The Day the World Turned Upside Down

"The Day The World Turned Upside Down" is a magical realism[1] story by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, first published in 2012 in Dutch as "De Vis in de Fles" (literally, "The Fish in the Bottle"); the English version (translated by Lia Belt)[2] appeared on Lightspeed in 2014.

Synopsis

Shortly after Sophie tells Toby that their relationship is over, the world is devastated by the direction of gravity being reversed, and so he sets out through the wreckage in an attempt to rescue her.

Reception

"De Vis in de Fles" won the 2013 Paul Harland Prize.[3]

"The Day the World Turned Upside Down" won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Novelette,[2] having been added to the ballot to replace John C. Wright's "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus", which had been ruled ineligible.[4] Io9 noted that it was the only nominee that year whose presence on the ballot could not be attributed to the Sad Puppies, and emphasized that second place went to "No Award".[5]

Tangent Online lauded the prose as "strange and haunting", but observed that Toby was "too selfish" for the story to be enjoyable, and that although the story was "definitely an interesting concept" (as a literalized metaphor, "Toby's physical world mirror(s) his mental world that is turned upside down by his breakup"), it also "dragged on a bit".[6]

References
  1. Author Interview: Thomas Olde Heuvelt, at Lynn's Books; published April 30, 2016; retrieved December 27, 2018; "I always considered it to be a story of magical-realism, not science fiction"
  2. 2015 Hugo Awards, at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved December 26, 2018
  3. Complete uitslag van de Paul Harland Prijs 2012, by Martijn Lindeboom, at HarlandAwards.eu; published February 10, 2013; retrieved December 26, 2018
  4. Sasquan Replaces Two Ineligible Nominees on Hugo Ballot, by Mike Glyer, at File 770; published April 13, 2015; retrieved December 27, 2018
  5. This Is What The 2015 Hugo Ballot Should Have Been, by Andrew Liptak, at Io9; published August 23, 2015; retrieved December 26, 2018
  6. Lightspeed #47, April 2014, by Charles Payseur, at Tangent Online; published April 1, 2014; retrieved December 26, 2018
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