Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition
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Wildside Press
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Copyright ©2007 by Wildside Press
First published in USA, 2007
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SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF THE YEAR 2007 EDITION
EDITED BY RICH HORTON
Published by Wildside Press LLC
www.wildsidepress.com
Copyright © 2007 by Wildside Press, LLC
"Another Word for Map is Faith” copyright @ 2006 by Christopher Rowe. First published in F&SF, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Okanoggan Falls” copyright @ 2006 by Carolyn Ives Gilman. First published in F&SF, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Saving for a Sunny Day” copyright @ 2006 by Ian Watson. First published in Asimov's, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"The Cartesian Theater” copyright @ 2006 by Robert Charles Wilson. First published in Asimov's, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Hesperia and Glory” copyright @ 2006 by Ann Leckie. First published in Subterranean Magazine, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Incarnation Day” copyright @ 2006 by Walter Jon Williams. First published in Escape from Earth, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Exit Before Saving” copyright @ 2006 by Ruth Nestvold. First published in Futurismic, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Inclination” copyright @ 2006 by William Shunn. First published in Asimov's, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Life on the Preservation” copyright @ 2006 by Jack Skillingstead. First published in Asimov's, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"Me-Topia” copyright @ 2006 by Adam Roberts. First published in Forbidden Planets, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"The House Beyond Your Sky” copyright @ 2006 by Benjamin Rosenbaum. First published in Strange Horizons, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
"A Billion Eves” copyright @ 2006 by Robert Reed. First published in Asimov's, 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS
THE YEAR IN SCIENCE FICTION, 2006, by Rich Horton
ANOTHER WORD FOR MAP IS FAITH, by Christopher Rowe
OKANOGGAN FALLS, by Carolyn Ives Gilman
SAVING FOR A SUNNY DAY, or THE BENEFITS OF REINCARNATION, by Ian Watson
THE CARTESIAN THEATER, by Robert Charles Wilson
HESPERIA AND GLORY, by Ann Leckie
INCARNATION DAY, by Walter Jon Williams
EXIT WITHOUT SAVING, by Ruth Nestvold
INCLINATION, by William Shunn
LIFE ON THE PRESERVATION, by Jack Skillingstead
ME-TOPIA, by Adam Roberts
THE HOUSE BEYOND YOUR SKY, by Benjamin Rosenbaum
A BILLION EVES, by Robert Reed
CONTRIBUTORS
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THE YEAR IN SCIENCE FICTION, 2006, by Rich Horton
1. Theory
Last year some readers wondered what my underlying theme was in this book—what was my focus? what sort of science fiction do I most wish to promote? what is my vision for the field? My original reaction was to insist that I have no underlying theme. My only goal is to pick the dozen or fifteen stories I think are the best each year. Let the thematic chips fall where they may.
But of course this is a bit naïve. An anthologist has considerable control over a book's contents beyond merely exercising their taste. (And sometimes less control than they would like: occasionally stories cannot be used for contractual reasons.) If every year there were fifteen and only fifteen stories that stood head and shoulders above the rest of the field, a nice balance of novellas and novelettes and short stories, that neatly filled the 125,000 words I'm allotted, I could say that this book simply publishes the best stories I read. But it doesn't work that way. In any given year there are perhaps half-a-dozen stories that I feel I simply have to have. Beyond that there are perhaps twenty more that are pretty much on a level with each other. (And as I reread stories, think about them some more, play them against each other, my perceptions can shift somewhat.) Only about half of those stories can be used. So how to decide?
Many considerations enter. I try to have a balance of lengths. I try not to use too many stories from the same source. I like to have a couple of newer writers to showcase, if possible. And for these books I restrict myself to one story per author per book—sometimes a wrenching choice. (Let me recommend, for example, Robert Reed's “Eight Episodes,” a brilliant and original short story that doesn't appear here only because I chose another brilliant story of his.)
Having said all that, I don't really make an effort to emphasize any particular style or theme. Let the writers in concert do that—they often do. Last year I thought my collection rather heavy on fairly “hard” science fiction; I don't see quite such an emphasis this year. I do see a few stories that are overtly weird in ways not always characteristic of “science fiction” (as opposed to fantasy or horror or perhaps slipstream). There are also a few stories fairly directly focused on religion. But I am going to shy away from pronouncing a common theme or direction for science fiction in 2007.
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2. Practice
Two of the most wonderfully strange stories come from Christopher Rowe and Benjamin Rosenbaum, each of them a young writer who has made a noticeable splash over the past several years, even without having produced a novel between them. Rowe's “Another Word for Map is Faith” shows us a future in which consensus faith can alter geography, telling the tale as much by sly characterization as by displaying the odd setting. Rosenbaum's “The House Beyond Your Sky” takes us to the extreme far future for a remarkably intimate, and truly lovelily written, piece about the clash of universes.
Religion is central to William Shunn's “Inclination,” in which the main character grows up on a space station, in a very traditional religion that turns out to be an odd futuristic variant of Christianity. His problems are in part futuristic—his religion resists the body modifications and nanotechnology prevalent on the station—and in part quite directly relevant to contemporary issues. Robert Reed's “A Billion Eves” posits a new religion, based on the technology of traveling to parallel worlds, and rather patriarchially (and oppressively) based on worshipping the “Fathers” who pioneer these new worlds. But a story that starts out rather conventionally depicting a nasty religion becomes rather different, as its protagonist becomes ecologically aware—and most importantly, as we are shown the different nature of ecological issues in this strange multiplex tree of societies. Ian Watson's “Saving for a Sunny Day; or, The Benefits of Reincarnation” takes a different, rather more satirical, look at religious issues. Souls in this future are barcoded, and can be tracked after death to their new incarnation. Which can mean a newborn inherits a significant karmic (and financial) debt. Robert Charles Wilson's thought-provoking “The Cartesian Theater” finds a very appropriate way of speculating about machine rights, human identity, even the idea of a soul, in a well-framed and well-told story of a man in an ambiguously prosperous future telling his dead grandfather about a disgusting but legal staging of a simulated (or was it?) death.
I promised new w
riters—who is on hand this time? Jack Skillingstead's stories began appearing in major markets in 2003, and they immediately attracted notice. “Life on the Preservation” is his best yet, I think, about a visit to a version of Seattle preserved by aliens in a time loop. Ann Leckie is even newer: “Hesperia and Glory” was her first sale, to the “science fiction cliché” issue of Subterranean (guest-edited by John Scalzi). It is a lovely and witty inversion of Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars stories.
Another particularly weird story is Adam Roberts's “Me-Topia,” which starts us out in an almost unexplainable setting—a planet outside of the Solar System's ecliptic with breathable air and curiously familiar geography—and which manages to make all this make sense—and matter—by the end. Much less weird, but original and affecting, is a welcome return to the field from Carolyn Ives Gilman: “Okanoggan Falls,” about implacable alien invaders in a small town, and the curious effect the mayor's wife's overtures have on the commander. “Exit Before Saving,” by Ruth Nestvold is a thriller about a woman illegally using her corporation's “body morph” technology, and then finding a sinister twist to it. Finally, Walter Jon Williams's “Incarnation Day” is one of the more traditional science fiction stories here, and very effective, about a future in which children are raised in a virtual environment, and have to earn incarnation in real bodies.
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3. Background
Where does the science fiction field stand in 2007? Is it any healthier than in recent years? That's hard to say. We didn't lose anything as important as SCI FICTION, Ellen Datlow's magnificent original fiction website, which ceased publication at the end of 2005. 2006 did see the demise of a lesser but often interesting electronic publication, Oceans of the Mind. But we also saw a very promising new webzine: Jim Baen's Universe, a production of Baen Books, edited by Eric Flint, which featured some very interesting fiction. (Alas, its arrival was almost simultaneous with the sudden death of the founder of Baen Books, Jim Baen.) Another interesting new webzine, Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, actually debuted in 2005, and published two worthwhile issues in 2006.
These new arrivals notwithstanding, I'd still rank the venerable site Strange Horizons (which is in its seventh year of weekly publication, quite remarkable for a webzine) as the best online source of short science fiction and fantasy. Other online sites which featured intriguing short science fiction include Abyss and Apex, Challenging Destiny, Ideomancer, Helix, and the very smart, near future oriented, Futurismic.
The print side continued much as usual. Sheila Williams did a very fine job in her second full year at the helm of Asimov's Science Fiction (as evidenced by my choice of four stories from that magazine for this book.) The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, under Gordon van Gelder, had a particularly strong year (both with science fiction stories and some excellent fantasies). I didn't think Analog (under Stanley Schmidt) had quite as strong a year publishing short fiction in 2006, but there were some fine serials, and if the best stories weren't quite as good as the best of 2005, there were a passel of solid stories. Interzone (edited by Andy Cox) continues to be as good looking a magazine as we have, and also continues to publish plenty of fine stories. Newer magazines include another British entry, Postcripts (edited by Peter Crowther), always interesting (though the best work there this year was not really science fiction), and the very promising Subterranean (edited by William Schafer), which very rapidly is becoming one of the best magazines in the field. Among the smaller ‘zines those that publish a fair amount of first rate science fiction (as opposed to fantasy) include Electric Velocipede, two Canadian publications: On Spec and Neo-Opsis, and a new British entry, Farthing.
I thought this year a very strong year for original anthologies. One of the best recent developments has been the Science Fiction Book Club's increasing commitment to original collections of longer stories. This year they published One Million A. D. (edited by Gardner Dozois), Forbidden Planets (edited by Marvin Kaye), and Escape From Earth (edited by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann), all full of first rate novellas and long novelettes. Other top anthologies of science fiction stories included, surprisingly, another book called Forbidden Planets, this one edited by Peter Crowther and published by DAW, and featuring stories to some extent inspired by the movie; Lou Anders's first-rate non-theme book Futureshocks (Roc); and a couple of Australian books: Agog! Ripping Reads (edited by Cat Sparks), and Eidolon 1 (edited by Jonathan Strahan and Jeremy G. Byrne). In addition, Twenty Epics (edited by David Moles and Susan Marie Groppi) was a mostly fantasy-oriented book with a couple of excellent science fiction stories, and two anthologies overtly focused on cross-genre work included some fine science fiction: Paraspheres (edited by Ken Keegan and Rusty Morrison) and Polyphony 6 (edited by Deborah Layne and Jay Lake).
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4. Future
So, here are my choices for the best science fiction stories from 2006. They are an exciting and varied bunch, and they reflect an exciting and varied short fiction field. And there is more where these came from—I urge readers to try the magazines and original anthologies and websites that publish new short fiction. Short fiction is not only worth reading in the present—it represents to a considerable extent the future of the field, both in allowing new writers a place to begin, and in allowing new ideas a place to flourish.
[Back to Table of Contents]
ANOTHER WORD FOR MAP IS FAITH, by Christopher Rowe
The little drivers threw baggage down from the top of the bus and out from its rusty undercarriage vaults. This was the last stop. The road broke just beyond here, a hundred yards short of the creek.
With her fingertip, Sandy traced the inked ridge northeast along the map, then rolled the soft leather into a cylinder and tucked it inside her vest. She looked around for her pack and saw it tumbled together with the other Cartographers’ luggage at the base of a catalpa tree. Lucas and the others were sorting already, trying to lend their gear some organization, but the stop was a tumult of noise and disorder.
The high country wind shrilled against the rush of the stony creek; disembarkees pawed for their belongings and tried to make sense of the delicate, coughing talk of the unchurched little drivers. On the other side of the valley, across the creek, the real ridge line—the geology, her father would have said disdainfully—stabbed upstream. By her rough estimation it had rolled perhaps two degrees off the angle of its writ mapping. Lucas would determine the exact discrepancy later, when he extracted his instruments from their feather and wax paper wrappings.
"Third world bullshit,” Lucas said, walking up to her. “The transit services people from the university paid these little schemers before we ever climbed onto that deathtrap, and now they're asking for the fare.” Lucas had been raised near the border, right outside the last town the bus had stopped at, in fact, though he'd dismissed the notion of visiting any family. His patience with the locals ran inverse to his familiarity with them.
"Does this count as the third world?” she asked him. “Doesn't there have to be a general for that? Rain forests and steel ruins?"
Lucas gave his half-grin—not quite a smirk—acknowledging her reduction. Cartographers were famous for their willful ignorance of social expressions like politics and history.
"Carmen paid them, anyway,” he told her as they walked towards their group. “Probably out of her own pocket, thanks be for wealthy dilettantes."
"Not fair,” said Sandy. “She's as sharp as any student in the seminar, and a better hand with the plotter than most post-docs, much less grad students."
Lucas stopped. “I hate that,” he said quietly. “I hate when you separate yourself; go out of your way to remind me that you're a teacher and I'm a student."
Sandy said the same thing she always did. “I hate when you forget it."
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Against all odds, they were still meeting the timetable they'd drawn up back at the university, all those months ago. The bus pulled away in a clou
d of noxious diesel fumes an hour before dark, leaving its passengers in a muddy camp dotted with fire rings but otherwise marked only by a hand lettered sign pointing the way to a primitive latrine.
The handful of passengers not connected with Sandy's group had melted into the forest as soon as they'd found their packages ("Salt and sugar,” Lucas had said, “They're backwoods people—hedge shamans and survivalists. There's every kind of lunatic out here.") This left Sandy to stand by and pretend authority while the Forestry graduate student whose services she'd borrowed showed them all how to set up their camps.
Carmen, naturally, had convinced the young man to demonstrate tent pitching to the others using her own expensive rig as an example. The olive-skinned girl sat in a camp chair folding an onionskin scroll back on itself and writing in a wood-bound notebook while the others struggled with canvas and willow poles.
"Keeping track of our progress?” Sandy asked, easing herself onto the ground next to Carmen.
"I have determined,” Carmen replied, not looking up, “that we have traveled as far from a hot water heater as is possible and still be within Christendom."
Sandy smiled, but shook her head, thinking of the most remote places she'd ever been. “Davis?” she asked, watching her student's reaction to mention of that unholy town.
Carmen, a Californian, shuddered but kept her focus. “There's a naval base in San Franciso, sí? They've got all the amenities, surely."
Sandy considered again, thinking of cold camps in old mountains, and of muddy jungle towns ten days’ walk from the closest bus station.
"Cape Canaveral,” she said.
With quick, precise movements, Carmen folded a tiny desktop over her chair's arm and spread her scroll out flat. She drew a pair of calipers out from her breast pocket and took measurements, pausing once to roll the scroll a few turns. Finally, she gave a satisfied smile and said, “Only fifty-five miles from Orlando. We're almost twice that from Louisville."