Chapter Ninety-Nine: D.A.

D.A. is a weird, nutty little novella by Connie Willis, one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors.  I had never come across it before, and I was a little skeptical--the cover is pretty awful--but the story gets off to a quick start, so that pulled me right in.  This story takes place in a future U.S. where space travel is a bit more prominent than at the current time.  There's this very prestigious space-cadet training program that almost all high school seniors apply to, even though there are very few open spots, and somehow the main character of the novella, Theodora, ends up winning an appointment to the program, even though she did not apply and has no interest in going, unlike the rest of her peers.  Still, before she can stop it, she is hustled up to the space station where she scrambles to find out how and why she was appointed and how she can get out of the program as soon as possible without jeopardizing her chances of getting into college.  This story will take only an hour or so to read, and it's a fun, funny, and clever little tale.