“Ninety-five Percent Safe” by Caroline M. Yoachim is an Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine Readers’ Awards Finalist in the short story category. It was originally published in Asimov’s January 2015 issue. Currently, this story and most of the other finalists are available to read for free on the Readers’ Awards Finalists page at Asimov’s.
Loved it. It’s going to be difficult to choose a winner from the marvellous stories I have read so far for the Asimov’s Readers’ Award.
This tells the story of a future earth, where people live overcrowded under domes to protect them from the nuclear winter. Many are travelling through wormholes to colonise a new planet. One young girl wants to follow her friend there but her mother doesn’t want to take the risk. Five percent of people don’t make it through the wormhole. Can’t tell you any more.
What did I learn? That I will never be good enough to compete with this quality of storytelling. Oh well, I’ll just have to keep practising.