Between work and family crisis and short stories being slow reading for me, this took me over two weeks to finish. I don’t count that against the anthology however. It’s got one of the more ambitious premises that I’ve seen. Every story is supposedly science based, though Ryman told a reading audience in Seattle a couple weeks ago that it’s not, strictly speaking, an anthology of Mundane SF.
I’m tempted to give the book extra points for making the attempt, just because I love science so much. In some cases, like this and the previously read Interfictions 2, the anthology theme is quite laudable. They are attempting to do something moral with their theme. In the case of Interfictions 2, it’s to highlight a genre that the editors did not feel gets the exposure it should. This one is to promote science, obviously. Both are judgment calls on what is right and correct about the world, although not necessarily of grand import. The theme of a vampire anthology doesn’t promote a moral view (though individual stories surely do). Even though Feeling Very Strange was similar to Interfictions, its focus as a historical retrospective of slipstream lends itself less to promotion of a moral view than a prospective one such as Interfictions. Anyhow, I love my brain candy, but I also appreciate when authors and editors try to do something good with the world. We need more science, scientific thinking, and appreciation for science.
How the anthology worked is that Ryman put a set of authors (mostly British) in contact with a number of scientists (mostly at the University of Manchester). They then conversed and exchanged viewpoints. Each author wrote a story related to the research of the scientist. There appear to be varying levels of collaboration between the stories. Some have the science very integrated with the story. In others, there’s a brief mention of something scientific and little else. After each story appears a note by a scientist, sometimes commenting on the plausibility of the story and sometimes just commenting on the related research.
Carbon: Part One
andCarbon: Part Two
by Justina Robson- Once again I don’t appreciate something by Justina Robson. She’s probably a very nice person, but man her writing and me appear to be like oil and water. The science behind this story is inventing
corrective lenses
for an electron microscope. But the real story is department politics. Getting money for research, presenting your best face, fighting with funding sources that really don’t like science. Unlike the two other Robson stories I recall, at least I could follow the story. Global Collider Generation: An Idyll
by Paul Cornell- The Large Hadron Collider inspired all sorts of fears that it would end the world and universe. How bad would that fear get if the collider circled the world? The central story is a thriller about someone trying to stop the next collider. Kinda meh for me, as the plot seemed very paint by the numbers.
Moss Witch
by Sara Maitland- This was a really good story. It’s more fantasy than science fiction. A bryologist field researcher heads into a wooded area of Britain to catalog mosses. A moss witch lives nearby, tending to the mosses and lichens which she resembles. Moss witches don’t exist and never could exist, but this story nevertheless has the most detailed science of any story in the book. Plot-wise
Moss Witch
kind of plodded a bit until the middle, but Maitland made it into something interesting. Death Knocks
by Ken MacLeod- Journalist on the trail of designer drugs that don’t exactly make you high. Instead, they make you very very depressed.
Collision
by Gwyneth Jones- Despite this anthology not being strictly Mundane SF, this story really didn’t belong. Given that the back cover blurb says the stories take away fantastical clichés about space travel, a story about discovering fast than light travel just doesn’t fit here. Also, it’s very jumbled, and that put me off. Ryman said in his appearance here that this story fits because it’s a mad scientist story. He appeared to be amused by my question, almost as if he was expecting this kind of reaction to the story.
Without a Shell
by Adam Marek- Really good story about the world of haves and have nots. The science is personal body armor that would normally be used in a military or police context. Marek puts it on dystopic future schoolchildren. The first story in the collection that successfully felt people-centered to me.
You
by Geoff Ryman- A gem of a story! Ryman has a number of things going on in this story. First, an excellent set of characters with desires and goals and foibles. Second, science regarding the discovery of language. Third, the politics of scientific discovery, particularly with respect to getting credit. Third, he takes personal blogging with ubiquitous computing and extrapolates to how someone might experience consuming it.
In The Event Of
by Michael Arditti- Combined near future dystopia with parents attempting to recreate a daughter through cloning, told through the eyes of the clone. Nothing ground-breaking here, but I like the main character a fair amount.
Zoology
by Simon Ings- Science behind the sense of smell. Story is a bit more like some of the other ones, more about the scientists and their departmental processes. Decently told.
Temporary
by Frank Cottrell Boyce- Really liked this story about superstition and prejudice and their intersection with people’s views of science. Again the science isn’t terribly integrated with the story; you could drop in a number of scientific observations in place of the one about a continually exploding star. But I did like the character in this brief portrayal.
Doing the Butterfly
by Kit Reed- MRI as lie detector and criminal attempting to fake it out. Also, a love story, sorta. It worked, but it’s missing something, though I don’t know what. Maybe any kind of credible back story to the characters. Just what is it that makes a woman go for a bad guy she knows is bad? I know there are lots of things, but in this case the story is tight and close up on the criminal’s evasion attempts that no other of his qualities really show. It’s nice that in this case though the criminal really doesn’t have the upper hand, so I wasn’t cringing throughout on behalf of every other character. Pretty good story still.
White Skies
by Chaz Brenchley- I’m so glad the science in this anthology wasn’t dominated by global warming stories. It means this story that is tangentially about global warming doesn’t get buried. Post-global warming and sea rises, competing groups of people have been enacting their own counter-measures. Both methods, seeding the oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and seeding the skies to induce sunlight reflection, have drawbacks and so the groups dedicated to each are enemies, though by the time of the story they’ve forgotten exactly why. Plot is mostly about conniving insiders versus a culture of distrust.
Enigma
by Liz Williams- Another story that just didn’t seem to fit, given the blurb against artificial intelligence on the back cover. It’s a discussion between Wittgenstein and Turing in a future virtual world, looking back on events during World War 2.
The Bellini Madonna
by Patricia Duncker- A person viewing artwork has a brief vision of the cosmos that is awe-inspiring. Scientists often are inspired by the cosmos. Viola! Science. Phhpth.
Hair
by Adam Roberts- I generally don’t care for
evil corporation tries to suppress technology that threatens its profits
stories. Too pat. Aside from that angle, I did like the character here who runs away from his employer obligations to give his idea to the world. It’s mostly ego not altruism, but altruism results. Or would if he wasn’t being handled. The science implants photosynthetic cells into hair so that people don’t have to eat. Sorta fanciful, but research is being done on the individual pieces at a level far below that appearing in the story.
As you can tell, I looked askance when the science wasn’t particularly integrated with the story. When the story is all about departmental politics even if they are scientific politics, it makes for something less interesting to me. Science should not be a MacGuffin.
Loved the Sara Maitland and Geoff Ryman contributions. A few more good stories. Overall a solid effort at a worthy cause.
I’m a little distracted by a family crisis, so it’s kind of hard to break down some of the whys and wherefores. C’est la vie.
Title: When It Changed: Science Into Fiction: An Anthology
Editor: Geoff Ryman
Cover creator: Steve Boyler
Imprint / publisher: Comma Press
Format: Paperback
Length: 267 p.
Publication date: 2009
ISBN-10: 1-90558319-2
ISBN-13: 978-1-90558319-5
