Distantly Falling Stars
Berengaria Di Rossi
It is good to be underestimated... Or is it?
Berengaria Di Rossi's Distantly Falling Stars is a free story on Wattpad, that won the grand prize in a contest. It's described as a novella, but at 21,000 words, I'm inclined to call it, oxymoronically, a long short story. I don't really know what Wattpad is, and this is, as far as I know, the only Wattpad story I have ever read. It's a Bronzepunk story. If, like me, you have never heard of Bronzepunk, you will appreciate Di Rossi's explanation
Bronze Punk is technology-based sci-fi set in Ancient Egypt. The plot and characters of this story are historically accurate to the time period (12th dynasty, Middle Kingdom), but the story features magic and a more advanced technology than they actually had at the time.
(Apparently one cannot copy and paste from a Wattpad page -- very annoying.) So Bronzepunk is to Bronze Age Egypt as steampunk is to Industrial Revolution England.
The story, broadly speaking, is a familiar one. Our hero is Seti, an ordinary scribe whose job is to transcribe reports coming into a sort of information ministry, collect all the information, and make sense of it. He is a common man. He is drafted by powerful people related to Pharaoh to play a part in their schemes. They intend him to be the typical mushroom: keep him in the dark and feed him what mushrooms are fed.
But Seti is smarter than the plotters expect.
This is an old story: the fool whom powerful people try to take advantage of, but who turns out not to be such a fool as he appears. It's one I usually enjoy, and did in this case. If I have a complaint, it is that I didn't really understand the plots and counterplots that form the background for Seti's story.