Recommended by Rachel Swirsky (link)
“The best story in this issue is “Tethered,” by Mercurio D. Rivera. It is the story of a species that is unaccountably attracted to humans, attracted even against their will. For some reason humans make them feel especially good. Some members of the alien species believe this to result in a sort of slavery, so that the two species are secretly at war. Others give in to the servility that biology urges upon them. But at its base, the story questions whether true friendship is possible between two species with such an odd biological relationship. The story carefully works through all the consequences of the biology of the two species in a way that is the essence of sociological science fiction. I would not be surprised to find this story on award ballots next year.” — Fantasy Literature
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“Mercurio D. Rivera finishes this issue with ‘Tethered’, another in the author’s series of Wergen stories, which also featured in issue 235. The Wergen are an alien creature that is enslaved against their will by the biological addiction to human pheromones so that they love to please humans, even against their better judgement. On the shores of Saturn’s moon Titan, a young girl befriends a young female Wergen and we are shown the peculiar way that the Wergen mate. Rivera has created a compelling series of stories and ‘Tethered’ is a potent new addition that fleshes it out further. I feel one of the Wergen stories could be a contender come awards time.” — SF Crow’s Nest
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“Tethered’ from Mercurio D. Rivera is another story set in his future universe where humans have teamed up with the alien Wergen who had given human access to their system and the rest of the galaxy. Cara first meets the Wergen Beatrix when they are both young and the story follows their friendship as they grow up. The Wergen have a strange-to-human-eyes mating ritual; they seek out the most genetically compatible Wergen and then their tendrils lock the pair together and they begin to merge. Beatrix’s brother tried to stay as far away from Cara as possible for the Wergen were induced into a sort of pheromone induced slavery but when he and his sister prove to be the best genetic match available, Cara tries to make friends with him as well. This tale is less pleasant in some ways than ‘For Love’s Delirium Haunts the Fractured Mind’ but in focusing less on the pheromones it felt less squicky.” — John Fair
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“Humans are studying a new species called The Wergen and they are puzzled by its lack of gender specifics, and find it hard to categorize at first, but they plod on with their research and their experiments. In-between the story are excerpts from a medical journal about what the studies have revealed so far. Cara and Beatrix get on with the bots and the other people where they are stationed.
I enjoyed this story of sexuality and procreation, but also the way in which alien beings went to the next stage of evolution. For these aliens, being tethered is the most wonderful thing that can happen to them, and … this is one of the best in the magazine” — SF Site
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“Another Wergen story by Rivera, ‘Tethered’, features in the September/October Interzone, #236. This one examines the peculiar mating dynamics of the Wergen through the lens of a friendship between a young Wergen girl and a young human girl, a friendship doomed when the Wergen girl comes of age, and it manages to generate a strong emotional charge by the end.” — Gardner Dozois for Locus
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“The aptly named Mercurio D. Rivera contributed my other favorite, “Tethered” a multi-layered, nuanced tale that is part of his Wergen continuum. The central premise of these stories is that the alien Wergens are benighted by biochemistry: they can’t help falling in love with any human they meet in the worst case of pheromone based co-dependence ever. This is a fascinating concept!” — The Nameless Zine reviews YBSF 17
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“Quite a few stories reflect a feminine perspective. ‘Tethered,’ by Mercurio D. Rivera, describes a species in which marriage is fatal for the passive partner who quite literally absorbed by the dominant mate. Rivera has taken feminism to a whole new level.” — The Iron Mountain Daily News reviews YBSF 17
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“I see evidence here of a continued resurgence of adult SF stories with youthful protagonists, including several of the better stories in this volume…. Mercurio Rivera’s ‘Tethered’ is an eerily strange coming-of-age story set on Titan where humans intimately interact with aliens living among them.” — SF Site’s review of YBSF 17
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