Upstart
4 stars
Remember that it is your obligation to die before the end of your legal life.
Lu Ban's Upstart is a dystopian novelette about the government giving people the opportunity to be paid a lot of money in exchange for half of their lifespan in order to curtail population growth.
This story does a lot of worldbuilding through the eyes of one such Upstart who has taken this deal. It doesn't overtly tie overpopulation worries to fascism, but it is very explicit about how these "new money" upstarts are very much second class undesirable citizens in the eyes of this world.
This is what I love out of short fiction: a good hook, some worldbuilding, and a sharp ending--pondering personal questions of the value of life and what makes life worth living while also having a capitalist twist of the knife.
