Locus, July 2014
Page 11
I also liked Michael F. Flynn’s novella, the latest in his ongoing Journeyman series about the plainsman Teodorq sunna Najaran and his traveling companion, the Hillman Sammi. In the previous installment, they were inducted into a sort of Foreign Legion, and in ‘‘The Journeyman: Against the Green’’ they end up in battles against a green-skinned people – who are apparently humans, and it becomes clear that this world has marvels aplenty. It is, of course, a stealth serialization of an upcoming novel, and in that sense each installment is a bit disappointing, but the stories are fun and the novel promises to be pretty good.
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Another stealth serialization is ongoing at F&SF, Naomi Kritzer’s Seastead stories. I have (and continue to have) reservations about the overly broad caricatures of the politics and the villains in these stories, but they remain enjoyable stuff, with an engaging heroine and consistently involving and exciting stories. The stories are very nice YA SF, with both the strengths and weaknesses of that form. ‘‘Containment Zone’’ is one of the best in the series, as Becca’s home is attacked by a (sciencefictionally interesting) plague, she is at the center of efforts to get relief ships to the Seastead, and she also deals with further evolution in her relationships with her estranged parents.
I’d consider Marc Laidlaw’s adventures of the bard Gorlen and the gargoyle Spar more of a true series of stories than a stealth serialization (though admittedly with a narrative arc uniting them). In the latest, ‘‘Rooksnight’’, Gorlen and Spar deal with a group of ‘‘knights’’ who are attempting to reclaim all of the vast treasure stolen from their mysterious Lord. The fantastical concepts, such as the intelligent rooks and what they are protecting, are pretty neat: another good adventure fantasy.
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The cover story in the July Asimov’s is Alexander Jablokov’s ‘‘The Instructive Tale of the Archaeologist and His Wife’’, and it’s a very good one. It’s set in what seems to be perhaps the far future, after the ‘‘technological era’’ has collapsed.
The story turns subtly on the title archaeologist’s slow accumulation of unexplainable artifacts, on his difficult relationship with his wife, who joins a crackpottish sect called the Obliviators, on certain mysteries about the past ‘‘technological age,’’ and on his own descent – or ascent – into a brand of what his colleagues would also call crackpottery. In the end a striking revelation comes to us, about how we can know the past (and, perhaps, at some level, about SF and fantasy writers).
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The June Lightspeed is a special issue, called Women Destroy Science Fiction. It is the largest issue the magazine has ever published, with 11 original short stories (edited by Christie Yant) and 15 short-shorts (edited by Robyn Lupo), as well as reprints and nonfiction. It’s also a very strong issue.
‘‘Walking Awake’’ by N.K. Jemisin is on one level suggestive of a mashup of The Puppet Masters and Never Let Me Go. It’s set in a facility where young people are raised to be hosts for crablike creatures who take over their bodies at adolescence and ‘‘ride’’ them until they decide they want a new body. Sadie is one of the caregivers (selected from people whose bodies are deemed defective in some sense). She is troubled by dreams in which one of the children she had raised seems to want to talk to her. This, and her attachment to the children, begins to push her in a rebellious direction. The story isn’t so simple and conventional, and her rebellion, which accompanies a powerful revelation about the ‘‘riders,’’ isn’t quite what we expect. Strong and scary work.
I also enjoyed Rhonda Eikamp’s ‘‘The Case of the Passionless Bees’’, a sort of steampunk Sherlock Holmes story, in which Gearlock Holmes is an ‘‘amalgamated’’ – a robot, invented by Joseph Bell in a nice touch. Here Holmes has retired, but Watson is summoned to visit him when a young woman visiting the detective is murdered. Holmes ‘‘solves’’ the mystery, of course, but it is Watson who must solve the real, and much darker, mystery behind the story. Charlie Jane Anders contributes a fine piece, ‘‘The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick’’, in which Mary, after breaking up with Roger, allows her longtime friend Stacia to convince Roger to give her a ‘‘memory wisp,’’ which will, in theory, allow whomever Mary dates next to ‘‘get to know her’’ from a lover’s point of view. That seems creepy to me – and eventually to Mary too – but Stacia, who has relationship problems, has her own plans for it (which go pear-shaped). A neat idea, nicely developed.
Maria Dahvana Headley’s ‘‘Dim Sun’’ is not exactly serious, but it’s good fun. It seems to have been conceived by mispronouncing Dim Sum, and is about a food critic and his estranged wife meeting at a restaurant that serves astronomical objects Dim Sum style. Goofy, yes, but funny. Among the flash fiction, I liked Kim Winternheimer’s ‘‘M1A’’ best, also reminiscent of Never Let Me Go, about a girl and her special sister – this one’s really dark.
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Rogues is the latest doorstop anthology from George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois: over 800 pages of stories about, well, rogues. Most of the stories are fantasy – there are just a couple I’d call SF, and a few contemporary stories. Indeed, a couple of the best stories in the book (Gillian Flynn’s ‘‘What Do You Do?’’ and Bradley Denton’s ‘‘Bad Brass’’) are not SF or fantasy, so perhaps not germane to this column, but well worth reading nevertheless.
There’s a lot of good fantasy here, if nothing really earthshaking. Neil Gaiman’s ‘‘How the Marquis Got His Coat Back’’, for example, returns to his London Below, as the Marquis de Carabas tries to track down his stolen coat, and in so doing gets involved with a young man trying to send a love letter to a girl well out of his league. Very entertaining stuff. Joe Abercrombie’s ‘‘Tough Times All Over’’ follows a mysterious packet as it changes hands multiple times – the hands of a whole series of rogues. The packet is pure Maguffin, but it makes a nice excuse for a sort of travelogue of the worst parts and the worst people in the low city of Sipani, which is a good time for the reader.
‘‘The Curious Case of the Dead Wives’’ by Lisa Tuttle is the second story I’ve seen from her about Miss Lane and her partner, Mr. Jesperson, who are trying to start a detective agency in Victorian London. The case this time is brought by a young girl, Felicity Travers, who wants them to find her sister Alcinda, who apparently died, but whom Felicity has since seen alive. The two detectives learn that Alcinda Travers was fascinated with death, and that a man had offered her a way that she can die and then be resurrected. What they find when they track down this man is creepier than we expect. I liked it a lot, and I hope to see more stories of Miss Lane and Mr. Jesperson.
The SF stories are by Connie Willis and Paul Cornell. ‘‘Now Showing’’ is by Connie Willis in her romcom romp mode: a young woman who loves movies has been abandoned by a guy she likes, so ends up trying to go the movies at the big multiscreen theater with her girlfriends. Naturally she runs into the guy, and also learns some secrets about all the movies that fill up those big theater complexes. If you like this stuff – and I do – this works just fine: it’s implausible, it’s fluffy, but it’s fun. The other SF piece is ‘‘A Better Way to Die’’, the latest in Paul Cornell’s series about Jonathan Hamilton (a spy for England), is an alternate history where technology includes the means of accessing parallel universes. Hamilton is introduced to a younger version of himself and forced into a battle of honor with this young man. He realizes that some people are considering taking the younger bodies for the use of older minds… which means the concept on honor goes beyond his personal feelings. It’s a subtle and twisty story, one of the best in the book.
Recommended Stories
‘‘The Unfathomable Sisterhood of Ick’’, Charlie Jane Anders (Lightspeed 6/14)
‘‘A Better Way to Die’’, Paul Cornell (Rogues)
‘‘Sadness’’, Timons Esaias (Analog 7-8/14)
‘‘The Instructive Tale of the Archaeologist and his Wife’’, Alexander Jablokov (Asimov’s 7/14)
‘‘W
alking Awake’’, N.K. Jemisin (Lightspeed 6/14)
‘‘Containment Zone’’, Naomi Kritzer (F&SF 5-6/14)
‘‘The Curious Case of the Dead Wives’’, Lisa Tuttle (Rogues)
‘‘M1A’’, Kim Winternheimer (Lightspeed 6/14)
Semiprofessional magazines, fiction fanzines, original collections, and original anthologies, plus new stories in outside sources should be sent to Rich Horton, 653 Yeddo Ave., Webster Groves MO 63119;
–Rich Horton
Return to In This Issue listing.
REVIEWS BY GARY K. WOLFE
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin 9781250046215, 706pp, $22.99, tp) July 2014.
Half a King, Joe Abercrombie (Del Rey 978-0-80401-7832-7, $26.00, 275pp, hc) July 2014.
All Those Vanished Engines, Paul Park (Tor 978-0-76537-540-7, $25.99, 172pp, hc) July 2014.
It’s no news to anyone that science fiction loves to talk to itself about itself, but it does so in a number of different ways. Some of the commentary I’ve heard about this year’s unusual Hugo and Nebula Awards ballots – at least some of the more restrained commentary – raises the question of what a novice or intermittent reader of SF might make of these various nominees, or of the state of the field in general, beyond the rather unhelpful observation that it really likes Dr. Who. It’s partly for the sake of those readers that I repeat my annoying mantra that this is what year’s best anthologies are for. Hugo, Nebula, and Locus nominations might fluctuate with the zeitgeist, but good editors seldom go wonky in mid-flight, and I’m happy to report that Gardner Dozois has not done so, even in his fourth decade of editing The Year’s Best Science Fiction. We can disagree with Dozois’s choices, or occasionally wonder what he was thinking, but in reading an edited volume we’re at least compelled to ask the more or less literary question of how he (or Jonathan Strahan or Rich Horton or David Hartwell) go about choosing these particular stories. That’s quite a bit different from the common Hugo and Nebula question of who voted for these stories, or what sort of nefarious conspiracies might be afoot, and it’s a crucial difference. On the one hand, we’re comparing our tastes and preferences with that of someone who knows the short fiction field extraordinarily well; on the other, we’re venturing into pop sociology or (some might ungenerously say) mob psychology. There are almost always excellent stories on awards ballots, but how they get there varies wildly from story to story. When you’re dealing with an editor, he or she is in the dock for every selection made.
That doesn’t mean that an editor like Dozois is particularly in line with popular tastes, or that he doesn’t have his own biases. Of the 32 stories in Dozois’s massive volume, only two have shown up on major awards ballots (Hugo, Nebula, Locus), and only one of those – Aliette de Bodard’s remarkable contrapuntal narrative ‘‘The Waiting Stars’’ – has shown up on all three. This is not new; ten years ago Dozois only had a couple of Hugo-nominated stories and one Nebula. The goal of an editor isn’t to second-guess popular voters (otherwise year’s bests could be crowd sourced from the get-go).
Nor is Dozois without his own predilections; while other annual anthologists like Strahan and Hartwell have combined SF and fantasy and everything in between, Dozois, with the absence of Hartwell from the field, is the last holdout of pure-quill SF annuals. And even within SF, he has shown a fairly consistent predilection for what we might call, borrowing a phrase from Lavie Tidhar, Central Station Stories – stories which are comfortable with the tropes and conventions that have developed in SF over the past few decades, such as posthumanism. It shows up here not only in the mindships of de Bodard’s story (which vaguely recall Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who Sang), but in the winged flyer who crashes in a poor African village in Karl Bunker’s ‘‘Gray Wings’’, in the recalcitrant artists of Mercury in Alastair Reynold’s ‘‘A Map of Mercury’’, in the asteroid based tree-dwellers of Alexander Jablokov’s ‘‘Bad Day on Boscobel’’, in the reconstituted dinosaur sidekick in Neal Asher’s ‘‘The Other Gun’’, in the almost-universal group mind of Ian R. MacLeod’s excellent ‘‘Entangled’’, and in the revived dead of Damien Broderick’s ‘‘Quicken’’.
Dozois also likes to recognize stories that are self-consciously part of the ongoing SF dialogue; nearly a third of the selections allude either to other SF works or to their own series. The most significant of these, at least in terms of the series of which is it a part, is Robert Reed’s very long novella ‘‘Precious Mental’’, a major contribution to his ongoing saga of the Great Ship – a Jupiter-sized craft hosting myriads of civilizations – and one that hints at the millions-year-old origins of some of the alien technology that makes the immortal lives on the ship possible. Both of the Lavie Tidhar stories are connected to his Central Station, an enormous spaceport in a future Tel Aviv; the better of these is ‘‘The Book Seller’’, which also pointedly alludes to C.L. Moore’s ‘‘Shambleau’’ and to Tidhar’s own Martian hardboiled hero Bill Glimmung, as well as to a tradition of Israeli pulp writing new to most of us. The main character in James Patrick Kelly’s moving ‘‘The Promise of Space’’ is a science fiction writer trying to communicate with her severely brain-damaged astronaut husband through an AI-generated augmentation. Along the way she mentions ‘‘old-timers’’ like Le Guin, Kress, and Bacigalupi (there’s also a sly plug for one of his pal John Kessel’s novels). Two of the stories are direct riffs on classic SF tales: Michael Swanwick’s ‘‘The She-Wolf’s Hidden Grin’’, set on the same planet as Gene Wolfe’s The Fifth Head of Cerberus, was practically the only contribution to last year’s Wolfe tribute volume that actually, and rather uncannily, captured the tone and complexity of Wolfe’s original, while Damien Broderick’s ‘‘Quicken’’ is an ambitious and rewarding expansion of and sequel to Robert Silverberg’s ‘‘Born with the Dead’’.
Neal Asher’s ‘‘The Other Gun’’ is a lively action tale set in the Polity vs. Prador universe of his novels, although not much of the complexity of that future society comes through amid the violence. Stephen Baxter’s ‘‘Earth I’’ works fine as a standalone story of distant-future explorers trying to find humanity’s home planet, but it also serves as a distant sequel to his Flood/Ark duology and the follow-up story ‘‘Earth II’’ of a few years ago. Carrie Vaughn’s sensitive and understated ‘‘The Best We Can’’ doesn’t directly allude to Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, though its central image – a mysterious and uncommunicative alien artifact drifting into the solar system – is almost the same. For all her success with commercial bestsellers, Vaughn’s approach to SF remains both serious and even restrained, making this one of the more attractive stories for the SF novice seeking the simple, old-fashioned sense of wonder.
Vaughn’s is also one of the shorter stories here, and there’s something to be said for stories which efficiently make their point and get out, in the manner of classic magazine fiction. Other such examples are Paul McAuley’s ‘‘Transitional Forms’’, which introduces us to a forbidden ‘‘hot zone’’ where artificial life has run rampant; Alastair Reynold’s ‘‘A Map of Mercury’’, with its protagonist trying to negotiate for an artwork from increasingly posthuman Mercurians; Ken Liu’s post-nanoplague shocker ‘‘The Plague’’; Sandra McDonald’s fable of a post-apocalyptic Guam long isolated from the rest of the world in ‘‘Fleet’’; and Sunny Moraine’s ‘‘A Heap of Broken Images’’, narrated by a guide for tourists visiting a planet nearly wiped out by genocide. It’s interesting that setting is central to nearly all these shorter pieces, as though it were more important than plot developments, which it usually is.
But shorter pieces are not what Dozois has made his trademark in these annuals; instead, with a generous page count and only science fiction to cover, he has far more room for novellas than any of the other annuals, and fully two-fifths of this huge volume is taken up by six stories – those by Broderick, Asher, and Reed
, in addition to Martin L. Shoemaker’s clever but light hardboiled mystery ‘‘Murder on the Aldrin Express’’; Nancy Kress’s character study of a boxer who gains extraordinary mental powers, ‘‘One’’ (which despite its length seemed abrupt in its ending; I actually preferred Kress’s other story here, ‘‘Pathways’’, about familial insomnia); and Jay Lake’s ‘‘Rock of Ages’’, a complex and compelling tale involving mysterious plague vectors and vast conspiracies that threaten the entire city of Seattle (and which may see its first print appearance here, since it originally appeared in the audio METAtropolis series). Of the remaining stories, those that struck me as particularly original include Geoff Ryman’s bizarre ‘‘Rosary and Goldenstar’’, an odd concatenation of Shakespeare, John Dee, and Tycho Brahe, which also serves as an odd meditation on the conceptual sources of SF itself; Ian R. MacLeod’s treatment of a decadent afterlife in ‘‘The Discovered Country’’; Greg Egan at his most humanistic in a tale of a brilliant girl’s phenomenal discovery, ‘‘Zero for Conduct’’; Ian McDonald’s tall tale of a fading Irish tenor on a post-Wellsian Mars in ‘‘The Queen of Night’s Aria’’; Melissa Scott’s suspenseful tale of exploring an abandoned space station in ‘‘Finders’’; and the only real shred of steampunk here, Sean McMullen’s ‘‘Technarion’’, another tale of advanced Victorian computing that oddly almost comes down on the side of the Luddites.