The Year's Best SF 13 # 1995

by Gardner Dozois (ed)

  Elsewhere, Babylon 5 seems to be actually winning in its direct, head-to-head competition with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a show extremely similar in concept and format, winning in the hearts of SF fans, at least, if not yet in the ratings—perhaps one reason why Deep Space Nine may be chafing to change its format. I must admit that I haven’t warmed all that much to Babylon 5 myself, but many media SF fans and even many print SF fans have, and the cult following for this show is growing continually, with Babylon 5 panels even at regular non-media-oriented SF conventions drawing overflowing audiences, and Babylon 5 conventions beginning to come into existence. Another cult show, The X-Files, on the verge of being canceled only a couple of years ago, now seems to be an immense success—although, predictably, now that it’s on top, connoisseurs are beginning to complain that It’s Not As Good As It Used To Be. As far as I can tell, Earth 2, SeaQuest DSV, Space Precinct, M.A.N.T.I.S., and Forever Knight have all died. I won’t miss any of them. I will miss Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Northern Exposure, which have also died (although Mystery Science Theater 3000 may be reborn in some alternate form), though both shows had grown stale, and were probably ready to go. I’ll miss Northern Exposure in particular, as it was perhaps the best show on network television during its first couple of seasons, particularly its wonderful first season—dismaying how little time it took the network “spin doctors” to run this once excellent series into the ground, replacing whimsy with angst, souring the characters, and spoiling their subtle relationships with one another, until, by the time the show ended, I was glad to see it put out of its misery. Lois and Clark survived another shaky season by the skin of its teeth, although its future is doubtful. Highlander seems as popular as ever, as far as I can tell, and is perhaps as immortal as its protagonist.

  Of the new shows, the best is probably StrangeLuck, a quirky and intelligent show whose story editor and producer is SF writer Michael Cassutt, who formerly worked on the American TV version of Max Headroom. StrangeLuck may be too quirky for its own good, though—there’s no overt fantastic element here, just the fact that bizarre coincidences happen around the lead character all the time (hence the show’s title), and the occasional hint about his Mysterious Past, which may or may not somehow be responsible for his strange luck—and that may be too subtle for the television audience at large. StrangeLuck is reported to be struggling, and its future may be in doubt, although it’s a stylish and often funny show that deserves to survive. Third Rock from the Sun is an Alf retread that wastes some talented actors. Hercules: The Legendary Journeys is fun in a cheesy, junk-food sort of way, if only to laugh at the really staggering lapses from anything resembling historical accuracy, and the unintentional anachronisms that abound. Deadly Games, which has already been canceled, was a show about computer-game figures coming to life, with Christopher Lloyd enjoyable as the main villain. The new Outer Limits is disappointing at best, and sometimes plain bad. Space: Above and Beyond is a World War II combat movie thinly disguised as an SF show, and takes itself with such unsmiling and portentous seriousness that it’s sometimes almost amusing.

  Turn off the tube and go read a book, is my advice.

  * * *

  The Fifty-third World Science Fiction Convention, Intersection, was held in Glasgow, Scotland, from August 24 to August 28, and drew an estimated attendance of 4,800. A pall was thrown over the proceedings for many of those in attendance by the death of John Brunner (see below) on the first night of the convention, the first time that a science fiction writer has died while attending a Worldcon; it’s a shame that this tragedy will probably turn out to be what the convention is chiefly remembered for in the annals of fannish history, but that seems likely. The 1995 Hugo Awards, presented at Intersection, were: Best Novel, Mirror Dance, by Lois McMaster Bujold; Best Novella, “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge,” by Mike Resnick; Best Novelette, “The Martian Child,” by David Gerrold; Best Short Story, “None So Blind,” by Joe Haldeman; Best Nonfiction, I. Asimov: A Memoir, by Isaac Asimov; Best Professional Editor, Gardner Dozois; Best Professional Artist, Jim Burns; Best Original Artwork, Brian Froud for Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Book; Best Dramatic Presentation, “All Good Things,” from Star Trek: The Next Generation; Best Semiprozine, Interzone; Best Fanzine, Ansible, edited by David Langford; Best Fan Writer, David Langford; Best Fan Artist, Teddy Harvia; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to Jeff Noon.

  The 1994 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City on April 22, 1995, were: Best Novel, Moving Mars, by Greg Bear; Best Novella, “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge,” by Mike Resnick; Best Novelette, “The Martian Child,” by David Gerrold; Best Short Story, “A Defense of the Social Contracts,” by Martha Soukup; plus the Grand Master Award to Damon Knight.

  The World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Twenty-first Annual World Fantasy Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 29, 1995, were: Best Novel, Towing Jehovah, by James Morrow; Best Novella, “Last Summer at Mars Hill,” by Elizabeth Hand; Best Short Fiction, “The Man in the Black Suit,” by Stephen King; Best Collection, The Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Comedians and A Conflagration Artist, by Bradley Denton; Best Anthology, Little Deaths, edited by Ellen Datlow; Best Artist, Jacek Yerka; Special Award (Professional), to Ellen Datlow; Special Award (Nonprofessional), to Bryan Cholfin, for Broken Mirrors Press and Crank!.

  The 1995 Bram Stoker Awards, presented by the Horror Writers of America during a banquet at the Warwick Hotel in New York City on June 10, were: Best Novel, Dead in the Water, by Nancy Holder; Best First Novel, Grave Markings, by Michael Arnzen; Best Collection, The Early Fears, by Robert Bloch; Best Long Fiction, “The Scent of Vinegar,” by Robert Bloch; Best Short Story (tie), “Cafe Endless: Spring Rain,” by Nancy Holder and “The Box,” by Jack Ketchum; plus a Life Achievement Award to Christopher Lee.

  The 1994 John W. Campbell Memorial Award was won by Permutation City, by Greg Egan.

  The 1994 Theodore Sturgeon Award for Best Short Story was won by “Forgiveness Day,” by Ursula K. Le Guin.

  The 1994 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award went to Mysterium, by Robert Charles Wilson.

  The 1994 Arthur C. Clarke Award was won by Fools, by Pat Cadigan.

  The 1994 Compton Crook Award was won by Dun’s Lady Jess, by Doranna Durgin.

  The 1994 Crawford Award for Best First Fantasy Novel went to Gun, with Occasional Music, by Jonathan Lethem.

  * * *

  This was yet another year of horrendous loss for the science fiction and fantasy genres. Dead in 1995 or early 1996 were: Walter M. Miller, Jr., 73, author of the classic, seminal, Hugo-winning SF novel A Canticle for Leibowitz, as well as many influential stories during the fifties, one of which, “The Darfsteller,” won him another Hugo; British author John Brunner, 60, author of the Hugo-winning Stand on Zanzibar, as well as many other acclaimed novels such as The Jagged Orbit, The Whole Man, The Squares of the City, The Sheep Look Up, The Shockwave Rider, and almost fifty more, including thrillers, mainstream novels, historical novels, and poetry collections; Roger Zelazny, 58, one of the giants of the New Wave era, who went on to become one of the most popular and beloved writers in the genre, multiple Hugo and Nebula winner, author of Lord of Light, This Immortal, Isle of the Dead and the multivolume Amber series, among many others; G. C. Edmonson, 73, author of the classic time-travel novel The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream, as well as Chapayeca, one of the most undeservedly forgotten novels of the seventies, and the landmark collection Stranger Than You Think, among others; British writer Bob Shaw, 63, author of the classic story “Light of Other Days,” as well as The Ragged Astronauts, The Wooden Spaceship, A Wreath of Stars, and others; Ian Ballantine, 79, the publisher who practically invented the modern mass-market paperback as we know it, cofounder, along with his wife, Betty, of three major paperback companies, Penguin, Bantam, and Ballantine, a true giant of the publishing world; Elsie Wollheim, 85, wife of SF editor-publisher Donald A. Wollheim, and for many years executi
ve vice president of the publishing house they created, DAW Books; Margaret St. Clair, 84, author of the well-known Sign of the Labrys, as well as Agent of the Unknown and The Dolphins of Altair, who also wrote a long sequence of sprightly and entertaining stories under the pseudonym of Idris Seabright; Kingsley Amis, 73, noted British writer and critic, author of Lucky Jim and The Old Devils, who also wrote a considerable body of SF, including The Alteration and The Anti-Death League, as well as being coeditor of the Spectrum series of SF anthologies, and producing one of the pioneer works of SF criticism, New Maps of Hell; Jack Finney, 84, World Fantasy Award winner, author of the classic time-travel novel Time and Again, one of the most loving and nostalgic looks at the past ever written, as well as Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Robertson Davies, 82, noted Canadian writer, many of whose books had fantastic elements, among them The Rebel Angels, The Cunning Man, and the acclaimed collection of ghost stories, High Spirits; Claude Avice, 70, French writer who produced many books under the name of Pierre Barbet; Christopher Hodder-Williams, 69, British writer, author of The Main Experiment and The Egg-Shaped Thing, among others; Mike McQuay, 45, author of Memories, Jitterbug, and Life-Keeper, among others; Kent R. Patterson, 53, short-story writer and frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Analog; Michael Ende, 65, German author of the children’s fantasy novel The Neverending Story; Abram Ruvimovich Palely, 101, prominent Russian SF writer; Charlotte Franke, 60, German author and editor; Kenneth Sterling, 74, writer for the early pulp magazines; Adam Wisniewski-Snerg, 58, Polish SF author; Stan Leventhal, 43, writer and editor; Janice Elliott, 63, author of The Summer People; Don Pendleton, 67, creator of one of the first of the men’s adventure series, describing the adventures of “the Executioner,” as well as other SF novels, mysteries, and Westerns; Terry Southern, 71, scriptwriter and novelist, author of Candy and The Magic Christian; Edith Pargeter, 82, who, as Ellis Peters, wrote, among other books, the long-running Brother Cadfael series of mystery novels, which seem to be almost as popular with fantasy fans as with mystery fans, perhaps because of their medieval setting; Patricia Highsmith, 74, noted mystery author who also wrote some short horror and SF; Elleston Trevor, 75, author of SF, suspense, novels, the best known of which probably was The Quiller Memorandum, part of a long-running series of spy novels written as Adam Hall; Robie Macauley, 76, former fiction editor of Playboy, where he encouraged the use of SF and fantasy in that magazine, also a former editor at Houghton Mifflin; Diane Cleaver, 53, editor and agent, former SF editor at Doubleday; Charles Monteith, 74, noted British publisher; Charles Scribner, Jr., 74, publisher and editor; Eric Garber, 40, anthologist; Philip E. Cleator, 86, founder of the British Interplanetary Society, and an early popularizer of space travel; Rudolph Zallinger, 75, scientific muralist, best known for his The Age of Reptiles mural, which, reprinted in Life, was many a child’s first exposure to dinosaurs; Peter Cook, 57, British comic actor and writer, one of the founders of the pioneering British comedy show Beyond the Fringe, also a star of such movies as The Bed-Sitting Room and The Wrong Box; Donald Pleasence, 75, film actor, perhaps best known to genre audiences for his role in Escape from New York, as well as for his portrayal of the evil Blofeld in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice; David Wayne, 81, film actor, perhaps best known to genre audiences for Portrait of Jennie and The Andromeda Strain, although he also had a recurring role on TV’s Batman series; Elizabeth Montgomery, 57, star of TV’s long-running sitcom Bewitched; Cy Endfield, 81, director of Zulu and the film version of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island; Arthur Lubin, 96, director of fantasy films such as Rhubard and The Incredible Mr. Limpet; Henry Horner, 84, director of Red Planet Mars; Patricia Casort Vardeman, 35, wife of SF writer Robert Vardeman; Evelyn Beheshti Hildebrant, 33, wife of SF writer Don H. DeBrandt; Benjamin Elgin, 29, son of SF writer Suzette Haden Elgin; Stanley Asimov, 66, well-known journalist, brother of the late SF writer Isaac Asimov, compiler of the recently released book of his brother’s letters, Yours, Isaac Asimov; Bessie Delany, 104, great-aunt of SF writer Samuel R. Delany, and coauthor, with her older sister, who survives her, of the best-selling book Having Our Say: the Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years.

  A WOMAN’S LIBERATION

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the best-known and most universally respected SF writers in the world today. Her famous novel The Left Hand of Darkness may have been the most influential SF novel of its decade, and shows every sign of becoming one of the enduring classics of the genre—even ignoring the rest of Le Guin’s work, the impact of this one novel alone on future SF and future SF writers would be incalculably strong. (Her 1968 fantasy novel, A Wizard of Earthsea, would be almost as influential on future generations of High Fantasy writers.) The Left Hand of Darkness won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, as did Le Guin’s monumental novel The Dispossessed a few years later. Her novel Tehanu won her another Nebula in 1990, and she has also won three other Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award for her short fiction, as well as the National Book Award for children’s literature for her novel The Farthest Shore, part of her acclaimed Earthsea trilogy. Last year she was awarded the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. Her other novels include Planet of Exile, The Lathe of Heaven, City of Illusions, Rocannon’s World, The Beginning Place, The Tombs of Atuan, The Eye of the Heron, The New Atlantis, Tehanu, Searoad, and the controversial multimedia novel Always Coming Home. She has published six collections of short fiction: The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Orsinian Tales, The Compass Rose, Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, and her most recent book, Four Ways to Forgiveness. Her stories have appeared in our Second, Fifth, and Eighth Annual Collections, with two stories by her in our Twelfth Annual Collection.

  Here she returns to the star-spanning, Hainish-settled community known as the Ekumen—the same fictional universe that provided the background for her most famous novels—for a powerful and unsettling investigation of loyalty and betrayal, love, and hatred, slavery and transcendence … and the price of freedom.

  1. Shomeke

  My dear friend has asked me to write the story of my life, thinking it might be of interest to people of other worlds and times. I am an ordinary woman, but I have lived in years of mighty changes and have been advantaged to know with my very flesh the nature of servitude and the nature of freedom.

  I did not learn to read or write until I was a grown woman, which is all the excuse I will make for the faults of my narrative.

  I was born a slave on the planet Werel. As a child I was called Shomekes’ Radosse Rakam. That is, Property of the Shomeke Family, Granddaughter of Dosse, Granddaughter of Kamye. The Shomeke family owned an estate on the eastern coast of Voe Deo. Dosse was my grandmother. Kamye is the Lord God.

  The Shomekes possessed over four hundred assets, mostly used to cultivate the fields of gede, to herd the saltgrass cattle, in the mills, and as domestics in the House. The Shomeke family had been great in history. Our Owner was an important man politically, often away in the capital.

  Assets took their name from their grandmother because it was the grandmother that raised the child. The mother worked all day, and there was no father. Women were always bred to more than one man. Even if a man knew his child he could not care for it. He might be sold or traded away at any time. Young men were seldom kept long on the estates. If they were valuable they were traded to other estates or sold to the factories. If they were worthless they were worked to death.

  Women were not often sold. The young ones were kept for work and breeding, the old ones to raise the young and keep the compound in order. On some estates women bore a baby a year till they died, but on ours most had only two or three children. The Shomekes valued women as workers. They did not want the men always getting at the women. The grandmothers agreed with them and guarded the young women closely.

  I say men, women, children, but you are to understand that we were not called men, women, children. Only our owners were called so. We as
sets or slaves were called bondsmen, bondswomen, and pups or young. I will use these words, though I have not heard or spoken them for many years, and never before on this blessed world.

  The bondsmen’s part of the compound, the gateside, was ruled by the Bosses, who were men, some relations of the Shomeke family, others hired by them. On the inside the young and the bondswomen lived. There two cutfrees, castrated bondsmen, were the Bosses in name, but the grandmothers ruled. Indeed nothing in the compound happened without the grandmothers’ knowledge.

  If the grandmothers said an asset was too sick to work, the Bosses would let that one stay home. Sometimes the grandmothers could save a bondsman from being sold away, sometimes they could protect a girl from being bred by more than one man, or could give a delicate girl a contraceptive. Everybody in the compound obeyed the counsel of the grandmothers. But if one of them went too far, the Bosses would have her flogged or blinded or her hands cut off. When I was a young child, there lived in our compound a woman we called Great-Grandmother, who had holes for eyes and no tongue. I thought that she was thus because she was so old. I feared that my grandmother Dosse’s tongue would wither in her mouth. I told her that. She said, “No. It won’t get any shorter, because I don’t let it get too long.”