by Rich Horton
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Wildside Press
www.wildsidepress.com
Copyright ©2006 by Wildside Press
First published in USA, 2006
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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CONTENTS
The Year in Science Fiction by Rich Horton
Triceratops Summer by Michael Swanwick
Bank Run by Tom Purdom
A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story by Douglas Lain
The Edge of Nowhere by James Patrick Kelly
Heartwired by Joe Haldeman
The Fate of Mice by Susan Palwick
The King of Where-I-Go by Howard Waldrop
The Policeman's Daughter by Wil McCarthy
Bliss by Leah Bobet
Finished by Robert Reed
The Inn at Mount Either by James Van Pelt
Search Engine by Mary Rosenblum
"You” by Anonymous by Stephen Leigh
The Jenna Set by Daniel Kaysen
Understanding Space and Time by Alastair Reynolds
CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF THE YEAR
( 2006 Edition)
EDITED BY
RICH HORTON
ALSO FROM PRIME BOOKS
Horror: The Best of the Year (2006 Edition)
edited by John Betancourt & Sean Wallace
Fantasy: The Best of the Year (2006 Edition)
edited by Rich Horton
SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF THE YEAR 2006 EDITION
Copyright © 2006 by Wildside Press, LLC.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Please see end of this book for individual story copyright information.
Distributed by Diamond Book Distributors.
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CONTENTS
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The Year In Science Fiction, by Rich Horton
Triceratops Summer, by Michael Swanwick
Bank Run, by Tom Purdom
A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story, by Douglas Lain
The Edge of Nowhere, by James Patrick Kelly
Heartwired, by Joe Haldeman
The Fate of Mice, by Susan Palwick
The King of Where-I-Go, by Howard Waldrop
The Policeman's Daughter, by Wil McCarthy
Bliss, by Leah Bobet
Finished, by Robert Reed
The Inn at Mount Either, by James Van Pelt
Search Engine, by Mary Rosenblum
"You” by Anonymous, by Stephen Leigh
The Jenna Set, by Daniel Kaysen
Understanding Space and Time, by Alastair Reynolds
The Year in Science Fiction by Rich Horton
—
There are two obvious ways of looking at the state of the SF field in any given year. One is to try to assess the quality and concerns of the stories produced: are there any obsessive themes? Was it a particularly special year for great stories? Did any authors spring out of nowhere to suddenly become major? Or did any seem to exert outsize influence through some combinations of quantity and quality of stories?
The other way is more practical in a sense: how is the field doing economically? Are the magazines healthy? Are book sales healthy? Is readership expanding? This latter way is less interesting to me, but it seems the short fiction scene deserves a brief look, if only to mostly mildly echo cries of “doom and gloom.” The magazines are at best stable: circulation continues to drift down, and some new starts of the past couple years didn't survive long, most notably Paizo Publishing's somewhat media-oriented relaunch of Amazing. A bit more optimistically, Andy Cox stamped his personality more thoroughly on Interzone, and after a slow start in 2004 he managed six quite strong issues in 2005. The first year of Asimov's under Sheila Williams's editorship was a solid year, with much continuity maintained from Gardner Dozois's reign. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction had a good year, and Analog had one of its best recent years. More distressing was the loss of the best-ever online source of new science fiction: Ellen Datlow's Sci Fiction, which has been closed down after another strong year. Smaller ‘zines often tend to publish fantasy, horror, or slipstream, but there are a few that publish lots of science fiction: in particular I would mention Electric Velocipede, the Australian publication Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and two electronically distributed magazines, Challenging Destiny and Oceans of the Mind.
But what of the stories? I am still delighted year after year by story after story. And this year was no different: I had an agonizing time limiting my selections for this volume. I hope they successfully indicate the breadth and scope of the imagination of contemporary SF writers. A look at common characteristics of these stories reveals a very high percentage that I would call rather “hard” science fiction—something I found somewhat surprising, but refreshing. There are stories on familiar themes, including one that explicitly responds to a nearly fifty-year-old classic. Other stories are engaging current political concerns—though I find that the best of these, like those included here, are really dealing with issues that were important in a century ago, or fifty years ago, and will probably still be nagging us in 2106. They come from a wide variety of sources, too: I saw outstanding pieces from all the traditional SF magazines (though my favorites from F&SF this year were fantasies), from online sources like Sci Fiction and Strange Horizons, from original anthologies, from a scientific journal, and from the fine, long-running, Canadian magazine On Spec, and even from a science fiction convention's program book.
And of course from a wide spread of writers: veterans and newcomers, writers best known for novels and writers who have only published short fiction, some very prolific writers and some we see much less often. Let's begin with one writer who, every year it seems, publishes a plethora of potential best of the year selections: Robert Reed. This year we see “Finished,” as with many of Reed's stories an examination of a familiar science fiction idea, in this case uploading into android bodies, with a fresh viewpoint.
Michael Swanwick is another writer who seems to produce multiple top stories each year (to the extent that I once proposed renaming the short story Hugo the “Swanwick Invitational"). “Triceratops Summer” is a lovely story of dinosaurs in Vermont. (And it is also significant because of its unusual publication venue: a downloadable e-story from Amazon.com.) And James Patrick Kelly is another writer (of roughly the same SF generation as Reed and Swanwick) who is a constant presence on award ballots and in Best of the Year volumes. He's also a constant presence in the June issue of Asimov's Science Fiction, and his June 2005 story, “The Edge of Nowhere,” is a striking story about the sources—and importance—of creativity.
As long as I am mentioning writers who have, let's say, been around awhile, I'll bring up Joe Haldeman, who contributes a pointed story about love, “Heartwired,” from the latest series of short-shorts published in the venerable UK scientific journal Nature. Also, Tom Purdom, one of my favorite writers, who began publishing SF in the late ‘50s, but who has had a truly remarkable late caree
r surge since about 1990, contributes “Bank Run,” at once an exciting adventure story about finance, and a challenging look at gender roles and, once again, love. I suppose Howard Waldrop qualifies as a “veteran,” too, though his stories are also so individual, so sui-generis, that he seems ever a brand new writer. “The King of Where-I-Go” is a moving look at a Texas childhood, mixing polio and time travel curiously.
Never fear, there are standout new writers to celebrate as well. Leah Bobet's “Bliss” is a powerful story of drug addiction, and a potential cure with its own downside. Douglas Lain's “A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story” uses an alien invasion (perhaps) as a means of looking at a marriage in trouble. James Van Pelt's “The Inn at Mount Either” is a clever and sad story of multiple dimensions, telling of a honeymoon at a hotel built around a door between parallel universes. Daniel Kaysen's “The Jenna Set” is very smart, and very funny, about a new mathematical theory of human interactions, and an AI telephone answering service. The longest story here is Alastair Reynolds's deep time story, “Understanding Space and Time,” in which civilization on Earth is destroyed by a weaponized virus, marooning a Martian expedition. One man survives on Mars with the curious help of Elton John, and eventually gets to see the very far future indeed.
Susan Palwick's “The Fate of Mice” explicitly invokes Daniel Keyes's classic “Flowers for Algernon” in a story about an enhanced mouse and his relationship with his researcher and the man's daughter. Wil McCarthy's “The Policeman's Daughter” is set in the same “Queendom of Sol” future as his most recent series of novels. It thoughtfully explores questions of identity as a lawyer is forced to oppose a version of himself in court, trying a case about another man who thinks a version of himself is trying to murder him. Stephen Leigh's “You, by Anonymous” is effectively paranoiac about an alien invasion of a different sort. And finally Mary Rosenblum, happily returned to the field after a number of years concentrating on mysteries, offers “Search Engine,” a powerful story of a man working for a government which is increasingly violating citizens’ privacy by the use of chips to track all transactions.
Science Fiction remains a vital way of not only looking at possible futures, but of looking at the present through the lens of the imagined future. I don't think truly new ideas are as common as they once were, but fresh treatments of old ideas, even explicit hommages to old stories, can be just as exciting. Our present is ever changing—and the best SF changes with us, as demonstrated in many stories here. This book showcases the very best of 2005's stories.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Triceratops Summer by Michael Swanwick
—
The dinosaurs looked all wobbly in the summer heat shimmering up from the pavement. There were about thirty of them, a small herd of what appeared to be Triceratops. They were crossing the road—don't ask me why—so I downshifted and brought the truck to a halt, and waited.
Waited and watched.
They were interesting creatures, and surprisingly graceful for all their bulk. They picked their way delicately across the road, looking neither to the right nor the left. I was pretty sure I'd correctly identified them by now—they had those three horns on their faces. I used to be a kid. I'd owned the plastic models.
My next-door neighbor, Gretta, who was sitting in the cab next to me with her eyes closed, said, “Why aren't we moving?"
"Dinosaurs in the road,” I said.
She opened her eyes.
"Son of a bitch,” she said.
Then, before I could stop her, she leaned over and honked the horn, three times. Loud.
As one, every Triceratops in the herd froze in its tracks, and swung its head around to face the truck.
I practically fell over laughing.
"What's so goddamn funny?” Gretta wanted to know. But I could only point and shake my head helplessly, tears of laughter rolling down my cheeks.
It was the frills. They were beyond garish. They were as bright as any circus poster, with red whorls and yellow slashes and electric orange diamonds—too many shapes and colors to catalog, and each one different. They looked like Chinese kites! Like butterflies with six-foot winspans! Like Las Vegas on acid! And then, under those carnival-bright displays, the most stupid faces imaginable, blinking and gaping like brain-damaged cows. Oh, they were funny, all right, but if you couldn't see that at a glance, you never were going to.
Gretta was getting fairly steamed. She climbed down out of the cab and slammed the door behind her. At the sound, a couple of the Triceratops pissed themselves with excitement, and the lot shied away a step or two. Then they began huddling a little closer, to see what would happen next.
Gretta hastily climbed back into the cab. “What are those bastards up to now?” she demanded irritably. She seemed to blame me for their behavior. Not that she could say so, considering she was in my truck and her BMW was still in the garage in South Burlington.
"They're curious,” I said. “Just stand still. Don't move or make any noise, and after a bit they'll lose interest and wander off."
"How do you know? You ever see anything like them before?"
"No,” I admitted. “But I worked on a dairy farm when I was a young fella, thirty-forty years ago, and the behavior seems similar."
In fact, the Triceratops were already getting bored and starting to wander off again when a battered old Hyundai pulled wildly up beside us, and a skinny young man with the worst-combed hair I'd seen in a long time jumped out. They decided to stay and watch.
The young man came running over to us, arms waving. I leaned out the window. “What's the problem, son?"
He was pretty bad upset. “There's been an accident—an incident, I mean. At the Institute.” He was talking about the Institute for Advanced Physics, which was not all that far from here. It was government-funded and affiliated in some way I'd never been able to get straight with the University of Vermont. “The verge stabilizers failed and the meson-field inverted and vectorized. The congruence factors went to infinity and...” He seized control of himself. “You're not supposed to see any of this."
"These things are yours, then?” I said. “So you'd know. They're Triceratops, right?"
"Triceratops horridus,” he said distractedly. I felt unreasonably pleased with myself. “For the most part. There might be a couple other species of Triceratops mixed in there as well. They're like ducks in that regard. They're not fussy about what company they keep."
Gretta shot out her wrist and glanced meaningfully at her watch. Like everything else she owned, it was expensive. She worked for a firm in Essex Junction that did systems analysis for companies that were considering downsizing. Her job was to find out exactly what everybody did and then tell the CEO who could be safely cut. “I'm losing money,” she grumbled.
I ignored her.
"Listen,” the kid said. “You've got to keep quiet about this. We can't afford to have it get out. It has to be kept a secret."
"A secret?” On the far side of the herd, three cars had drawn up and stopped. Their passengers were standing in the road, gawking. A Ford Taurus pulled up behind us, and its driver rolled down his window for a better look. “You're planning to keep a herd of dinosaurs secret? There must be dozens of these things."
"Hundreds,” he said despairingly. “They were migrating. The herd broke up after it came through. This is only a fragment of it."
"Then I don't see how you're going to keep this a secret. I mean, just look at them. They're practically the size of tanks. People are bound to notice."
"My God, my God."
Somebody on the other side had a camera out and was taking pictures. I didn't point this out to the young man.
Gretta had been getting more and more impatient as the conversation proceeded. Now she climbed down out of the truck and said, “I can't afford to waste any more time here. I've got work to do."
"Well, so do I, Gretta."
She snorted derisively. “Ripping out toilets, and nailing up s
heet rock! Already, I've lost more money than you earn in a week."
She stuck out her hand at the young man. “Give me your car keys."
Dazed, the kid obeyed. Gretta climbed down, got in the Hyundai, and wheeled it around. “I'll have somebody return this to the Institute later today."
Then she was gone, off to find another route around the herd.
She should have waited, because a minute later the beasts decided to leave, and in no time at all were nowhere to be seen. They'd be easy enough to find, though. They pretty much trampled everything flat in their wake.
The kid shook himself, as if coming out of a trance. “Hey,” he said. “She took my car."
"Climb into the cab,” I said. “There's a bar a ways up the road. I think you need a drink."
* * * *
He said his name was Everett McCoughlan, and he clutched his glass like he would fall off the face of the Earth if he were to let go. It took a couple of whiskeys to get the full story out of him. Then I sat silent for a long time. I don't mind admitting that what he'd said made me feel a little funny. “How long?” I asked at last.
"Ten weeks, maybe three months, tops. No more."
I took a long swig of my soda water. (I've never been much of a drinker. Also, it was pretty early in the morning.) Then I told Everett that I'd be right back.
I went out to the truck, and dug the cell phone out of the glove compartment.
First I called home. Delia had already left for the bridal shop, and they didn't like her getting personal calls at work, so I left a message saying that I loved her. Then I called Green Mountain Books. It wasn't open yet, but Randy likes to come in early and he picked up the phone when he heard my voice on the machine. I asked him if he had anything on Triceratops. He said to hold on a minute, and then said yes, he had one copy of The Horned Dinosaurs by Peter Dodson. I told him I'd pick it up next time I was in town.
Then I went back in the bar. Everett had just ordered a third whiskey, but I pried it out of his hand. “You've had enough of that,” I said. “Go home, take a nap. Maybe putter around in the garden."
