Emergency Skin - Misplaced Pages

Science-fiction novellete

Emergency Skin
Cover to Emergency Skin
Author	N. K. Jemisin
Audio read by	Jason Isaacs
Language	English
Series	Forward
Genre	Science fiction
Publisher	Amazon Original Stories
Publication date	September 17, 2019
Pages	33
Awards	Hugo Award, Audie Award, Ignyte Award

Emergency Skin is a science fiction novelette written by N. K. Jemisin. The story was first published by Amazon Original Stories as part of the Forward short fiction collection in September 2019. The story was well received, and it was awarded a Hugo Award, an Audie Award (for the audiobook), and an Ignyte Award in 2020.

Plot

The unnamed protagonist lives on an exoplanet colony that was founded when the collapse of life on Earth (called Tellus in the story) was deemed inevitable. He, like all other lower-class people in the colony, has a synthetic body rather than skin, which is reserved for the colony's "Founders" and other elite. Aided by a collective AI implanted in his brain, he is sent on a mission to Tellus to retrieve HeLa cell cultures that his planet needs to survive.

However, when he arrives there, he discovers that Earth is lush and beautiful, not the lifeless husk he was led to believe, and that he is far from the first of his kind to come there on a cell culture mission. He is surprised to see the diversity of Earth's population, including women, the disabled, and the elderly, which his world does not tolerate. Fascinated by this and the altruism he experiences, instead of returning to his ship with the cells, he activates his "emergency skin," a layer of nanites that form synthetic skin, and stays on Earth to learn more.

An old man brings him to a museum and shows him what happened after the Founders left the planet to form their colony: everyone left on Earth abandoned country borders and individual property, pooling all their resources and working together to prevent the planet's destruction. The protagonist realizes that the Founders deliberately kept this information from everyone else on the colony so that they could continue to hoard resources as the elite, and that they kill everyone who returns from missions to Earth so that they cannot tell anyone the truth. Furthermore, the cell cultures are needed by his planet's elites in order to maintain their immortality, not just for their survival. The story ends with him disabling the collective AI in his brain and resolving to return to his colony to start a revolution against the Founders.

Reception

Kirkus Reviews called it a subversive story that "shatters all expectations". AudioFile reviewer Emily Connelly found that the brief story cleverly conveyed both alarm and curiosity as to how the thriving society story could sustain itself. She also praised the audio performance of Jason Isaacs for immersing listeners in the story as if they were on the mission as well, giving it an Earphone Award for the month. The story was later collected in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Vol 1: The Saga Anthology of Science Fiction 2020 as well, where Publishers Weekly highlighted it as a standout of the "year's best" anthology.

Accolades

In 2020, Emergency Skin received the following awards and nominations:

Award	Result	Ref.
Audie Award for Science Fiction	Won
Hugo Award for Best Novelette	Won
Ignyte Award for Best Novelette	Won
Locus Award for Best Novelette	Nominated

References

"EMERGENCY SKIN | Kirkus Reviews". Kirkus Reviews. September 16, 2019.
Connelly, Emily (October 2019). "EMERGENCY SKIN by NK Jemisin Read by Jason Isaacs | Audiobook Review". AudioFile Magazine.
"Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Book Review: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol 1: The Saga Anthology of Science Fiction 2020 by Edited by Jonathan Strahan. Saga, $17.99 trade paper (608p) ISBN 978-1-5344-4959-6". Publishers Weekly. July 13, 2020.
Maher, John (March 3, 2020). "A Buoyant 2020 Audie Awards Celebrates 'The Only Plane in the Sky,' Stephen King". Publishers Weekly.
"2020 Hugo, Lodestar, and Astounding Awards Winners". Locus Online. August 1, 2020. Retrieved September 30, 2021.
Tejada, Andrew (October 17, 2020). "Announcing the Winners of the Inaugural Ignyte Awards!". Tor.com.
"N. K. Jemisin Awards". Science Fiction Awards Database. Locus Science Fiction Foundation. Retrieved September 30, 2021.

v t e Works by N. K. Jemisin
The Inheritance Trilogy	The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (2010) The Broken Kingdoms (2010) The Kingdom of Gods (2011)
Broken Earth series	The Fifth Season (2015) The Obelisk Gate (2016) The Stone Sky (2017)
Great Cities series	The City We Became (2020) The World We Make (2022)
Short fiction	"Non-Zero Probabilities" (2009) How Long 'til Black Future Month? (2018) Emergency Skin (2019)
Other	The Killing Moon (2012) The Shadowed Sun (2012) Mass Effect: Andromeda Initiation (2017) Far Sector (2019–20)

v t e Hugo Award for Best Novelette
Retro Hugos	"Rule 18" by Clifford D. Simak (1939) "The Roads Must Roll" by Robert A. Heinlein (1941) "Foundation" by Isaac Asimov (1943) "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" by Lewis Padgett (1944) "First Contact" by Murray Leinster (1946) "The Little Black Bag" by Cyril M. Kornbluth (1951) "Earthman, Come Home" by James Blish (1954)
1955–1960	"The Darfsteller" by Walter M. Miller Jr. (1955) "Exploration Team" by Murray Leinster (1956) "The Big Time" by Fritz Leiber (1958) "The Big Front Yard" by Clifford D. Simak (1959)
1967–1980	"The Last Castle" by Jack Vance (1967) "Gonna Roll the Bones" by Fritz Leiber (1968) "The Sharing of Flesh" by Poul Anderson (1969) "Goat Song" by Poul Anderson (1973) "The Deathbird" by Harlan Ellison (1974) "Adrift Just Off the Islets of Langerhans: Latitude 38° 54' N, Longitude 77° 00' 13" W" by Harlan Ellison (1975) "The Borderland of Sol" by Larry Niven (1976) "The Bicentennial Man" by Isaac Asimov (1977) "Eyes of Amber" by Joan D. Vinge (1978) "Hunter's Moon" by Poul Anderson (1979) "Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin (1980)
1981–1990	"The Cloak and the Staff" by Gordon R. Dickson (1981) "Unicorn Variation" by Roger Zelazny (1982) "Fire Watch" by Connie Willis (1983) "Blood Music" by Greg Bear (1984) "Bloodchild" by Octavia E. Butler (1985) "Paladin of the Lost Hour" by Harlan Ellison (1986) "Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny (1987) "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight" by Ursula K. Le Guin (1988) "Schrödinger's Kitten" by George Alec Effinger (1989) "Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another" by Robert Silverberg (1990)
1991–2000	"The Manamouki" by Mike Resnick (1991) "Gold" by Isaac Asimov (1992) "The Nutcracker Coup" by Janet Kagan (1993) "Georgia on My Mind" by Charles Sheffield (1994) "The Martian Child" by David Gerrold (1995) "Think Like a Dinosaur" by James Patrick Kelly (1996) "Bicycle Repairman" by Bruce Sterling (1997) "We Will Drink a Fish Together..." by Bill Johnson (1998) "Taklamakan" by Bruce Sterling (1999) "10 to 1" by James Patrick Kelly (2000)
2001–2010	"Millennium Babies" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (2001) "Hell Is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang (2002) "Slow Life" by Michael Swanwick (2003) "Legions in Time" by Michael Swanwick (2004) "The Faery Handbag" by Kelly Link (2005) "Two Hearts" by Peter S. Beagle (2006) "The Djinn's Wife" by Ian McDonald (2007) "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang (2008) "Shoggoths in Bloom" by Elizabeth Bear (2009) "The Island" by Peter Watts (2010)
2011–2020	"The Emperor of Mars" by Allen Steele (2011) "Six Months, Three Days" by Charlie Jane Anders (2012) "The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi" by Pat Cadigan (2013) "The Lady Astronaut of Mars", by Mary Robinette Kowal (2014) "The Day the World Turned Upside Down" by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, translated by Lia Belt (2015) "Folding Beijing" by Hao Jingfang (2016) "The Tomato Thief" by Ursula Vernon (2017) "The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer (2018) "If at First You Don't Succeed, Try, Try Again" by Zen Cho (2019) "Emergency Skin" by N. K. Jemisin (2020)
2021–present	"Two Truths and a Lie" by Sarah Pinsker (2021) "Bots of the Lost Ark" by Suzanne Palmer (2022) "The Space-Time Painter" by Hai Ya (2023) "The Year Without Sunshine" by Naomi Kritzer (2024)

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