Analog SFF, November 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  They headed out the pub's doors, Don carrying his two plastic bags full of file folders. To his surprise, it was now dark; he hadn't realized how long he'd been in the pub. “Well,” he said, “that was fun, thanks, but—"

  Lenore seemed surprised that it had grown dark, too. “Walk me home?” she asked. “It's only a few blocks, but my neighborhood's a bit rough."

  Don looked at his watch again. “Um, sure. Okay."

  She took one of the bags, and they made their way along, Lenore chatting in her animated way. It was still hot and sticky as they came to Euclid Avenue, a tree-lined downtown street filled with crumbling, ancient houses. Two beefy guys passed them. One, with a shaved head that glistened in the light of the street lamps, had an animated tattoo of the grim reaper on his bulging right biceps. The other had laser scars on his face and arms that could easily have been erased; he was presumably wearing them as badges of honor. Lenore cast her gaze down at the cracked and broken sidewalk, and Don followed her example.

  "Well,” she said, a hundred meters or so farther along, “here we are.” They were standing in front of a dilapidated house with dormer windows.

  "Nice place,” he said.

  She laughed. “It's scuzbum. But it's cheap.” She paused, and her face grew concerned. “Look at you! You must be parched in this heat, and it's a long walk back to the subway. Come on in. I'll give you a Diet Coke to take with you."

  They walked around to the side of the house, and some animal—a raccoon, maybe—quickly moved out of their way. Lenore opened the side door and led them down the stairs.

  He braced himself for the place to be a mess—he remembered his own student days—but her apartment was tidy, although the furniture was a mismatched array, presumably of garage-sale acquisitions.

  "Very pleasant,” said Don. “It—"

  Her mouth was on his. He felt her tongue pressing against his lips. His mouth opened, and his penis grew instantly hard. Suddenly her hand was on his zipper, and—Oh, my!—she was on her knees, taking him into her mouth ... but only for a few spectacular seconds. She rose to her feet, took his hands, and, walking backward, facing him, a lascivious smile on her face, she started pulling him toward the bedroom.

  He followed her in.

  Don was terrified that he'd come too soon. This was, after all, more excitement and stimulation than he'd had in years. But the old boy kept himself in check as he and Lenore rolled around—now him on top, now her on top—until finally he did come. He immediately went back to work until, at last, she had a shuddering orgasm, too.

  "Thank you,” she said, smiling at him, as they now lay side by side, each facing the other.

  He lightly traced the line of her cheek with his index finger. “For what?"

  "For, um, making sure that I..."

  His eyebrows went up. “Of course."

  "Not every guy, you know, cares..."

  She was totally naked, and the room's lights were on. He was delighted to see that the freckles were everywhere, and that her pubic hair was the same coppery shade as the hair on her head. She seemed totally at ease with her nudity. Now that they were done, he wanted to scoot under the sheet. But her body was pinning the sheet in such a way that he couldn't get under without making a big deal out of it. But as her finger played with the hair in the middle of his chest, he was uncomfortably conscious of her scrutiny.

  "No scars,” she said, absently.

  The dermal regeneration had gotten rid of all Don's old ones. “Just lucky, I guess."

  "Well,” said Lenore, whapping him playfully on the arm, “you certainly got lucky tonight.” And she made a big O with her mouth.

  He smiled at her. It had been amazing. Tender yet spirited, gentle and vigorous all at once. It wasn't quite sleeping with a supermodel—but it would do! Oh, yes, it would do!

  His hand found her nipple, and he tweaked it lightly between thumb and forefinger. “The pallid bust of Pallas,” he said softly, smiling at her.

  Her eyes went wide. “You're the first guy I've met who knows more of that poem than just the ‘nevermore’ part. You don't know how sick I got of people intoning ‘nevermore, nevermore’ at me."

  He stroked her breast gently, and said:

  * * * *

  "And the raven, never flitting

  still is sitting, still is sitting

  "On the pallid bust of Pallas

  just above my chamber door

  "And his eyes have all the seeming

  of a demon's that is dreaming

  "And the lamp-light o'er him streaming

  throws his shadow on the floor

  "And my soul from out that shadow

  that lies floating on the floor

  "Shall be lifted—nevermore!"

  * * * *

  "Wow,” said Lenore, softly. “I've never had a guy recite poetry to me."

  "I've never had a girl challenge me to Scrabble before."

  "And I want a rematch!” she said.

  He raised his eyebrows. “Now?"

  "No, not now, silly.” She pulled herself closer to him. “In the morning."

  "I—I can't,” he said. He felt her stiffen against him. “I, um, I've got a dog."

  She relaxed. “Oh. Oh, okay."

  "Sorry,” he said. He meant “for lying,” but let her take it to mean “for not being able to stay.” He scanned around the room for a clock, saw one, and his heart jumped. “Look,” he said, “I, um, I really do have to get going."

  "Oh, all right,” said Lenore, sounding not at all happy about it. “But call me! I'll give you my number..."

  To be continued.

  Copyright © 2006 Robert J. Sawyer

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  THE REFERENCE LIBRARY Tom Easton

  Regeneration, Julie Czerneda, DAW, $24.95, 543 pp. (ISBN: 0-7564-0345-6).

  Glasshouse, Charles Stross, Ace, $24.95, 335 pp. (ISBN: 0-441-01403-8).

  Thunder of Time, James F. David, Tor, $27.95, 400 pp. (ISBN: 0-765-30770-7).

  Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management, Howard Tayler, $15.00, 80 pp. (ISBN: 0-9779074-2-2).

  The General, Rick Sutcliffe, Writers Exchange E-Publishing, $3.95, $2.96 from Fictionwise (www.fictionwise.com) (ISBN: 1-920972-65-X).

  The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed., St. Martin's, $19.95, 660 + xlii pp. (ISBN: 0-312-35334-0).

  James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, Julie Phillips, St. Martin's, $27.95, 449 + xii pp. (ISBN: 0-312-20385-3).

  Heinlein's Children: The Juveniles, Joseph T. Major, Advent, $25.00, 535 + xvi pp. (ISBN:0-911682-34-1).

  Ten Worlds: Everything that Orbits the Sun, Ken Croswell, Boyds Mills Press, $19.95, 56 pp. (ISBN: 1-59078-423-5).

  * * * *

  Julie Czerneda began a new and intriguing series—Species Imperative—with Survival (reviewed here in October 2004), in which salmon researcher Mackenzie (Mac) Connor was enlisted to investigate why many worlds were being attacked by something that left large areas stripped of all life. By the time she was done, the truth was out: The alien Dhryn metamorphosed into a “feeder” form and were surely responsible for the long-lifeless worlds of the Chasm as well as for the current threat. Invisible aliens called the Ro, feared by the Dhryn, may be an essential ally, except that they are not terribly forthcoming.

  In the series’ second volume, Migration (reviewed here in November 2005), Mac became a major player in a huge Interspecies Union research effort that in due time revealed the Dhryn to have some remarkable similarities to her beloved salmon and the Ro to be villainous on a scale to rank with any of the creations of the late E. E. “Doc” Smith. Volume three is Regeneration, and it does an excellent job of resolving mysteries and assuring a happy future for both the galaxy and Mac. Her old friend Emily Mamani, still more than a bit twitchy from her mangling by the Ro, is now set to work on a tracking device to find whatever the Ro have left in Earth's oceans. Mac herself, less twitchy because less mangl
ed, has to deal with the “idiot” faction that continues to view the Ro as representing salvation from the evil Dhryn as she prepares to visit a Dhryn world. That's when a fleet of Dhryn derelicts is discovered and her team is redirected to checking out the ships. Once there, they discover a single Dhryn survivor, one of the “Wasted” who have failed their metamorphosis into the “Progenitor” (think queen bee) form. It is near starvation, but a human medic analyzes the evidence from the Dhryn homeworld and finds a diet that not only revives the survivor but has marvelous and informative effects. The villainy of the Ro is greater than anyone had suspected!

  Czerneda has a touch with aliens that makes me think her world would be a great one to live in. Her humans too—from the officious Oversight (Charles Mudge) to the delectable Nik—are convincing. Her trilogy here reaches its natural and satisfying conclusion, but I wish there were more to come.

  And perhaps there is. Emily Mamani is obsessed with the legend of the Survivors, aliens that somehow escaped the ancient devastation wrought in the Chasm. She plans to hunt them out, and that should provide at least one more book. I will look forward to it.

  * * * *

  In Charles Stross's Accelerated future, people can be transmitted hither and yon by Gates that use nanotechnology to disassemble whatever goes in, read out the identity and location of every atom, transmit the data to a destination Gate, and assemble a duplicate. The data can of course be saved, so a person can be backed up or put into a kind of digital “suspended animation.” The data for objects can also be saved, so a Gate is a great way to manufacture whatever one needs, whether clothes or weapons. And since it's all just data, a person can be copied. (How many of me do you want? Just hit the print button.)

  The data can also be edited, so there is an end to disease and injury and old age, as well as any idea that there is only one sort of human body. But there is also a new kind of war, which Stross sees in the old adage about those who do not remember history being condemned to repeat it. If this is true, he suggests, then those who would impose old-style tyrannies would do well to eliminate all memory of history. So he supposes a bit of software, known as Curious Yellow, that infects Gates, installs itself in people's communications implants, spreads as people are copied through the Gates, and when activated destroys memories of the past. It also activates assassins aimed at historians.

  To win such a war must mean destroying infected Gates, quarantining local tyrannies, and disinfecting people, as well as fighting old-style thud-and-blunder battles. Unfortunately, there can be no guarantee that every villain was found or that the villains will find no way to start the war again.

  So much is background to Glasshouse, which begins when Robin, who used to be a historian, was a whole tank regiment during the war, and is now recovering from drastic memory editing, meets Kay, cute and four-armed. They get it on quite happily, and when she mentions a certain research study looking for memory-edited volunteers, he lets himself be tempted. The study involves setting up an old-style society (based on best guesses, given the loss of records in the war, of what things were like around 2000) to see how things like the war could happen.

  Once in, Robin discovers he's not a guy any more. He's Reeve, and it's no big deal since he's switched before. But if Kay is there, she's been changed beyond easy recognition. And the study has no exit, surveillance is constant and total, you get points for acting in character (including getting pregnant), church displays rather strange symbology, and the folks in charge seem more than a little over the top.

  If the set-up reminds of Zimbardo's prison role-play study (in which college students showed how easy it was to start being rather brutal), it is surely deliberate; Stross even mentions Zimbardo at one point. But there's more than role-play going on. Reeve's dreams bring awareness that she is on a mission of infiltration. Memory creeps back. The reader learns about the background to the story and grows just as alarmed as Reeve, and as discouraged, for in a world where the self can be easily edited, what room is there for rebellion or dissent?

  If you love freedom and liberty, you may well see the Accelerated future as the epitome of personal choice. But there is this other side to the coin, for the choices can be those of others, imposed upon you willy-nilly. The heaven of free choice can become the hell of no choice all too easily. It's easy to root for Robin/Reeve and to cheer when the good guys prevail. But at the same time it's hard to see how they had any real chance at all. If the villains had been just a little less sloppy...

  Still, I recommend it to you as both thought provoking and entertaining. Stross keeps doing very well indeed.

  * * * *

  Ten years ago, says the puff sheet, James F. David “burst onto the scene with the exciting time-travel novel, Footprints of Thunder. The basic notion was that suddenly patches of prehistoric jungle, complete with dinosaurs, popped into the modern world (with the corresponding modern patches presumably popping into the ancient world). The phenomenon was quickly dubbed “time-quilting,” it was blamed on nuclear testing, and a bit of nuclear counter-blasting scrambled the responsible time waves and stopped the problem.

  Now David is back with Thunder of Time, whose premise is that the problem was stopped only temporarily. Now it's back, and it's not just bits of the dinosaurian landscape that are popping up. Time is getting scrambled, and the end of human civilization is at hand! But never fear, Kenny Randall of the earlier book left behind enough theory to give the computer modelers a hand, and Nick Paulson is on the case, begging for funding to investigate mysterious pyramids on the moon and in the Yucatan. He's also curious about hints of a mysterious government project in Alaska, and when no one will talk, he sets his girlfriend, Elizabeth, on the trail.

  That turns out to be another pyramid, and as we learn why the ecoterrorist wants to blow it up with a quartet of bootleg nukes, we learn why pyramids. It's all about orgone energy, you see. That's what makes the time-quilting happen, that's why the government suspects a nefarious hand behind the ongoing disaster, that's what the government project is about studying and learning to control, and that's what the ecoterrorist wants to harness to create a world without humans (except for himself and his harem). Schemes aplenty, and those are what Nick, Elizabeth, John Roberts, Ripman, and even Kenny Randall have to stop, if they can avoid hungry tyrannosaurs and blood-crazed Mayans. They also have to choose what sort of world to have when all is said and done.

  I suppose it would make a great movie. It's got enough melodrama and violence to make two! But as soon as David mentions pyramid power and orgone energy—both as thoroughly debunked as phrenology and phlogiston!—suspension of disbelief flies out the window. There is no plausibility, not the sort we are accustomed to in SF, where the made-up bits at least try to be consistent with what we know to be true, nor even the sort we accept in fantasy, where the consistency is with myth and legend and sometimes fairy tales. Here the consistency is with outright falsehood, and it does not work.

  Don't waste your money.

  * * * *

  It is perhaps not astonishing how many web-comics there are, but it is astonishing how many are actually quite good. As a case in point, you should look at “Schlock Mercenary” ( www.schlockmercenary.com), whose creator, Howard Tayler, has just released his first book, Schlock Mercenary: Under New Management (introduction by John Ringo). The galaxy is occupied by a great many sentient species, a number of which are found in Captain Taff Tagon's crew aboard the Serial Peacemaker. One of the most charming of the characters is Schlock, who resembles a giant pile of dog poo and hides blasters in his tummy. There's a mad scientist, Kevyn Andreyasn, who has nearly a billion matterporter and time clones wandering around; not surprisingly he keeps popping up. There are women, busty but deadly. In the book's bonus tale (never seen online), there are even evil clowns!

  And that's enough to give you the flavor: Inventive and humorous. Look at it online, and then buy the book, if Tayler has any left.

  * * * *

  Rick Sutcliff
e's The General is the fourth volume in his Worlds of the Timestream: The Interregnum series. I reviewed the first volume, The Peace, back in May 2001.

  Sutcliffe is a professor of computing science and mathematics at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. His fiction he very aptly calls “Christian Science Fiction with an Irish flavour.” The setting is the “Worlds of the Timestream,” a handful of parallel Earths separated by important crisis points. One such point was the Crucifixion; in our own Earth, it happened as we believe; in the world of the story, Pilate released Jesus and Christianity developed with a very different flavor, especially once Ireland came to dominate the world under the High Lord of Heaven. Technology developed centuries ahead of our own schedule, and Irish customs of honor came to govern war and politics. The series began when the King was deposed and his clan was banned for sixty years, a period the series tracks as the King's kin and friends build a web of sworn loyalties that will someday permit their grandchildren to reclaim the throne.

  In The General, those grandchildren are front and center, and the day of their ascendance is not far off. But the nobility are corrupt. There are plots and schemes and conspiracies in plenty, and it's a darned good thing that the grandchildren are supremely skilled at swordplay, computers, history, and everything else that might be needed. When Mara Meathe comes to court in 1997 and claims her place, ruler Donal XII promptly assigns her to a series of challenging tasks, which she accomplishes with remarkable displays of good sense. Meanwhile—beginning in 1987—Tadgh O'Kelly is working his way up the ranks with a series of forensic investigations that hint at the sort of very nasty kinds of human experimentation and sacrifice that make it no surprise when later the villains reveal an agenda that reminds us of the Nazis of our own world. Jump to 1998, when Sutcliffe introduces us to an amnesic patient in a nursing home on our Earth. Memory struggles to return: an airplane crash, capture, swords hacking at her body. An internal voice, an implanted computer system, hints at her past. There is no name. But as the story develops from 1997, the reader begins to guess. In due time, the heroes—good Christians all, and the best of them Born-Agains—prevail, the amputee is rescued and restored to her position, and the villains are thrown down. Some of them anyway. The series is by no means finished.