The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 2

by George Mann

  The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction Volume 2

  Edited By George Mann

  2008

  Contents

  Introduction

  iCity by Paul Di Filippo

  The Space Crawl Blues by Kay Kenyon

  The Line of Dichotomy by Chris Roberson

  Fifty Dinosaurs by Robert Reed

  Mason’s Rats: Black Rat by Neal Asher

  Blood Bonds by Brenda Cooper

  The Eyes of God by Peter Watts

  Sunworld by Eric Brown

  Evil Robot Monkey by Mary Robinette Kowal

  Shining Armor by Dominic Green

  Book, Theatre, and Wheel by Karl Schroeder

  Mathralon by David Louis Edelman

  Mason’s Rats: Autotractor by Neal Asher

  Modern Times by Michael Moorcock

  Point of Contact by Dan Abnett

  Introduction

  George Mann

  The return of the original science fiction anthology?

  In the pages of the September 2007 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, James Sallis reviewed the first volume of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction alongside Fast Forward #1 (edited by the estimable Lou Anders), pointing to the similarities between the two new anthology series and wondering whether there was any relevance to be read into the timing of their appearance on the market. He talked about “windows that open from time to time” and whether the two books represented “a new breed of original anthologies,” having already discussed at some length the science fiction anthology series of old: Orbit, Star Science Fiction, Nova, and others.

  It’s an interesting question, and one I don’t think I’m in a position to answer, at least not directly (perhaps things like this are better judged by critics, readers, and posterity). But I think it is worth exploring the reasons behind why I’m sitting here writing this introduction to a second volume of new science fiction stories and why, shortly, I’ll be doing the same again for volume three. If the original anthology is returning, what is it returning from? Was there really a golden age of SF anthologies in the first place? And what is it that Solaris is trying to achieve by offering this new series of short story anthologies to the market?

  I think the answers to all of those questions are intertwined.

  It’s my particular view that short fiction is the lifeblood of the SF genre, a fundamental testbed of ideas, a breeding ground for new writers and a perfect form for the genre in all its aspects: punchy character pieces, concept-driven tales full of sense-of-wonder, instalments in a larger future history. Many writers first come to the attention of editors through their short fiction and go on to become novelists in the wider field. Many others continue to write nothing but short stories, yet the impact they have on the genre is still immense, still vital. Not only that, but the whole experience of reading short fiction is also markedly different than the experience of reading a novel - a good story punches you in the gut, makes you sit up immediately and pay attention, whilst a novel can toy with you for longer, playing the long game.

  Having said all that, though, I think it is clear that the short story market has come under intense pressure in recent years. Markets have dwindled. Writers have found it increasingly difficult to find new venues for their stories. Publishers have found it even harder to make the economics of publishing original anthologies work. Whilst there is a core readership who remain steadfastly glued to the monthly digests (and receive a little thrill each and every time that packet arrives in the post), it’s fair to say that there is a much wider audience of readers - casual book buyers - who never come into contact with these periodicals. They may stroll into their nearest bookstore on a weekend, browse the shelves, and leave with an armful of books, blissfully unaware that their favourite author has a new short story in one of that month’s new magazines. In fact, the first time they may even become aware of that story may be years later, when it’s finally collected by the author into a book.

  In the past, this wasn’t as much of an issue. The SF genre grew out of the American pulps and short stories were the genre. If people wanted to read an SF story, it was usually a short one. Commercially, however, the genre has changed. Novels are the order of the day. Casual readers want the perceived ‘value-for-money’; they want to buy books by the inch, want their experience to last longer. Of course, that’s just a sweeping generalisation, but it’s certainly true that the days of the aforementioned Orbit, Star Science Fiction, Nova, and New Worlds have gone. It’s harder than ever before to get books on shelves in bookstores, and harder still to get readers to buy them.

  So, knowing this, what madness drove us to launch a new series of anthologies into this marketplace? Faced with a climate where the only original anthologies having any real mass-market success were themed anthologies, what made us decide to go down the route of a book of non-themed stories?

  There’s an obvious place to start: because no one else was doing it. When we first sat around the table to plan our new imprint, we looked long and hard at the markets in both the US and the UK. And we saw a gap. More than that, we saw a need. While a number of important annual reprint anthologies (typified by Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction and David Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer’s Year’s Best SF) were finding a home in the mass market each year, no one appeared to be developing a series of original annual anthologies. We decided to step into the breach. Of course, we were driven by a certain amount of nostalgia for the anthology series of old, a desire to publish the type of books that inspired us in our youth. But it was more than that, too. We wanted to rise to the challenge and make it work in the modern market. We made no claims to knowing differently to anyone else - we simply set out our stall in the best way we knew how, and crossed our fingers.

  The original brief was simple: we wanted to reach a wider, book-buying public with great new science fiction stories from a range of talented authors. We wanted to appeal to fans and new readers alike, the people who would search out our books in their local stores, and the people who would pick them up at random because they saw them for the first time sitting on a shelf in that same store. We also wanted to appeal to authors, as a venue to get their stories into people’s hands and allow them to reach a wider audience with their work. We aimed to take some of the very best short science fiction stories we could find, and provide them with a showcase. I’d like to think, in some small measure, we succeeded in this.

  With The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Two, our original brief remains the same, and we present it to you in that spirit. For me, the fifteen stories in this collection are true to that original brief: vibrant, sparkling, dark, bitter, exciting - the spectrum of human experience played out against a background of stars, or standing in line at an airport, nervously waiting for a security check.

  So, the return of the original science fiction anthology? In my opinion, it’s far too early to tell. But one thing’s for sure - it is clear there were others with similar thoughts to our own, and with a number of other new original anthology series now hitting the shelves, The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction is in excellent company. When all is said and done, today’s science fiction reader has a remarkable array of new stories with which to feed their addiction - and that is the most important thing of all. As James Sallis says at the end of his review, let’s hope that it’s the start of something great.

  George Mann

  Nottingham, England

  August 2007

  iCity

  Paul Di Filippo

  I lost a whole neighborhood last night to that bitch Holly Grale. The Floradora Heights. Renamed this m
orning, after its overnight reformation and subsequent QuikPoll accreditation. Now the district was officially “WesBes,” as in “West of Bester.” I hate those faddish abbreviated portmanteau names. Where’s the dignity? Where’s the sense of tradition? Where’s the romance? Plus, once Bester Street disappears, as it’s bound to do soon, where’s that leave your trendy designation?

  But my tastes were obviously in the minority, since 67.9 percent of the residents of the quondam Floradora Heights had voted to accept Grale’s reformation over my established plan which they had been living in for some time.

  Still, I shouldn’t have been so down. Floradora Heights had lasted 2063 hours until suffering the diminishment in popularity that had triggered the reformation. The average duration stats for all iCity sensate neighborhood plans were not quite 1600 hours. So my plan had performed over twenty percent better than average. That result, along with my ten extant accreditations, would certainly allow me to maintain my place in the planner rankings - and maybe even jump up a notch or two.

  So round about noon of the day I lost to Grale, after moping and enjoying my loser’s morning sulk, I began to cheer up. I figured I deserved a drink, either as solace for the loss or affirmation of my genius. So I headed out in search of the Desire Path.

  I was living then on Dictionary Hill, a district created by my friend Virgule Partch. A very pleasant plan, although I would have oriented the main entrances of Hastings Park north-south rather than east-west. My condo, an older model which I had opted to carry over with me during every reformation over the past five years, was currently incorporated into a building dubbed the Rogue Mandala. Very conveniently situated right next to a Starbucks. (God bless Partch’s thoughtful plans!) So after exiting the Mandala, I stepped inside the Starbucks to grab a tall guarana and a teff cake. No sense imbibing booze on an empty stomach, especially this early.

  It was such a nice blue-sky day outside - the faithful faraway pico-satellite swarm had moderated the August sunlight and the ambient temperature to very comfortable levels - that I took my drink and food outside and let the peristaltic sensate sidewalk carry me along while I ate.

  I arbitrarily headed toward the Konkoville district. Or at least what had been the Konkoville district last night; I confess I hadn’t scanned the reformation postings for all of iCity yet, checking only on my eleven accreditations (now ten, damn it, thanks to Grale!). Konkoville was where the Desire Path, my favorite bar, had resided the last time I had visited, a couple of days ago.

  But as I approached the edges of the district, I could see that it was unlikely I would find the Desire Path here any longer.

  Konkoville was now an extensive tivoli named Little Sleazy, full of wild amusement rides and fast-food booths, bursting with the noise of screaming kids.

  I took out my phone and got a map of iCity as of this very moment. I queried for the Desire Path and found it halfway across town, in the Coal Sack. Oh, well, I had plenty of time and nothing better to do. So rather than dive underground for a quick subway ride, I continued on the relatively slow sidewalk toward my goal.

  I used the time to study the stats on my ten remaining districts.

  Resident satisfaction was holding steady in six: Cyprian Fields, Bayside, Crowmarsh, East Plum, Borogroves and Lower Uppercrust. My figures had taken a hit in two: Tangerang and Bekaski. And the remaining two showed an uptick: Disco Biscuits and Nuala’s Back Forty.

  I immediately scheduled an interim charrette for Tangerang and Bekaski. No sense letting things get bad enough to open up these two districts to a competitive reformation. That’d be just what I needed, the loss of two more of my fiefs to someone like Grale. In Disco Biscuits and Nuala’s Back Forty I initiated proxy polling to try to determine what the residents found so newly appealing about life there.

  Finished with that, I looked to see if any new postings for competitive reformations elsewhere had come up. I sure didn’t want any of my fiefs to be the subject of such a contest. But if some other unlucky planner let his district slide, prompting such a referendum - well, that’s just how the system worked. I wasn’t going to hold back out of pity. Competitive urban planning was not a game for the weak-spined. And I needed to pick up a new district to make up for my loss of Floradora Heights.

  Yes! Bloorvoor Estates, currently accredited to Mode O’Day, was up for reformation! I liked Mode, but I couldn’t afford any weepy sentimentality. My mind already churning with plans, I set my sights on Bloorvoor Estates and vowed not to look back.

  I was just hoping Mode wouldn’t be present at the Desire Path. If I didn’t have to see her and commiserate, my life would be a lot easier.

  I crossed over the district line separating Boilingwood from the Coal Sack, and within another minute had dismounted the sidewalk to stand at the door of the Desire Path.

  The interior of the bar had changed since my last visit two days prior, a complete makeover. A gallery of taxidermied animal heads - and some human ones - filled one whole wall. All utterly realistic fakes, of course, composed of sensate putty. Beneath the glassy-eyed heads, a bunch of my peers sat at a variety of tables. I moved to join them.

  “Hey, look, it’s Moses!”

  “Moses proposes, and the populace disposes!”

  “Fred Law!”

  I dropped down into a seat and soon had a drink in hand. After a polite interval of small talk, the expressions of pity for my recent loss came. Some were genuine; some were thinly stretched over glee.

  “I always thought Floradora Heights was one of your best districts, Moze,” said Yvonne Lestrange. Yvonne and I had lived together some years ago for almost 5000 hours, and retained genuine feelings for each other.

  “Thanks,” I responded. “I particularly liked how Sparkle Pond reflected the spire of Bindloss Church.”

  Cristo Rivadavia said, “Yes, quite a pleasant sentimental effect. But really, Moses, whatever were you thinking with that plaza?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one where the fountain placement created absolutely chaotic traffic flows.”

  “That placement was determined by the best shared-space models!”

  “Nonetheless-”

  Laguna Diamante intervened before our argument could escalate. “Hey, boys, that’s enough head-butting. We all know that Moses has done plenty of good work. He couldn’t help it that the Floradora citizens eventually tired of his plan. We all know how fickle populaces are.”

  A general round of “Amens” arose, and glasses were refilled for a toast.

  “To Diaspar!”

  “To Diaspar!”

  “Diaspar forever!”

  With genuine conviviality restored, the talk naturally turned to the Bloorvoor competition.

  “Well, I’m out of this one,” said Tartan Vartan. “Unless I get randomly seeded. My stats don’t put me in the top ten any longer.”

  Hoagy Spreckles put a comradely arm around Vartan’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. Just run a few more phantom zones like your last one, and you’ll get an invitation from one populace or another. After that, you’ll be in like Unwyn.”

  Everyone began to talk at once then, tossing out hints of how they would approach this competition.

  And then in walked Mode O’Day herself.

  If I had been dragging earlier, then Mode was positively flatlining. Her pretty face resembled a bulldog with dyspepsia. She carried a lump of sensate putty with her that she continually kneaded like a paranoid ship’s captain angry about his missing strawberries.

  To massed silence, Mode dropped into a seat like a sack of doorknobs. She plopped the putty in the middle of the table and took out her phone. Still no one spoke. She sent the plans for the Bloorvoor district to the putty and the shapeless lump instantly snapped into the configuration of that neighborhood, a perfectly detailed miniature we all recognized.

  Mode studied the tiny sculpture for nearly a full minute. No one dared offer a word. Then with the swipe of a thumbnail across her phone’s screen, she
rendered the putty into the semblance of a human hand with middle finger outthrust and the others bent back.

  “That’s what I think of my populace!” she said.

  And we all cheered.

  So I dove right into the work of reifying my plan for the reformation of the Bloorvoor district. After so many years as both an amateur and competitive urban planner in iCity, the whole procedure possessed an intimate familiarity.

  First, of course, came the dissatisfied populace. Registering their accumulating displeasure or simple boredom with their district, the continuously polled voice of the populace eventually triggered a Request for Reformation.

  At that point the top ten urban planners (barring the one who had designed the failed district), along with a handful of randomly seeded contestants, were invited to enter their designs.

  Any district plan arose from a planner’s innate creativity, experience, inspiration, and skills, of course. But the charrette process also held importance. Citizens got to weigh in with suggestions and criticisms.

  At some prearranged point all the plans were locked down. At that stage they were instantiated as both phantom zone walk-thru models and physical tabletop versions. (The phantom zone was littered with thousands of other amateur walk-thrus compiled on a freelance basis.) A period of inspection by the populace lasted a week or so. Then came the first and most important vote. The winning plan would govern the overnight reformation of the district. A final pro forma poll on the morning after the reformation, once the populace had a short time to verify the details of the full-scale instantiation, would award final accreditation to the planner.

  Simple, right?

  If you think so, you’ve never been a competitive urban planner.

  I spent several nerve-stretched weeks subsisting on a diet of daffy-doze and TVP bars, trying to design the best, most exciting district I had ever designed, a brilliant mix of utilitarianism, excitement, surprise, grandeur, and comfort. What governed me? Well of course I wanted to please the populace. But I was working just as hard to please myself. The esthetics of my plan were actually uppermost in my instinctive choices and refinements and calculations.