Bottom Feeding by Tim Pratt

“Bottom Feeding” is a 2005 science fiction short story by Tim Pratt. It is about a depressed grad student who tries to catch a huge catfish in the pond behind his house.

A Long Lost Story

Early on in the life of this blog I read Tim Pratt’s “Impossible Dreams” – what a great story! Ever since then I have been a big fan of his stories as well as his story-telling style. Thus I wasn’t too surprised when I discovered that a story I read in Asimov’s several years ago was written by him. I’ve been looking for “Bottom Feeding” for a while now, and was elated to discover an audio version of it at PodCastle.org.

Garbage Fish?

So, “Bottom Feeding” is a story about Graden – a graduate student whose brother recently died in a motorcycle accident. That incident wasn’t too good for Graden’s life, which is starting to fall apart as he spends huge swaths of times moping around and neglecting his duties. So when he discovers a giant catfish living in the pond behind his house he sets out to try and catch it. That turns out to be more difficult than it sounds, and to make matters even worse the fish eats all the sentimental items Graden throws into the pond and returns them with long-lost items from his past! Stupid catfish!

My Two Cents…

Even though this story isn’t very science-fiction-y I couldn’t help but review it here because it is just so dang good! (Oh, and it originally appeared in Asimov’s – so that’s all the prodding I needed!) Tim Pratt’s descriptions are mesmerizing, and the way this story flows is awesome. I think that may have something to do with how the author doesn’t spoon-feed us every little detail, and leaves some key points for us to figure out on our own. A great technique which works like a charm in this story. The ending seemed a little abrupt, but it fit well with the story and savvy readers will have a pretty good idea how it all turns out anyway. If you are fan of Tim Pratt’s stories, like “Impossible Dreams” and “Artifice and Intelligence” then you will most likely enjoy this one too. Be sure to check out Tim Pratt’s web site for a list of his other free stories.

Stats:

• My Rating: 4.9 out of 5
• Audio Length: 44 minutes
• Originally published in the August 2005 edition of Asimov’s Science Fiction.
• Reprinted in Tim Pratt’s award winning short story collection Hart & Boot & Other Stories.
• Listen to “Bottom Feeding” for free at PodCastle.org

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