I was thinking about this again today, about this short story plopped in the middle of the five part trilogy collection. It has been years since I last went through Adam's work, but it is perhaps one of the more core aesthetics which I enjoy. It is like G.K. Chesterton's "Manalive" (which I also plan to reread soon) about taking a long detour of adventures with the end goal of seeing how the sandblasting and erosion of the journey will serve to allow you to see your home again in a new light and fresh delight of being alive.
The Adams short story is constructed by a slow reveal, badly and frustratingly conveyed in the middle of a hysterical rant. A core idea of a self fulfilling loop of "short sighted spite perhaps leading to an inevitable crisis" of the future is plundering the past, so the present wants to screw them both by collecting all available fuel reserves for a one way trip into a black hole? It being derailed by a pilot who craves hometown seafood? It is absurd. It is a squandering of its premise's potential in pettiness. But it can be read as a joke itself to do so. Maybe whatever was being transported might not have been as great as blowing it all up in a San Diego fireworks show, with the camera focused on the blankets instead of the sky. This story is always better in my memory than the act of reading it.
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