THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE by Robert Reed

Robert Reed is amazing and one of the most prolific science fiction authors ever.

Most of the stories that I have read by Reed have been his stories that were published, almost monthly, in Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine. His writing is amazing and I learn so much about writing with each and every story. I will cover more than just one story in Reed’s collection The Cuckoo’s Boys; however, the first will be The Children’s Crusade.

The Children’s Crusade is a story of human passion and drive. There have been many missions to land humanity on the cold red soil of Mars; they have all failed for one reason or another. This is story of the successful mission.

The successful mission begins with the dream of child named Philippe Rule. However, the story is told by an uncle of Tom, one of the believers. I love this perspective, which seems twice removed from the action. This voice gives the story an eerie feeling of mistrust as small discoveries are made through out the story.

The story is full of technology that seamlessly fits in with the plot and action of the story rather than distracting from it. The key piece is something called Web Mars, a virtual play ground for children where they learn about Mars, math, science, while playing games and solving puzzles. By the end of the story, the puzzles are all that matters to Tom and the believers. Solving them is a kind of a competition, all of Web Mars is a competition; children competing to see who will be chosen to actually voyage to the plant Mars.

What eats at me is how smoothly the craft of the story is hidden. I didn’t notice anyone craft tool sticking out, character, plot, details, etc, are all working in concert to make a great story. This should be my goal, the goal of any fiction writer. The craft should not distract from the experience.

The artistic style of pointillism comes to mind. When you stand back, the painting looks complete, crystal clear. So to is this story; however, with pointillism you can get close up and see what the artist was doing. As a writer, it is my job to get up close and see how it all works.

I think that the two most interesting pieces of craft going on in this story are the point of view and the why that time is handled. I’ve touched on the point of view a little but a lot of time passes in these 28 pages, about 8 years.

The story begins with Tom as young boy who does not want presents for Christmas, only money. Tom wants to donate to the Mars program so that he will be considered in the voyage lottery. Then time speeds up, but it is not abrupt or jarring. In the text, there are formal breaks, but at the beginning of each new section there are signifiers that help the reader know that a jump into the future has taken place. They are simple and unspecific, like the narrators daughter, who was being born at the beginning of the story who is 8 by the end. As the story moves through time, the reader is able to keep track by watching her age.

Not to belabor the point of view, but it is really amazing how it works. Again, the narrator is Tom’s uncle, which is that of first person witness. The narrator does not change because the story is not his own. The story is that of the Mars program as seen through the eyes of Tom’s uncle and experienced by Tom and Tom’s uncle’s daughter, Very. However, no matter how badly Tom desires to really see Mars, it is Very who gets to go. This is shocking and inexplicable to narrator. And by the end of the story, the reader realizes why this story is being told and why it is being told by this narrator at this time. This is story of how a father looses his daughter to The Children’s Crusade.

I’m really looking forward to getting into the rest of Reed’s collection. However, if you don’t want to pick up the book, you can read this amazing story online here: The Children’s Crusade.

Reed, Robert. “The Children’s Crusade.” The Cuckoo’s Boys. Urbana, IL: Golden Gryphon Press, 2005. p 15 - 43

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