Asimov's Science Fiction

by Penny Publications

  A search for dodo bones began in the early nineteenth century, by which time Mauritius had passed into British possession. In 1863 a naturalist named George Clark finally found some—many—in a muddy, marshy delta. Thanks to his work, mounted dodo skeletons now can be seen at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and at many other museums. A study of these remains revealed that the dodo’s closest living relatives were doves and pigeons, whose ancestors, millions of years ago, had been big birds with prominent beaks. One group of these birds had made its way to Mauritius, where life was tranquil and no enemies existed, and they gradually lost the use of their wings. As they adapted to life on the ground, they grew bigger and clumsier, until they could barely get around at all. Eventually the Dutch arrived, and dogs and rats, and in less than a century they were all gone, their name alone remaining as a proverbial term denoting extinction.

  And now—is the dodo about to make a comeback?

  I suggested such a thing in 1973 in a novella called “Born with the Dead,” which proposes a process for bringing the newly deceased back to life. The “rekindled” deads prefer to live apart from other human beings, developing a separate subculture of their own that has its own special amusements—one of which is to hunt specimens of formerly extinct animals that had likewise been brought back from the grave and kept in an African hunting preserve, a forerunner of Hollywood’s Jurassic Park. The story closes with my two protagonists spending the last days of 1999 together, “shooting dodos under the shadow of mighty Kilimanjaro.”

  But “Born with the Dead” is only science fiction, and back in 1973 I never really anticipated that dodos would return to the world, not in 1999 or in any future year. But now—

  EXTINCT IS FOREVER, a conservationist poster of the 1970s proclaimed, but these days there is serious talk of bringing back extinct animals: a National Geographic Society meeting devoted to the subject a couple of years ago even produced a list of twenty-four animals that should have priority in such projects, among them the woolly mammoth, the Tasmanian tiger, the Carolina parakeet, the quagga, the moa, and, of course... the dodo.

  Two ways of doing such a thing have been proposed. One is to find animals that are related to and closely resemble the extinct one, and breed selectively for the extinct-relative traits until a reasonable facsimile has been created. That has been done with the zebra-like quagga of Africa—I wrote about that here a few years ago—and also with the aurochs, an extinct European bison; but the problem is that what has been produced is an animal that looks somewhat like a quagga or an aurochs but really isn’t one. The other technique is to extract DNA from the tissues of an extinct creature and mingle it with that of a non-extinct relative, which would, at least, result in an animal that has some of the genetic properties of the original. That is what has been suggested for the dodo. A well-preserved dodo skeleton found in a cave on Mauritius in 2007 may yield usable DNA, which could be paired with the genetic material of the Nicobar pigeon, a bird of the Indian Ocean area that doesn’t look at all like the dodo, probably to its own great relief, but according to DNA evidence is closely related to it.

  Easier said than done, of course. So far, such projects remain in the realm of science fiction.

  But should it be done at all? Some scientists object to the expenditure of time, money, and scientific effort on so pointless an enterprise as bringing back the dodo, when much else of real merit remains to be done. Others, though, reply that we have a sort of moral obligation to make the attempt, since human beings (and their dogs) sent the dodo into extinction in the first place; and, besides, they were harmless, flightless birds that would do no ecological damage if restored to existence. They would not, unlike Mr. Spielberg’s velociraptors, pose any menace to human society if a flock of them somehow got loose. And they would be fun to look at.

  I’m in favor of trying to do it. As a Stanford University bioethicist puts it, restoring the dodo “would be awesome. It would be seriously cool.” I don’t admire his adolescent choice of phrase, but I do agree with the sentiment. Let’s bring the dodo back! Why not? By all means, let’s give it a shot. Imagine having a few dodos waddling around in our zoos, four hundred years after the species had undergone what has proven to be only a temporary demise. Awesome! Seriously cool!

  * * *

  NEXT ISSUE

  312 words

  FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY YEAR

  We’re celebrating our fortieth anniversary all year long. The party starts with the super-stuffed double January/February 2017 issue! Two dramatic stories frame the issue. Allen M. Steele’s famous frontier planet, Coyote, has been settled for some time, but terrifying dangers still lurk around the bend of an unexplored river. Members of a scientific expedition soon learn that it takes more than bravado to survive “Tagging Bruno.” In Robert Reed’s new novella, crewmembers from the Big Ship encounter a very strange and very intelligent alien who puts their own spin on “The Speed of Belief.”

  ALSO IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY

  Octavia Cade escorts us to the Siberia of Stalinist Russia for “The Meiosis of Cells and Exile”; Jack Skillingstead arrives at a chilling “Destination”; Jim Grimsley paints a “Still Life With Abyss”; denizens of Fire Island will “Blow Winds, and Crack Your Cheeks” in John Alfred Taylor’s new story; Tom Purdom reveals the powerful strength of a “Fatherbond”; Robert R. Chase helps pick up the “Pieces of Ourselves”; Lisa Goldstein exposes us to “The Catastrophe of Cities”; Ray Nayler imbues a hazardous “Winter Timeshare” with new meaning; young people attempt a first contact with the help of Stephen Baxter’s mysterious “Starphone”; while beauty and sorrow are stunningly portrayed in Sean Monaghan’s evocative depiction of “Crimson Birds of Small Miracles.”

  OUR EXCITING FEATURES

  Robert Silverberg’s Reflections column gives “ Two Cheers for Piltdown Man”; during an intriguing On the Net discussion, each participant lets James Patrick Kelly know he can “Ask Me Anything”; Paul Di Filippo’s On Books critiques works by Betsy James, Harry Turtledove, Will McIntosh, Ken Liu, Lavie Tidhar, and others; plus we’ll have an array of poetry and other features you’re sure to enjoy. Look for our super-stuffed January/February issue on sale at newsstands on December 20, 2016. Or subscribe to Asimov’s—in paper format or in downloadable varieties—by visiting us online at www.asimovs.com. We’re also available individually or by subscription on Amazon.com’s Kindle and Kindle Fire, and Barnes and Noble. com’s Nook, as well as from magzter.com/magazines, Google Play, and Kobo’s digital newsstand!

  * * *

  ON BOOKS

  Peter Heck | 2420 words

  GENTLEMAN JOLE AND THE RED QUEEN

  By Lois McMaster Bujold

  Baen, $27.00 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-4767-8122-8

  The latest installment in Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga pulls the focus away from Miles Vorkosigan, whose career in the military of his home world Barrayar has made for some of the most interesting SF in recent years. It is set three years after the previous volume, Cryoburn, which ended with the news that Miles’s father Aral had died, making Miles the new Count Vorkosigan.

  Since then, Cordelia Vorkosigan, Miles’s mother, has served as Vicereine of the Barrayaran colony Sergyar, the planet on which she and Aral first met. At the same time, Admiral Jole, who spent more than twenty years—most of his career—as Aral’s most trusted aide, is now the senior military leader on the colony. As the title suggests, this is the story of the relationship of the widow and the younger officer. In the process, we find out a lot of what went on behind the scenes of all the novels focusing on Miles’ career.

  In fact, it wouldn’t be too much to say that Bujold uses this novel to drop a number of bombshells on the reader who’s been following the series. I’m not going to spoil the reader’s chance to discover them independently; the shocks are half the fun of the book. One thing that is important to know, however, is that the conflicts in this book are consid
erably lower-key than in many of the previous volumes. Cordelia doesn’t need to cut off anyone’s head, nor are the battles anything that can’t be handled by local law enforcement—though at several points they threaten to become something bigger.

  An intriguing aspect of the novel is seeing the changes in Sergyar, which was very much a frontier planet when Aral and Cordelia first met there. Now it’s become a thriving Barrayaran colony, with a decent-sized settlement of civilians supporting the military outpost. Some retired military have made their homes here, starting up tourist-oriented businesses and raising families.

  The novel begins by hitting Jole with an important, and unexpected, life decision. For in addition to serving as Aral’s aide, Jole was his lover—with Cordelia’s full knowledge and complicity. Now, Cordelia tells him, Aral left behind some genetic material that can be used to create new offspring. Cordelia plans to use some of it to give birth to daughters (sons would potentially create rivals to Miles). And, she says, it would be an opportunity for Jole to have sons with the man he loved. For Jole, who grew up in a world without the advanced medical science that has come to Barrayar largely as a result of Cordelia’s influence, this is a surprise—and a cause for considerable introspection.

  By taking as her main protagonists two mature characters in a well-established scenario, Bujold gets several opportunities to have a kind of fun that younger, more active, characters might not present—for example, the generational gaps between Cordelia, Jole, and their younger staff members provide a good bit of humor. Also, we get a look at Miles in his new role as a family man—a father who dotes on his children, and brings them along on a visit to his mother.

  Baen has reissued the first two novels telling the story of Cordelia and Aral, Shards of Honor and Barrayar, giving readers a chance to refresh their memory of the two characters’ meeting and early years. If you haven’t read them, they’re well worth picking up, though you don’t necessarily need to have read them to follow the events in Gentleman Jole. But you’ll certainly find your experience of the new novel richer if you know what Cordelia was like as a young woman learning about Barrayar—and Aral—for the first time.

  THE NIGHTMARE STACKS

  By Charles Stross

  Ace, $27.00 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-0-425-28119-2

  Stross’s “Laundry Files” continues with a new viewpoint character: Alex Schwartz, a young mathematician readers met two books ago in The Rhesus Chart as a banker-turned-vampire. He and his co-workers were recruited into the Laundry, the division of British Intelligence charged with combating supernatural threats to the Realm. Now, after a bit of training, Alex is faced with a real challenge to his abilities.

  As those who’ve followed the series know, supernatural forces have been building up to a critical point—a set of scenarios to which the Laundry has assigned the code “Case Nightmare—” with different colors filling in the blank. Most of the defense establishment has no idea these scenarios are to be taken seriously. After all, who expects an invasion from Middle Earth (Case Nightmare Red)? But as the outbreak of superheroes in the previous volume should have showed them, nightmares are the coming thing.

  Having already had its share of troubles (to put it mildly), the Laundry is moving its headquarters out of London to a more defensible site near Leeds, in the North of England. Alex is assigned to determine whether a nearby 1950’s defense bunker, built to survive nuclear attacks, is up to holding off supernatural invaders. But the assignment is a problem for Alex, whose family lives in Leeds. Even if he weren’t faced with telling his family he’s lost his high-paid bank job (not to mention becoming a vampire), he’s not comfortable living close to Mom and Dad.

  The opening chapter finds Alex wandering the beach near Whitby—the locale of several scenes in Dracula—mulling his dilemma. As it turns out, there’s a group of goths role-playing a scene from the book. One of them, who introduces herself as Cassie, seems to take a fancy to Alex—a new experience for him. (Alas for the popular image, being a vampire doesn’t make him irresistible to the opposite sex.) Cassie invites him to a party after the rehearsal, but Alex gets a call from work, asking him to help out a team who’s assessing some new hardware to detect supernatural intrusions. Reluctantly, he agrees—and regrets the missed opportunity.

  Of course, as it turns out, Cassie isn’t what she appears to be. As the plot unfolds, we learn she’s actually the vanguard of an invasion from a world where the dominant race are what we would think of as Elves—powerful humanoid magic-users who have no particular sympathy for the humans of Earth. Their world has been invaded by monstrous enemies, and the Elvish race is reduced to a remnant that is near the end of its resources. Their only chance is to find a new world to inhabit.

  Stross gets considerable satiric mileage out of the Elves’ political system—absolute monarchy, with the ruler dominating everyone else by the use of magic— and their attempts to make sense out of what they find in England. Of course, this is double-edged—the various anomalies of the British system are ample fodder for Stross’s wit. He also finds targets in the horrors of the bureaucratic life, which for most of us are far more real than any eldritch horrors from beyond. Even if you haven’t read the earlier volumes in the series—which I heartily recommend doing—these themes make this novel wickedly enjoyable in its own right.

  The conclusion, while unexpected, is perfect. Maybe you’ll see it coming, but it was a complete surprise to me. As long as I’ve been reading, it’s very rare for that to happen. Stross has hit the bull’seye again.

  MORNING STAR

  By Pierce Brown

  Del Rey, $27.00 (hc)

  ISBN 978-0-345-53984-7

  The concluding volume of Brown’s “Red Rising” trilogy picks up the career of Darrow, at its nadir. Darrow was a Martian mining slave who became an aristocratic golden warrior and infiltrated the ruling “Golds” to engineer their downfall. Captured by his enemies and exposed as a fraud at the end of the previous volume, he is locked in a lightless box with no room to move

  The story opens with Darrow still imprisoned by Adrius Au Augustus, the Jackal, archgovernor of Mars. It appears the only way to end his degradation and torture is death—but the Jackal wants to keep him alive as a lesson to those who presume to challenge the Golds. But the rebels haven’t forgotten their leader; two of them infiltrate the Jackal’s fortress and free Darrow. Now the question becomes whether Darrow, weakened by his captivity, can return to a position of leadership.

  As in the previous volume, Brown builds up the society of a settled solar system in which the super-rich and super-powerful have created a genetically enhanced aristocratic hierarchy reminiscent in some ways of the caste system of Huxley’s Brave New World—here taken to a brutal extreme. And Darrow’s leadership isn’t something he can resume without proving himself—those aligned against the Golds are as tough and unsentimental as those they’re fighting. Slowly regaining his strength, Darrow begins to prove his worth to the others— and the war to free the lower colors is back on track.

  What gives the rebels hope is that they’re not the only ones who feel shortchanged by the dominance of the Golds over the Solar System. The Moon Lords, whose dominion is the satellites of the planets beyond Mars, have their own argument with the central power. And Mars, under the Jackal, has assumed a degree of independence. If Darrow and his friends play their cards right, they will have plenty of help freeing themselves—and a chance to retain their independence from a central system that has plenty of things to worry about besides who’s running Mars.

  As in the previous installments, there are a number of inventive action sequences in the book. Brown has the knack for setting up a confrontation where the outcome appears pre-ordained and finding a way to surprise the reader as the situation develops. The action ranges from Mars to the moons of the outer planets to Luna—the capital world of the Solar System.

  The novel is a more than satisfactory conclusion to the Red Rising trilogy, with a har
d-driving plot that will appeal to fans of military SF and a political awareness that sets it apart from the pack. And while the novel ties up all the important strands of the previous books, there’s material for sequels if Brown is so inclined.

  Following are three short reviews— one of an established author, the others by newcomers. While space didn’t allow longer reviews, all are worth the reader’s notice.

  DOWN AND OUT IN PURGATORY

  By Tim Powers

  Subterranean Press, $30.00 (hc)

  ISBN: 978-1-59606-781-3

  This dark fantasy novella, published in a deluxe hardcover edition, posits the question of how to get revenge on someone who’s already dead. That’s Tom Holbrook’s problem.

  Ten years earlier, Shasta, the woman Tom had loved since their college days, was murdered by her husband John Atwater, another member of their college circle, A wealthy man, Atwater went scot-free. Tom, obsessed with finding Atwater and killing him, is frustrated of his revenge when Atwater dies of a stroke. Worst of all, Atwater apparently died happy. Everything Tom has lived for is gone.

  Then Tom finds out about a man who may be able to assist him. Martinez knows how to get in touch with dead people. He says he may even be able to help Tom catch up with Atwater in the afterlife. There’s a catch, of course. To get what he wants, Tom has to be dead himself— which Martinez can arrange. It won’t even cost Tom anything—he just has to get some information of interest back to Martinez once he’s on the other side.