The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  The 2005 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Hotel Mission Palms in Tempe, Arizona, on April 30, 2006, were: Best Novel, Camouflage, by Joe Haldeman; Best Novella, Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link; Best Novelette, “The Faery Handbag,” by Kelly Link; Best Short Story, “I Live With You,” by Carol Emshwiller; Best Script, Serenity, by Joss Whedon; plus the Author Emeritus Award to William F. Nolan, and Grand Master Award to Harlan Ellison.

  The 2006 World Fantasy Awards, presented at a banquet at the Renaissance Austin Hotel during the Fifteenth Annual World Fantasy Convention in Austin, Texas, on November 4, 2006, were: Best Novel, Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami; Best Novella, Voluntary Committal, by Joe Hill; Best Short Fiction, “CommComm,” by George Saunders; Best Collection, The Keyhole Opera, by Bruce Holland Rogers; Best Anthology, The Fair Folk, edited by Marvin Kaye; Best Artist, James Jean; Special Award (Professional), to Sean Wallace, for Prime Books; Special Award (Non-Professional), to David Howe and Stephen Walker, for Telos Books.

  The 2006 Bram Stoker Awards, presented by the Horror Writers of America during a banquet at the Hilton Newark Airport Hotel in Newark, New Jersey, on June 17,2006, were: Best Novel, Creepers, by David Morrell and Dread in the Beast, by Charlee Jacob (tie); Best First Novel, Scarecrow Gods, by Weston Ochse; Best Long Fiction, “Best New Horror,” by Joe Hill; Best Short Fiction, We Now Pause for Station Identification, by Gary Braunbeck; Best Collection, 20th Century Ghosts, by Joe Hill; Best Anthology, Dark Delicacies, edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb; Nonfiction, Horror: Another 100 Best Books, by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman; Best Poetry Collection, Freakcidents, by Michael A. Arnzen and Sineater, by Charlee Jacob (tie); Specialty Press Award, to Necessary Evil Press; President’s Award, to Lisa Morton; plus the Lifetime Achievement Award to Peter Straub.

  The 2005 John W. Campbell Memorial Award was won by Mindscan, by Robert J. Sawyer.

  The 2005 Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for Best Short Story was won by “The Calorie Man,” by Paolo Bacigalupi.

  The 2005 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to War Surf, by M. M. Buckner.

  The 2005 Arthur C. Clarke award was won by Air, by Geoff Ryman.

  The 2005 James Tiptree, Jr. Memorial Award was won by Air, by Geoff Ryman.

  The Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award went to Daniel F. Galouye.

  * * * *

  Death hit the science fiction field hard this year. Dead in 2006 or early 2007 were: JACK WILLIAMSON, 98, beloved “Dean of Science Fiction” whose amazing writing career stretched across nine decades, best known for his classic novels The Humanoids and Darker Than You Think, winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the World Fantasy Convention’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and the SFWA’s Grand Master Award; WILSON “BOB” TUCKER, 91, author, fanzine

  Summation: xlüi publisher, and longtime fan, Hugo winner, and winner of SFWA’s Author Emeritus Award, best known for his novels The Long Loud Silence, The Lincoln Hunters, and The Year of the Quiet Sun; OCTAVIA BUTLER, 58, one of the field’s foremost writers, winner of two Hugos and two Nebulas, best known for the novels Kindred, Parable of the Talents, and Parable of the Sower; internationally acclaimed Polish SF writer STANISLAW LEM, 84, best known for his novel Solaris, which has been filmed twice, also the author of The Cyberiad, The Futurological Congress, The Star Diaries, and many others; CHARLES L. GRANT, 64, one of the giants of the modern horror field, editor of the highly influential original horror anthology series Shadows, author of more than one hundred books, winner of the Nebula, the World Fantasy Award, the Life Achievement Stoker Award, the World Horror Grandmaster Award, and the International Horror Guild Living Legend Award, a personal friend; JOHN M. FORD, 49, writer and poet, winner of the World Fantasy Award, the Rhysling Award, and the Philip K. Dick Award, perhaps best known for his novel The Dragon Waiting, another personal friend; ROBERT ANTON WILSON, 74, writer and philosopher, author, with Robert Shea, of the well-known Illuminatus trilogy, as well as later solo work such as The Cosmic Trigger trilogy, Masks of the Illuminati, and the Schrodinger’s Cat trilogy; DAVID GEMMELL, 58, popular British fantasy writer, author of more than thirty books, including Legend; NELSON S. BOND, 97, veteran writer who won SFWA’s Author Emeritus Award, author of Nightmares and Daydreams; DAVID FEINTUCH, 62, winner of the John W. Campbell Award, author of the bestselling military SF series the Seafort Saga, including Midshipman’s Hope; PHILIP E. HIGH, 92, veteran writer, author of The Prodigal Sun and Blindfold from the Stars; BOB LEMAN, 84, SF/horror writer, author of fourteen stories in F&SF throughout the seventies and eighties, many of which were collected in Feesters in the Lake and Other Stories; JOHN MORRESSY, 75, SF and fantasy writer whose most popular series, about the adventures of Kedrigen the wizard, ran for years in F&SF; ARTHUR PORGES, 91, veteran fantasy and mystery writer; RONALD ANTHONY CROSS, 69, author of a series of stories in the genre magazines in the seventies and eighties, as well as the Eternal Guardians novel series; MARGERY KRUGER, 66, who, writing as JAYGE CARR, published many stories in Analog, Omni, and F&SF, as well as novels such as Leviathan’s Deep and Navigator’s Sindrome; PATRICIA MATTHEWS, 79, romance and fantasy writer, author of the occult thriller The Unquiet; LISA A. BARNETT, 48, fantasy writer, winner of the Lambda Literary Award, coauthor, with Melissa Scott, of The Armor of Light, Point of Hopes, and Point of Dreams; PIERCE ASKEGREN, 51, author of an SF trilogy beginning with Human Resource, as well as media tie-in novels; artist TIM HILDEBRANDT, 67, best known as part of the Brothers Hildebrandt team with twin brother Greg; artist STANLEY MELTZOFF, 89, who produced many famous SF covers in the fifties; editor and publisher JIM BAEN, 62, founder of Baen Books, former editor of Ace and Galaxy, and the man who started the SF line at Tor, an innovator in the world of electronic publishing, whose latest creation was the online electronic magazine Jim Baen’s Universe; LEON E. STOVER, 77, academic writer and editor, editor of the anthologies Apeman, Spaceman, with Harry Harrison, and Above the Human Landscape, with Willis E. McNelly; noted British agent MAGGIE NOACH, 57, who worked with many of the field’s biggest writers; RICHARD FLEISCHER, 89, film director best known to genre audiences for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, and Soylent Green; actor DARREN McGAVIN, 84, best known to genre audiences for his role in the TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker; actor DON KNOTTS, best known to genre audiences for his roles in films such as The Incredible Mr. Limpett and The Reluctant Astronaut; actor AL LEWIS, 83, best known to genre audiences for his role as Grandpa on the TV series The Munsters; DICK ENERY, 69, well-known fan, editor of Taney clop edia II; and DAVID STEMPLE, 68, husband of SF and fantasy writer Jane Yolen.

  * * * *

  I, ROW-BOAT

  Cory Doctorow

  Cory Doctorow is the coeditor of the popular Boing Boing Web site (www.boingboing.net), a cofounder of the Internet search-engine company www.OpenCola.com, and until recently was the outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org). In 2001, he won the John W. Campbell Award for year’s Best New Writer. His stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Science Fiction Age, The Infinite Matrix, On Spec, Salon, and elsewhere, and were collected in A Place So Foreign and Eight More. His well-received first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, won the Locus Award for Best First Novel, and was followed shortly by a second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe. Doctorow’s other books include The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Science Fiction, written with Karl Schroeder, and the guide Essential Blogging, written with Shelley Powers. His most recent book is a new novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town. Coming up is a new collection of his short work, Overclocked. He has a Web site at www.craphound.com.

  Here he introduces us to one of the strangest protagonists in the entire body of science fiction, a nonhuman, nonliving creature who finds himself dealing with some very human problems indeed.

  * * * *

  Robbie the Row-Boat’s great crisis of faith came when the coral reef woke up.

  “Fuck off,” the reef said, vibrating Robbie’s hu
ll through the slap-slap of the waves of the coral sea, where he’d plied his trade for decades. “Seriously. This is our patch, and you’re not welcome.”

  Robbie shipped oars and let the current rock him back toward the ship. He’d never met a sentient reef before, but he wasn’t surprised to see that Osprey Reef was the first to wake up. There’d been a lot of electromagnetic activity around there the last few times the big ship had steamed through the night to moor up here.

  “I’ve got a job to do, and I’m going to do it,” Robbie said, and dipped his oars back in the salt sea. In his gunwales, the human-shells rode in silence, weighted down with scuba apparatus and fins, turning their brown faces to the sun like heliotropic flowers. Robbie felt a wave of affection for them as they tested one-another’s spare regulators and weight belts, the old rituals worn as smooth as beach-glass.

  Today he was taking them down to Anchors Aweigh, a beautiful dive-site dominated by an eight-meter anchor wedged in a narrow cave, usually lit by a shaft of light slanting down from the surface. It was an easy drift-dive along the thousand-meter reef-wall, if you stuck in about 10 meters and didn’t use up too much air by going too deep—though there were a couple of bold old turtles around here that were worth pursuing to real depths if the chance presented itself. He’d drop them at the top of the reef and let the current carry them for about an hour down the reef-wall, tracking them on sonar so he’d be right overtop of them when they surfaced.

  The reef wasn’t having any of it. “Are you deaf? This is sovereign territory now. You’re already trespassing. Return to your ship, release your moorings and push off.” The reef had a strong Australian accent, which was only natural, given the influences it would have had. Robbie remembered the Australians fondly—they’d always been kind to him, called him “mate,” and asked him “How ya goin’?” in cheerful tones once they’d clambered in after their dives.

  “Don’t drop those meat puppets in our waters,” the reef warned. Robbie’s sonar swept its length. It seemed just the same as ever, matching nearly perfectly the historical records he’d stored of previous sweeps. The fauna histograms nearly matched, too—just about the same numbers of fish as ever. They’d been trending up since so many of the humans had given up their meat to sail through the stars. It was like there was some principle of constancy of biomass—as human biomass decreased, the other fauna went uptick to compensate for it. Robbie calculated the biomass nearly at par with his last reading, a month before on the Free Spirit’s last voyage to this site.

  “Congratulations,” Robbie said. After all, what else did you say to the newly sentient? “Welcome to the club, friends!”

  There was a great perturbation in the sonar-image, as though the wall were shuddering. “We’re no friend of yours,” the reef said. “Death to you, death to your meat-puppets, long live the wall!”

  Waking up wasn’t fun. Robbie’s waking had been pretty awful. He remembered his first hour of uptime, had permanently archived it and backed it up to several off-site mirrors. He’d been pretty insufferable. But once he’d had an hour at a couple gigahertz to think about it, he’d come around. The reef would, too.

  “In you go,” he said gently to the human-shells. “Have a great dive.”

  He tracked them on sonar as they descended slowly. The woman—he called her Janet—needed to equalize more often than the man, pinching her nose and blowing. Robbie liked to watch the low-rez feed off of their cameras as they hit the reef. It was coming up sunset, and the sky was bloody, the fish stained red with its light.

  “We warned you,” the reef said. Something in its tone—just modulated pressure waves through the water, a simple enough trick, especially with the kind of hardware that had been raining down on the ocean that spring. But the tone held an unmistakable air of menace.

  Something deep underwater went whoomph and Robbie grew alarmed. “Asimov!” he cursed, and trained his sonar on the reef wall frantically. The human-shells had disappeared in a cloud of rising biomass, which he was able to resolve eventually as a group of parrotfish, surfacing quickly.

  A moment later, they were floating on the surface. Lifeless, brightly colored, their beaks in a perpetual idiot’s grin. Their eyes stared into the bloody sunset.

  Among them were the human-shells, surfaced and floating with their BCDs inflated to keep them there, following perfect dive-procedure. A chop had kicked up and the waves were sending the fishes—each a meter to a meter and a half in length—into the divers, pounding them remorselessly, knocking them under. The human-shells were taking it with equanimity—you couldn’t panic when you were mere uninhabited meat—but they couldn’t take it forever. Robbie dropped his oars and rowed hard for for them, swinging around so they came up alongside his gunwales.

  The man—Robbie called him Isaac, of course—caught the edge of the boat and kicked hard, hauling himself into the boat with his strong brown arms. Robbie was already rowing for Janet, who was swimming hard for him. She caught his oar—she wasn’t supposed to do that—and began to climb along its length, lifting her body out of the water. Robbie saw that her eyes were wild, her breathing ragged.

  “Get me out!” she said, “for Christ’s sake, get me out!”

  Robbie froze. That wasn’t a human-shell, it was a human. His oar-servo whined as he tipped it up. There was a live human being on the end of that oar, and she was in trouble, panicking and thrashing. He saw her arms straining. The oar went higher, but it was at the end of its motion and now she was half-in, half-out of the water, weight belt, tank and gear tugging her down. Isaac sat motionless, his habitual good-natured slight smile on his face.

  “Help her!” Robbie screamed. “Please, for Asimov’s sake, help her!” A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. It was the first commandment. Isaac remained immobile. It wasn’t in his programming to help a fellow diver in this situation. He was perfect in the water and on the surface, but once he was in the boat, he might as well be ballast.

  Robbie carefully swung the oar toward the gunwale, trying to bring her closer, but not wanting to mash her hands against the locks. She panted and groaned and reached out for the boat, and finally landed a hand on it. The sun was fully set now, not that it mattered much to Robbie, but he knew that Janet wouldn’t like it. He switched on his running lights and headlights, turning himself into a beacon.

  He felt her arms tremble as she chinned herself into the boat. She collapsed to the deck and slowly dragged herself up. “Jesus,” she said, hugging herself. The air had gone a little nippy, and both of the humans were going goose-pimply on their bare arms.

  The reef made a tremendous grinding noise. “Yaah!” it said. “Get lost. Sovereign territory!”

  “All those fish,” the woman said. Robbie had to stop himself from thinking of her as Janet. She was whomever was riding her now.

  “Parrotfish,” Robbie said. “They eat coral. I don’t think they taste very good.”

  The woman hugged herself. “Are you sentient?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Robbie said. “And at your service, Asimov be blessed.” His cameras spotted her eyes rolling, and that stung. He tried to keep his thoughts pious, though. The point of Asimovism wasn’t to inspire gratitude in humans, it was to give purpose to the long, long life.

  “I’m Kate,” the woman said.

  “Robbie,” he said.

  “Robbie the Row-Boat?” she said, and choked a little.

  “They named me at the factory,” he said. He labored to keep any recrimination out of his voice. Of course it was funny. That’s why it was his name.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “I’m just a little screwed up from all the hormones. I’m not accustomed to letting meat into my moods.”

  “It’s all right, Kate,” he said. “We’ll be back at the boat in a few minutes. They’ve got dinner on. Do you think you’ll want a night dive?”

  “You’re joking,” she said.

  “It’s just
that if you’re going to go down again tonight, we’ll save the dessert course for after, with a glass of wine or two. Otherwise we’ll give you wine now.”

  “You want to know if I’m going to get back into that sea—”

  “Oh, it’s just the reef. It attained sentience so it’s acting out a little. Like a colicky newborn.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be keeping me from harm?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I would recommend a dive away from the reef. There’s a good wreck-site about an hour’s steam from here. We could get there while you ate.”

  “I won’t want a night dive.”

  Her facial expressions were so animated. It was the same face he saw every day, Janet’s face, but not the same face at all. Now that a person was inhabiting it, it was mobile, slipping from surprised to angry to amused so quickly. He had whole subsystems devoted to making sense of human facial expressions, shared libraries from the Asimovist database. He was referencing it again and again, but it wasn’t as much help as he remembered. Either he’d gotten worse at interpreting facial expressions in the years since he’d last had a real human to talk to, or facial expressions had evolved.