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This review is for the Nebula Award-nominated short story “The Eight-Thousanders�� by Jason Sanford:
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It was around 2019 that there was a sudden explosion of stories about the huge lines of (sometimes in sufficiently skilled) climbers waiting for hours and hours to get to that coveted Mount Everest summit. The crowded mountain, the lines �� and the deaths. See this article in the Guardian:

“He spoke once, the words whispered by frozen lips on a face so frostbitten he looked like a porcelain doll. I found him below the summit as our expedition bottlenecked before the Hillary Step on our final ascent of Mount Everest.

And above the bottleneck, more climbers. Dozens of people snaking to the top in their insulated red and orange and bright-color parkas and boots and backpacks.

As if the mountain bled a trickle of rainbow-neon blood.��

But hey, at least you get a cool picture and self-satisfaction. While the sherpas keep making that climb over and over and over and over again and don’t make a huge deal about it.

So what I’m saying is �� there may be just enough casualties to sustain a vampire, right?

“Don’t let me die,�� the man whispered.

No one else had noticed the man. Or they’d ignored him like all the dead bodies we passed on Everest.��

And sometimes a vampire is not the worst thing to happen to you on Everest.

4 stars.

“You’re going to lose your nose. And half your fingers and toes. But you climbed Everest. Was it worth it?��

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Read it free here, on Apex Magazine website:

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My Hugo and Nebula Awards Reading Project 2021: /review/show...