One of the short stories I will be releasing soon is almost ready to roll. Nevertheless, I’m nervous.

I had a very unexpected critique. Having never read The Marann, and unaware of a lot of things about Tolari culture which I all-too-often take for granted, the author of the critique blindsided me with a strong negative reaction to the main character’s interactions with a small child. It left me scrambling in confusion.

I know the main character is trustworthy. I know there is almost no crime on Tolar, much less that kind of crime, because the Tolari are empaths — if you’re up to no good, everybody around you knows it. You can’t get away with harming the innocent. You can’t hide that kind of mental illness.

I could throw up all kinds of safeguards in the story — but the Tolari wouldn’t have thought to do any of them. Putting them in there would only soothe the human concerns of the reader, concerns foreign to a Tolari parent. The whole point of speculative fiction is to explore what things would be like if you change something we take for granted. What would things be like if you had never met anyone twisted enough to harm a child?

What you’ll be worried about, as a Tolari parent, is if the other adult is alert enough to keep your child from doing something to harm herself. Let’s face it, children will be children. They do foolish, dangerous things because they don’t know better. And that’s the real danger of leaving your child with a babysitter. The little imp could fall out of a tree while the sitter isn’t paying attention.

I just hope I make that clear enough.