The middle of this anthology wasn’t particularly strong, but you can’t go wrong with something that includes Beggars in Spain
. Gene Wars
, Eyewall
, and Desert Rain
round out the top stories in the collection, at least according to me. As I’ve noted before, Dozois’ seeming obsession with naming authors as Big Names and Ones to Watch irritates me. While I think who writes a story is important, Dozois spends more ink in his intros on an author’s pedigree than on the story.
Beggars in Spain
by Nancy Kress- I think this is the first time I’ve read a short story after reading the novel version. Kress set the standard for the trope I call human evolution: what happens when the next version of humans come along. The idea: genetic engineering allows us to create people who don’t need to sleep. The extra time and some beneficial side effects mean they are smarter and more balanced than normal humans. Who promptly start treating them like crap. Re-reading this is tough precisely because I’ve read so many stories that mimic Kress’.
Living Will
by Alexander Jablokov- You are going senile. You know it. You want to off yourself before you get too far gone to be a burden. However, you don’t want to do it while you have some semblance of brain left. The dilemma is that once that semblance has left you, you are no longer capable of making the decision. Could you turn that decision over to someone else? Someone you trusted utterly? Good story.
A Just and Lasting Peace
by Lois Tilton- Alternate history in which Reconstruction goes on a lot longer, and southern resistance goes on a lot longer. Rather than the north winning and eventually losing, they never really win. Not bad, but it didn’t impress me either.
Skinner’s Room
by William Gibson- I don’t really understand why Dozois’ introduction says this story is about housing the homeless. In a future where cities are falling apart, the poor take over the Golden Gate bridge and build structures for themselves to live in. Nothing earth shattering. Pretty good style though, which sets a mood really well.
Prayers on the Wind
by Walter Jon Williams- Sometimes it seems like people disaffected by monotheistic Christianity flock toward Eastern religions or philosophies. Although I don’t share Christopher Hitchens vehement language toward those religions, I do tend to agree on principle. If you can’t find evidence for it, it’s not true. Buddhism is one of those religions that falls into that category for me. If you want to believe it on faith, be my guest, but I need evidence. Reincarnation? Asceticism? Bah! Intentionally or unintentionally, this story fits in very much with my view. A future Buddhist-themed galactic empire runs into conflict with an alien race. But right when things come to a head, the empire’s version of the Dalai Lama dies and the new incarnation of Buddha changes things up a bit. To me, highlights how little sense soul reincarnation makes, as well as how despotic religion can be.
Blood Sisters
by Greg Egan- When you do a double-blind test of a new drug, isn’t it kind of unfair (if the drug works) that the control group won’t be cured?
The Dark
by Karen Joy Fowler- A dark fantasy/horror tale about a boy raised by wolves who ends up as a C.I.A. experiment. It didn’t do a whole lot for me.
Marnie
by Ian R. Macleod- If you could go back to high school/college and do it all over again, would you? Here’s how that might happen.
A Tip on a Turtle
by Robert Silverberg- What would it be like to actually have premonition? For the guy in this story who predicts who can win turtle races at a resort, it kinda sucks. Well-written, but I’ve seen this done better elsewhere.
Übermensch!
by Kim Newman- A sorta alternative history story. It’s not really alternate to real history. Alternate to the Superman history. Instead of the spaceship from Krypton landing in a Kansas field, and Superman working to save the allies, he grows up in Germany and is a tool of the Nazis. Despite not being particularly fond of alternative history, I did like the story. Maybe because superheros from this kind of perspective are done so rarely (that I run across at least).
Dispatches from the Revolution
by Pat Cadigan- Not fond of alternative history unless done really well. This one, not so well. What if… the right wing ascended in 1968?! Yeah, it happened in Germany. Perhaps it could have here. But it didn’t. And I’m not sure we really need another scare piece on what the right wing could do in America. I’m pretty sure we don’t need one at all.
Pipes
by Robert Reed- An okay story about environmental restoration. Predicated on cheap food from offshore farms making midwest farming unnecessary.
Matter’s End
by Gregory Benford- I did not like this story one little bit. A lot of melodrama about India hating scientists so much any scientist/Westerner will get beaten or killed. Westerner comes to secret Indian physics experiment that is measuring proton decay, which will determine the end of the universe. And then things really go to hell. Everything except the actual experiments felt false to me.
A History of the Twentieth Century, with Illustrations
by Kim Stanley Robinson- This seems more like a fictionalized travel essay than science fiction or fantasy. A lot more. Maybe I missed something. As travel writing, it seems pretty decent. I want to travel to the Orkney Islands now. As speculative fiction, it seems lacking.
Gene Wars
by Paul J. McAuley- I really liked this story about genetic engineering. Not that it’s necessarily likely to happen. The story follows more along the lines of
take something to it’s extreme
to good effect. The Gallery of His Dreams
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch- Interesting concept. Interesting writing. Interesting point. But for some reason I just didn’t get into the story. Mathew Brady, a photographer who sought to chronicle the horrors of war during the U.S. Civil War, went penniless from his efforts. The story has a time traveler whisking Brady to wars throughout time to use his skills and equipment to chronicle wars of all kinds. In the end, people view his work as art, not history. Good story, but perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood.
A Walk in the Sun
by Geoffrey A. Landis- Good mundane-SF (at least by my estimation) story about rescuing a person from the surface of the moon. The walk in the sun refers to the fact that the castaway’s life support in her space suit is solar powered. She can’t let sundown catch up to her or her ability to breathe will shut off for 15 days (you try holding your breath that long!). So she has to walk ahead fast enough to stay in the moon’s daylight for a month (at least) until a rescue rocket can reach her from earth. Kind of like the premise of Stephen King’s The Long Walk; walk or die.
Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria
by Ian McDonald- A Jew during and before World War II is visited by an angel? I think. I’m not really sure what her visions represent. Another story that didn’t resonate with me, but again probably more me than the story.
Angels in Love
by Kathe Koja- A girl overhears her apartment neighbors having loud sex, and she wants some of it. Enough that she starts spying on the woman hoping to get a glimpse of her boyfriend, to see if she can horn in on the action. Nice to see a story about a hard-up undersexed loser being a woman instead of a pasty white geek boy for once. Anyhow, she never sees the man enter or leave the place, despite increasingly stalkerish behavior. What’s going on over there?
Eyewall
by Rick Shelley- I loved this story. I have Shelley’s book Fires of Coventry which I really want to read now. Not technically a mundane SF story, but all the key parts of the story are. Basically, a category 5 hurricane leaves 20,000 dead in Florida and a million homeless. A hurricane study group must bow to political pressure. Instead of pure science research, they are supposed to conduct experiments using explosives (including nuclear) to disrupt the eye of a hurricane to get it to dissipate. They don’t like the applied research, and they don’t like using nuclear weapons, and they don’t like that their scientific existence depends on something they don’t like. The non-mundane part is that the experiments occur on a water covered world that has lots of hurricanes and is mostly untouched by human hands. The awesome part is the simmering conflict between the political guys and the original science people. Awesome tension and buildup.
Pogrom
by James Patrick Kelly- Another story I liked. Near future story where the young are in conflict with a richer older generation. What I loved is the hypocrisy of the main character, an older woman, commenting on how the younger generation blames the entire older generation for the sins of a few.
The Moat
by Greg Egan- Interesting but not compelling (gah! I just used compelling in a review!) idea about people who create their own alternate D.N.A. and why they might want to do so. Hint: it’s an us vs. them thing.
Voices
by Jack Dann- Boy talks to the dead. Friend doesn’t believe him. Not inspiring.
FOAM
by Brian W. Aldiss- FOAM stands for Free Of All Memory. Unscrupulous people steal other people’s memories to sell, kind of like drugs. Eh.
Jack
by Connie Willis- I don’t usually like stories of this type. A type I won’t reveal here so as not to spoil the story, but also partially because the relevant word is never actually used in the pages. But I liked this one. Thought it was a novel take on the idea, and some of the things left unsaid intrigued me. For instance, how down and out would Jack have to be to resort to the kind of subterfuge he does?
La Macchina
by Chris Beckett- Yet another version of
robots gain awareness
. Nothing about this screams best of the year to me, though I wouldn’t call it bad either. One Perfect Morning, with Jackals
by Mike Resnick- I like this story because of what a bastard Koriba Kimante (the elder) is, so beholden to his convictions that he cannot be a father.
Desert Rain
by Mark L. Van Name and Pat Murphy- The miracle of artificial intelligence illustrates this story about one woman’s one person bubblehead validation brigade. A BVB is always a little more empty than you’ll think it will be. I’m not sure if this is my favorite story in the book or not. I guess it depends on how I think people relate to their BVBs. Most days, I don’t think most people get that a BVB is skin-deep. Those days I probably will like this story even more.
I kinda do want to know why this particular year is still in print. I bought this new from Amazon. New. It was published over 15 years ago and every other edition of the series older than a year or two has to be purchased used. So why this one?
Title: The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Ninth Annual Collection
Editor: Gardner Dozois
Cover creator: Bob Eggleton (artist)
Series: Year’s Best Science Fiction; 9
Imprint / publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Format: Paperback
Length: 575 p.
Publication date: 1992
ISBN-10: 0-312-07891-9
