Schwarzschild Radius by Connie Willis

That is one mighty stache.

I’m a little confused about the decision to include Schwarzschild Radius by Connie Willis in The Big Book of Science Fiction (edited by Jeff VanderMeer). It really doesn’t have the usual fingerprints of the genre. Honestly, it reads far more like historical fiction than sci-fi. Sure, there are mentions of astrophysics, black holes, and even a letter from Einstein, but that’s pretty much where the science-fiction angle begins and ends.

The bulk of the story is devoted to the grim, claustrophobic horrors of WWI trench warfare. The narrator recounts his time at the front to a scientist named Travers, who’s researching Karl Schwarzschild, a famous German physicist whose work shaped Einstein’s theory of relativity and who died during the war. The protagonist’s connection to Schwarzschild comes from a chance encounter in the communication trenches, where he and his comrade Müller huddled under freezing skies and barbed wire.

Travers is absolutely riveted by the tale for the sake of his paper. Me? Not so much. I kept waiting for some striking sci-fi twist or bigger speculative element, but it never really materializes. As a piece of historical fiction, it’s decent enough. The biggest takeaway was learning Schwarzschild's influence on Einstein and his theories of gravity without knowing black holes existed (hence, the title). 

Cool, cool.