast approaching the end of his usefulness, age 50, and will be replaced by a new assistant. 20 pages, beautiful story.
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This is why I love science fiction!
This Long Vigil follows Orion's last hours as Monitor on the Interstellar Ark "Hermes", who, like the summary says, is scheduled to be placed back in his hibernation chamber, knowing he will die there. He knows he wants more than to die without seeing space again but to do that he'll have to go against his only friend, whihc is the artificial intelligence of the ship, Dan.
I honestly think that this story is one of the best short stories I've ever read. It's only twenty pages long but there's a message behind it and other than that it was just really good. I wish more stories, whether or not they're short stories of full-lenght novels, were like it.
If you think a twenty-page story isn't worth it, think again because This Long Vigil by Rhett C. Bruno is so much more than just a short sci-fi story. It was well-written, the message behind it was a great one and it definitely has me intrigued for Titanborn, which takes place in the same universe.
All I can say is: Read this story! -
Great short story that really adds to the series. This Long Vigil tells the story of what life is like for the lone monitor of the Ark ship Hermes. Each monitor serves for 25 years before the job is passed along to another. It's a very lonely existence with no one other than Dan, the ship's AI, to keep you company. I prejudged this book thinking it wouldn't be as good as the rest of the series because of a different narrator. My judgement was wrong! Justin Thomas James did a fantastic job with the narration! He did a great job with the voice of the AI as well!
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Just loved it and I generally don't like short stories.
The story: On an ark ship filled with hibernating colonists one individual is chosen as Monitor to stay awake to tend to the machinery, make repairs and such. His or her only companion is an artificial intelligence. This Monitor is not the first. His successor will not be the last. At the age of 50, each custodian is put back into hibernation and eventually disposed of.
This story is about this Monitor's thoughts on life as he approaches his end of service.
I will probably read this short story again. -
This short isn't really a story, but more of a study of humanity. Which, lets be honest, isn't a lot of sci-fi?
Anywho. It wasn't bad, it wasn't good. It just was. At least to me at the moment. I never once cringed or thought it was bad, tho, and it did hold my attention all the way through, which is a good plus these days! -
⭐️3.5⭐️
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Great short story. Excellent narration.
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"This Long Vigil" is the perfect short story. While the voyage of the ark ship Hermes does raise questions I’d love to see answered in a longer tale, the glimpse we have is succinct.
Orion is nearing the end of his twenty-five year vigil as the only human attendant aboard the ark ship Hermes. With only hours of remaining before he returns to his hibernation chamber, Orion begins to identify the restlessness that has plagued his last days. He knows his duty as it is all he’s known. He was born to serve the ship and when he returns to his tank, he will live out his usefulness until he is recycled and replaced.
His existence is so narrow and yet he begins to ask the most human of questions: Is this all there is? He wants more. However, ‘more’ entails putting aside all he has been taught and betraying the only friend and companion he has, Dan, the artificial intelligence designed to operate the ship.
"This Long Vigil" is a poignant story. From the very beginning, Orion’s voice feels personal. He’s thoughtful and engaging and he asks the questions I would if I were in the same position. His desire to see more, do more, is tangible without being angst-ridden or overly dramatic.
The riddles posed by Dan throughout have been carefully chosen to both prick and drive the narrative forward. Each one touches on Orion’s restlessness and search for meaning. I loved this aspect of the story. Then we have the world-building, which is a tricky proposition in a short story. You want to convey enough to set the scene and tone, but not so much it overbalances a simple tale. I particularly like stories with a setting that would have me reaching for another story if available. ‘The Long Vigil’ manages to accomplish all this.
I’m familiar with Rhett C. Bruno’s talent from The Circuit trilogy. This story only makes me eager to read more of his work.
Reviewed for
SFCrowsnest.
