[On May 10, 2021 Strange Horizons officially expressed its political support for Palestinian solidarity. The views of Tangent Online reviewers are not necessarily those of Strange Horizons. Fiction critiqued at Tangent Online is, as much as is humanly possible, without prejudice and based solely on artistic merit.]

Strange Horizons, September 20, 2021

“Motivation Augmentation” by Clara Ward

Reviewed by Tara Grímravn

This week’s issue of Strange Horizons brings to the table a piece of SF flash fiction by Clara Ward titled “Motivation Augmentation.” The tale takes place in an unknown future, set on a lunar mining station. There, Jaysee reports to the decontamination station after emerging from the mine. For reasons unknown to the reader, this 100-orbit indentured servitude is intended to make amends for some crime, the alternate penalty for which was death. As Jaysee undergoes the decontamination process, they think of their lover, Esvee, who waits for them back home. But how much is the augmentation and how much is real, organic memory?

Ward’s story is less than 600 words in length, and it can be difficult to fully develop a story line in that short a word count. That’s more or less the case with this story. Although it falls within the SF genre, the focus is not really centered on the futuristic setting. I’d like to say it’s more about the human experience, but I can’t quite say that, either. There just isn’t too much to grab on to in this story.

From the third paragraph onward, as soon as Jaysee acknowledges that the memory of Esvee’s proclamation of love and fidelity could simply be part of the augmentation, and that they had no recollection of how much of their 100-orbit sentence they had left to serve, it became obvious that the rest of the story would imply that this “love” was falsely introduced into their memories in order to keep them trapped in servitude and subject to the whims of a faceless, nameless organization. Of course, the title itself also gives this away, as well.
For the most part, none of this would be too much of a problem if it weren’t for the fact that nothing really happens in the story overall, and we aren’t given enough information to really make a connection to Jaysee in order to care. We don’t know anything about their past aside from a potentially false memory of Esvee or that they may have committed a crime that landed them in this situation. Unfortunately, this story was a miss for me.