The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13

by Gardner Dozois

  SF and fantasy on television seemed to be in a chaotic, transitional state this year, with most of the former big shows gone, or at least obviously nearing the end of their runs. Duelling cult favourites Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine have both gone off the air, as have Hercules and Highlander, and shows such as The X-Files and Star Trek: Voyager are obviously (and even admittedly) winding down, with maybe another year left ahead of them, or maybe not.

  The departure of all these high-profile shows has obviously left a power vacuum, which producers are scrambling to fill. So far, a Babylon 5 spin-off and an X-Files spin-off (as well as several strongly imitative X-Files clones by other hands) have proved unsuccessful, and have already been pulled off the airways, and the once-mighty Star Trek franchise seems to be at its lowest ebb in years, reduced to only the least popular (even among most Star Trek fans) of its shows, with even it probably on the way out (and with rumours flying that several potential new series suggested to replace it have been rejected by the network), and not even a new theatrical movie anywhere on the horizon (rumours that the studio is reluctant to commit to one have also been flying).

  Some show is going to rush in to fill this vacuum, becoming the new cult favourite, and gaining huge audiences. The only question is, which?

  So far, it looks to me as if Farscape might have the fast track. A reasonably intelligent (for a TV space opera) show that is played with some brio and panache (although I find it hard to get past the fact that all the aliens look suspiciously like Grover from Sesame Street; if you can deal with half the cast being Muppets without losing your willing suspension of disbelief, you’ll respond better to the show than I’ve been able to), Farscape has clearly been building a loyal audience. Whether it can build enough of an audience to become “the new Babylon 5”, as I’ve heard it touted in some circles, I don’t know – but it seems to me that Farscape has the best chance of achieving this status of any of the hopeful new pack of genre shows.

  The only show that looks like it might be a serious competitor, on the “sci-fi” end of the television spectrum anyway, is Cleopatra 2525, the replacement for Hercules, which has been picking up strong ratings in its time slot. A couple of years ago, I referred to shows such as Xena and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as “Beautiful Women Kick Male Butt” shows; well, along with the lame Canadian show Lexx (although to a lesser degree than Lexx, which is really dumb, to a jaw-dropping degree), Cleopatra 2525 might be thought of as a “Sci-fi-jiggle show”, since it seems mainly devoted to coming up with moderately implausible reasons for having scantily dressed women running around and shooting things (in Lexx, the scantily dressed woman doesn’t even usually get to shoot stuff, although there’s a great deal of high-school level sexual innuendo, served up with much nudge-nudge winking and leering). More intelligent, and actually less cartoonish in spite of being an animated series, is Futurama, a new comedy, set in the future, from the creators of The Simpsons (which itself is still on, and still popular, after all these years, although no longer quite the Cult Favourite it once was). Another new show, Now and Again, is sort of a cross between The Six-Million Dollar Man and Universal Soldier, although it seems to be running low on plot twists already. Sliders finally died completely, to no one’s great regret. Roswell is a sort of soap-opera-with-UFO-aliens show, while First Wave is The Fugitive with UFO aliens, more or less. Third Rock from the Sun is a comedy with aliens, although of a more benign sort, Mork & Mindy/Alf-ish types rather than the sinister big-eyed anal-probing Earth-conquering variety. Can a game show with UFO aliens be far behind? Probably someone has one on the drawing board even as I type this. (Who Wants to Be Abducted by an Alien Millionaire? perhaps.)

  Meanwhile, over on the fantasy end of the television spectrum, the above-mentioned Xena: Warrior Princess and Buffy the Vampire Slayer are still going strong. Buffy has launched a successful spin-off show, Angel, although the Highlander spin-off, Highlander: The Raven, may have died; at least I haven’t seen it around for a while. Several other pop-supernatural shows seem to have achieved one degree or another of success, such as Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Charmed, GvsE, and a plethora of Angels-among-Us shows; there’s even an actual daytime soap opera, Passions, in which most of the characters are witches! The Drew Carey Show often breaks triumphantly into the surreal, with the whole cast suddenly breaking into a song-and-dance number in the middle of a scene, or Daffy Duck coming to apply for a job, but it’s perhaps stretching things too far to list it as a fantasy show, in spite of all that. South Park is still on, still uses a lot of fantastic tropes, and is still occasionally funny; the movie was better, though (and by far the best Satan-coming-to-Earth-to-bring-about-the-end-of-the-world movie of the year, in a year that saw several of them, some with budgets as large as the GNP of small Third-World nations).

  All in all, it still doesn’t seem to me like there’s all that much really worth watching on television, as far as genre shows are concerned. Put on The History Channel or A&E or the Discovery Channel instead. Or, better still, turn the set off altogether, and read a book.

  The 57th World Science Fiction Convention, Aussiecon Three, was held in Melbourne, Australia, from September 2–5, 1999. The third worldcon to be held in Australia, Aussiecon Three drew an estimated attendance of 1,872, the smallest worldcon since 1985, the last time that worldcon was held in Australia. The 1999 Hugo Awards, presented at Aussiecon Three, were: Best Novel, To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis; Best Novella, “Oceanic”, by Greg Egan; Best Novelette, “Taklamakan”, by Bruce Sterling; Best Short Story, “The Very Pulse of the Machine”, by Michael Swanwick; Best Related Book, The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World, by Thomas M. Disch; Best Professional Editor, Gardner Dozois; Best Professional Artist, Bob Eggleton; Best Dramatic Presentation, The Truman Show, Best Semiprozine, Locus, edited by Charles N. Brown; Best Fanzine, Ansible, edited by Dave Langford; Best Fan Writer, David Langford; Best Fan Artist, Ian Gunn; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to Nalo Hopkinson.

  The 1998 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Marriott City Center Hotel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on May 1, 1999, were: Best Novel, Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman; Best Novella, “Reading the Bones”, by Sheila Finch; Best Novelette, “Lost Girls”, by Jane Yolen; Best Short Story, “Thirteen Ways to Water”, by Bruce Holland Rogers; plus an Author Emeritus award to Philip Klass, the Ray Bradbury Award for Dramatic Screenwriting to J. Michael Straczynski, and a Grand Master Award to Hal Clement.

  The World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Twenty-Fifth Annual World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island, on November 4–7, 1999, were: Best Novel, The Antelope Wife, by Louise Erdrich; Best Novella, “The Summer Isles”, by Ian R. MacLeod; Best Short Fiction, “The Specialist’s Hat”, by Kelly Link; Best Collection, Black Glass, by Karen Joy Fowler; Best Anthology, Dreaming Down-Under, edited by Jack Dann and Janeen Webb; Best Artist, Charles Vess; Special Award (Professional), to Jim Turner, for Golden Gryphon Press; Special Award (Nonprofessional), to Richard Chizmar, for Cemetery Dance Publications; plus a Life Achievement Award to Hugh B. Cave.

  The 1999 Bram Stoker Award, presented by the Horror Writers of America during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California on June 5, 1999, were: Best Novel, Bag of Bones, by Stephen King; Best First Novel, Dawn Song, by Michael Marano; Best Collection, Black Butterflies, by John Shirley; Best Long Fiction, “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff”, by Peter Straub; Best Short Story, “The Dead Boy at Your Window”, by Bruce Holland Rogers; Nonfiction, DarkEcho Newsletter Volume 5 1–50, edited by Paula Guran; Best Anthology, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, edited by Stefan Dziemianowicz, Martin H. Greenberg, and Robert Weinberg; Best Screenplay, Gods and Monsters, by Bill Condon and Dark City, by Alex Proyas (tie); Best Work for Young Readers, “Bigger Than Death”, by Nancy Etchemendy; plus a Lifetime Achievement Award to Roger Corman and Ramsey Campbell.

  The 1998 John W. Campbell Memorial Award was won by Brute Orb
its, by George Zebrowski.

  The 1998 Theodore Sturgeon Award for Best Short Story was won by “Story of Your Life”, by Ted Chiang.

  The 1998 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to 253: The Print Remix, by Geoff Ryman, with a Special Citation to Lost Pages, by Paul Di Filippo.

  The 1998 Arthur C. Clarke award was won by Dreaming in Smoke, by Tricia Sullivan.

  The 1997 James Tiptree, Jr., Memorial Award was won by “Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation”, by Raphael Carter.

  Dead in 1999 or early 2000 were: A.E. van Vogt, 89, one of the giants of the “golden age” of science fiction in the ’30s and ’40s, winner of SFWA’s prestigious Grand Master Award, author of such seminal works as Slan, The World of Null-A, The War Against the Rull, The Weapon Shops of Isher, Voyage of the Space Beagle, and many other novels, and whose famous story “Black Destroyer” is seen by many as a direct inspiration for later media work such as Alien and the original Star Trek television series; James White, 71, famed Irish SF writer and fan, best known for his “Sector General” novels about a hospital in space, such as Hospital Station, Star Surgeon, Sector General, Final Diagnosis, and many others, as well as for stand-alone novels such as The Watch Below, The Silent Stars Go By, and All Judgment Fled; Marion Zimmer Bradley, 69, author of the best-selling The Mists of Avalon, one of the most acclaimed and influential Arthurian novels of the last thirty years, as well as many novels in the popular Darkover series, including The Door Through Space, The Planet Savers, and The Sword of Aldones, the editor of a large number of anthologies in the long-running Sword and Sorceress series, and founder and editor of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine; Joseph Heller, 76, whose best-selling cult classic World War II novel Catch-22 had fantastic/surreal elements, also the author of fantasy novel Picture This, as well as novels such as Something Happened, Good as Gold, and Closing Time; Paul Bowles, 88, writer, composer, and artist, best known for the mainstream novel The Sheltering Sky, but who also wrote horror stories, some collected in The Delicate Prey; Robert “Buck” Coulson, 70, writer, critic, and well-known fan personality, co-author (with Gene DeWeese) of the comic SF novels Now You See It/Him/Them and Charles Fort Never Mentioned Wombats, and co-editor (with wife, Juanita Coulson) of the Hugo-winning fanzine Yandro; Gary Jennings, 70, SF short story writer who achieved best-seller status with a series of historical novels such as Aztecs, Spangle, Raptor, The Journeyer, and Aztec Autumn; Michael Avallone, 74, prolific author best known for his “Ed Noon” series of detective novels, who also published horror, novelizations, and erotica; Shel Silverstein, humorist and cartoonist, author of several best-selling books for children, such as the infamous Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book: A Primer for Young Minds, The Giving Tree, and Falling Up; Eddie Jones, 64, well-known British SF artist whose covers adorned many books in the ’60s and ’70s; Gil Kane, 74, well-known comic-book artist, best known for his work on the comic book Green Lantern; Stanley Kubrick, 70, world-famous film director, director and co-creator (with Arthur C. Clarke) of one of the most famous SF movies of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as other genre movies such as A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, films with fantastic/surreal elements such as the fierce black comedy Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and nongenre films such as Paths of Glory, Lolita, and Eyes Wide Shut; astronomical artist Ludek Pesek, 80; Adolfo Bioy Casares, 84, Argentine writer of SF and magic realism; Carl Johan Holzhausen, 99, Swedish SF writer and translator; Jerry Yulsman, 75, author of the alternate-history novel Elleander Morning; Robert J. Sobel, history professor and author of the alternate-history book For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Lost the Battle of Saratoga; John Broome, 85, veteran pulp and comic-book writer; Jim Turner, 54, longtime editor of Arkham House, later founder and editor of Golden Gryphon Press, an editor almost single-handedly responsible for publishing many (if not most) of the best short-story collections of the ’80s and ’90s, bringing out seminal collections by writers such as Greg Bear, Lucius Shepard, Nancy Kress, James Tiptree, Jr., Michael Swanwick, John Kessel, Mary Rosenblum, James Patrick Kelly, Tony Daniel, Robert Reed, and many others, at a time when most trade publishers refused to publish collections at all; Ray Russell, 74, writer and longtime executive editor of Playboy, winner of the Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the World Fantasy Convention and the Horror Writers of America, editor of the influential anthologies The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy and The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural, author, among many others, of the famous story “Mr. Sardonicus”; Art Saha, 76, SF editor, anthologist, and well-known fan, co-editor (with Donald Wollheim) of the long-running The World’s Best SF anthology series, and editor of The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories anthology series; Howard Browne, 91, onetime editor of Amazing Stories and founder and first editor of Fantastic; Charles D. Hornig, 83, onetime editor of Wonder Stories, Future Fiction, and Science Fiction Quarterly; Clifton Fadiman, 95, writer, editor, and ’30s radio personality, whose introductions added a much-needed boost of literary respectability to many early SF books in the ’50s and ’60s, editor of the anthology Fantasia Mathematica; Terry Hodel, 61, producer of the long-running SF radio show Mike Hodel’s Hour 25, founded by her late husband, Mike Hodel; Frank McDonnell, 59, scholar, science fiction critic, and mystery writer; Tad Dembinski, 27, former managing editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction and former editorial assistant to David Hartwell at Tor Books; Larry Stermig, 90, longtime literary agent; Walt Willis, 79, legendary British fan, fan writer, and fanzine editor, editor of the famous fanzine Slant; George “Lan” Laskowski, 50, well-known fan and editor of the Hugo-winning fanzine Lan’s Lantern; DeForest Kelley, 79, actor best known to genre audiences for his long-running role as Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy in the original Star Trek series, and in subsequent Star Trek theatrical movies; Marjii Ellers, 81, longtime fan and costumer; Joe Mayhar, 69, husband of SF writer Ardath Mayhar; Muriel Gold, widow of the late SF editor H.L. Gold; L. Allen Chalker, 70, brother of SF writer Jack Chalker; Andrew Keith, 41, brother of and sometimes collaborator with SF author William H. Keith; Jeanne Porter, 86, mother of Science Fiction Chronicle editor/publisher Andrew I. Porter; Edythe Marinoff, 76, mother of SF writer Karen Haber Silverberg; Beatrice Friesner, mother of SF writer Esther M. Friesner; Eric Felice, 33, son of SF writer Cynthia Felice; W.H. “Pete” Rowland, father of SF writer Diana Rowland; and Sarah Delany, 109, co-author of the memoir Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First Hundred Years, and great-aunt of SF writer Samuel R. Delany.

  THE WEDDING ALBUM

  David Marusek

  David Marusek is a graduate of Clarion West. He made his first sale to Asimov’s Science Fiction in 1993, and his second sale soon thereafter to Playboy, followed subsequently by more sales to Asimov’s and to the British anthology Future Histories. His pyrotechnic novella “We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy” was one of the most popular and talked-about stories of 1995; although it was only his third sale, it was accomplished enough to make one of the reviewers for Locus magazine speculate that Marusek must be a Big Name Author writing under a pseudonym. Not a pseudonym, Marusek lives the life of a struggling young writer in a “low-maintenance cabin in the woods” in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he is currently working on his first novel, and I’m willing to bet that his is a voice we’ll be hearing a lot more from as we move through the new century ahead. He has a web site at www.marusek.com.

  In the vivid, powerful, and compassionate story that follows, he takes us back to the intricate and strange high-tech future milieu of “We Were Out of Our Minds with Joy”, to a world where the border between what’s real and what’s not real has grown disturbingly thin – and we don’t always find ourselves on the right side of the line.

  ANNE AND BENJAMIN stood stock still, as instructed, close but not touching, while the simographer adjusted her apparatus, set its timer, and ducked out of the room. It would take only a moment, she said. They were to think only happy happy thoughts.

  For once in her
life, Anne was unconditionally happy, and everything around her made her happier: her gown, which had been her grandmother’s; the wedding ring (how cold it had felt when Benjamin first slipped it on her finger!); her clutch bouquet of forget-me-nots and buttercups; Benjamin himself, close beside her in his charcoal grey tux and pink carnation. He who so despised ritual but was a good sport. His cheeks were pink, too, and his eyes sparkled with some wolfish fantasy. “Come here,” he whispered. Anne shushed him; you weren’t supposed to talk or touch during a casting; it could spoil the sims. “I can’t wait,” he whispered, “this is taking too long.” And it did seem longer than usual, but this was a professional simulacrum, not some homemade snapshot.

  They were posed at the street end of the living room, next to the table piled with brightly wrapped gifts. This was Benjamin’s townhouse; she had barely moved in. All her treasures were still in shipping shells in the basement, except for the few pieces she’d managed to have unpacked: the oak refectory table and chairs, the sixteenth-century French armoire, the cherry wood chifforobe, the tea table with inlaid top, the silvered mirror over the fire surround. Of course, her antiques clashed with Benjamin’s contemporary – and rather common – decor, but he had promised her the whole house to redo as she saw fit. A whole house!

  “How about a kiss?” whispered Benjamin.

  Anne smiled but shook her head; there’d be plenty of time later for that sort of thing.