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

What a slog! Ten days to read this immense anthology. Too long. Too many works. I’ve now finished both Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies I bought a while ago. I don’t think I’ll be picking up any more. There were three really outstanding stories, but overall I just don’t think I like enough of the stories to bear with more of the Datlow/Windling Best Ofs. The three I like most were Onion, Struwwelpeter, and Gestella. His Own Back Yard follows closely after those. While I didn’t get most of the poetry, I don’t mind it so much because it’s usually short, and those who do like poetry get something they enjoy.

On to the stories.

The Hunter’s Wife, Anthony Doerr (from The Shell Collector)

A stalkerish hunter sees a magician’s assistant performing through a window. He follows her from town to town, and pesters her every year she returns until she marries him. She has the ability to see the dreams of others, as well as visions of the after-life for the recently dead. He dreams of wolves. He lives for the wilderness. But he is frightened of his wife’s ability, and she leaves. Twenty years later, he goes to a séance she conducts, still married but neither have seen the other in the intervening decades. It seemed well written, but I never connected with the character or story.

The Cowardly Coffin, Marin Sorescu (from Sept/Oct 2001 American Poetry Review, subscribe)

A whimsical (and pretty good) poem about a coffin that refuses to be buried, shooting up as if on top of a geyser when it’s dropped in the hole. Sorescu had cancer when he wrote this, which killed him shortly afterward. Considering I generally don’t like poetry, I’m kind of impressed.

In These Final Days of Sales, Steve Rasnic Tem (from In These Final Days of Sales)

I’m really not sure what to make of this story about a very bad salesman. I think there’s a lot of subtext that’s gone over my head. I didn’t connect with it at all.

To Dream of White Horses, June Considine (from Thicker Than Water)

Father and son each have a hard time coming to grips with mom’s suicide. Dad by ignoring it. Son by obsessing over it. At least from the son’s perspective. Until son meets a homeless girl who sees his dreams. I didn’t think this was all that profound.

Skin, Charlee Jacob (from Perihelion Broadside Series, Volume 3)

Narrative poem that I didn’t understand.

Prussian Snowdrops, Marion Arnott (from Crimewave 4: Mood Indigo) (2001 The Macallan Short Story Dagger)

Set in what apears to be pre-World War 2 Nazi Germany, a journalist is stationed in the countryside to let things cool off after he has offended the authorities. He stumbles on a scandal where the doctor in charge of the local insane asylum committed suicide in a spectacular fashion in Berlin, yet no one seems to know anything about it. And the denizens of the asylum have disappeared. Here’s the thing: Nazi Germany made no secret to it’s citizens that certain races and kinds of people were undesirable and treated them very badly. Among those persecuted were Jews, Slavs, homosexuals, and the mentally ill. So why would any mistreatment of the insane be considered a scandal? It would be as if the Klu Klux Klan’s lynching of a black person in the 1920s were a scandal. Wrong, yes. But the U.S. tolerated this kind of atrocity. Nazi Germany tolerated it as well. So I don’t understand the premise of the story. Why would a journalist think the German public would make a stink?

The Honeyed Knot, Jeffrey Ford (from the May 2001 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, subscribe)

Another story I didn’t connect with. The college teacher Jeffrey Ford runs into some sort of fantasy stag after one of his students kills someone. Or something like that. I totally don’t get any of the symbolism.

Timmy Gobel’s Bug Jar, Michael Libling (from December 2001 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)

I liked this one! Did you ever trap bugs and put them in a canning jar with holes punched in the lid for air? Even with air the bugs never lived long. So a kid finds a bug jar from the previous summer, but it has more than bugs in it. There’s a miniature headless skeleton also in there. That can’t be anything good, can it?

The God of Dark Laughter, Michael Chabon (from April 9, 2001 The New Yorker, subscribe)

A small-town prosecutor investigates the death of a clown, the body being found shortly after a circus leaves town. Descriptions of this story call it Lovecraftian, but I wouldn’t know as I’ve never read Lovecraft. It does have lost tribes and obscure religions like you’d find in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, so if that’s what makes it Lovecraftian I won’t argue. I liked the story.

The Adolescence of Orpheus, Kurt Leland (from the Spring 2001 The Beloit Poetry Journal, subscribe)

So I know reviewers theoretically aren’t supposed to employ ad hominem criticism. In other words, criticize the text, not the author. Who decided that anyway? Perhaps I should write up an opinion piece on that, because I’m not so sure I agree in the case of literature. Anyway, I didn’t like the poem. Just couldn’t get in to it. Side ad hominem (and why is latin italicized? time to Google® that question too) note: Windling’s introduction notes that Leland has written two books on speculative metaphysics. That’s a nice way to say Leland is loony. Either that or Windling gives some credence to the speculative metaphysics and didn’t want to cop to it. Cause when I go to Leland’s web site, it’s all about astral fucking projection! Yup, it has nothing to do with whether or not the poem is any good. I still want to know when I’m reading the works of the insane.

Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café, Charles de Lint (from Single White Vampire Seeks Same)

I kinda liked this story. It’s a little on the unoriginal side, but it’s sweet nonetheless. Basically, arty bohemian girl answers a personal ad for a guy who happens to be a werewolf (well, technically a skinwalker, but I wouldn’t know what that was unless a story told me). Only she doesn’t know he’s a skinwalker. Things get hairy when some other werewolves show up. I liked how de Lint alternates perspectives. Again, not original, but it worked well.

Louise’s Ghost, Kelly Link (from Stranger Things Happen, download) (2001 Nebula Award, Novelette)

Louise and Louise meet weekly and gab. Louise #1 has a ghost. She tries to figure out many ways to get rid of the ghost haunting her house. On a superficial level, the story gets a little confusing at the end. I mostly like it, but it’s weird enough that I’m missing something.

Fairy Tale Pantoum, Ellen Wernecke (from The Louisville Review Issue 49, subscribe)

More poetry. Whoosh! That’s the sound of this going right over my head.

The Puppet and the Train, Scott Thomas (from Cobwebs and Whispers)

I didn’t find much about Scott Thomas on the web, mostly because the name is pretty common and I didn’t want to disambiguate. I liked this story quite a bit. Remember in Men in Black when one of the aliens turned out to actually be a robot run by another alien? That’s this story. A small town veterinarian in 1909 is called when a train hits an elephant. It’s a talking elephant even, owned by a circus. As the vet is poking and prodding, a man jumps out of the carcass and runs away. That’s the start of the story…

Crocodile Lady, Christopher Fowler (from Crimewave: Dark Before Dawn)

Pretty good horror/suspense tale about a teacher’s first day back at school after taking a decade plus off because her husband didn’t want her to work. Conflict with other teachers. Classifying kids. Figuring out she doesn’t have too much rust to be there. And then on an outing to the zoo one child disappears on the London Tube.

The Barbarian and the Queen: Thirteen Views, Jane Yolen (from Starlight 3)

Thirteen queens and thirteen barbarians. Thirteen little snippets of stories. All with tea. Interesting, and I’m still deciding if I like it or not.

Becoming Bird, Bob Hicok (from Quarterly West Issue 51)

A poem I got! And even think was kinda nice. Kind of an illustrated man sort of vibe from it.

Sop Doll, Milbre Burch (from April 2001 Realms of Fantasy, subscribe)

A Jack story, a class of stories I’ve never heard of. Jack rolls in to town looking for work and is hired by the mill owner to run the mill while the owner keeps the men away from his wife. The previous two men hired to run the mill ended up with their throats slit.

Plenty, Christopher Barzak (from May 28, 2001 Strange Horizons)

A nice story about going home again and remembering the people who were once important. In this case, it’s a nice old lady across the street who feeds our narrator and his roommate during the lean college years. He’s heading home for her funeral.

Bones of the Earth, Ursula K. Le Guin (from Tales from Earthsea)

This tale from Le Guin’s Earthsea world left me unimpressed. Not bad. Not great either. A Gontish wizard senses trouble, and enlists the aid of a former apprentice. The plot isn’t so much. Any enjoyment of the story really comes from the characters and their relationship. They’re decent, but not overwhelming to me.

What the Story Weaves, the Spinner Tells, Terry Blackhawk (from Calyx, Volume 20, Number 2)

More poetry.

Onion, Caitlín Kiernan (from Wrong Things) (2001 International Horror Guild Award, Best Short Story)

The first story in the collection that I really got completely in to. This was awesome! Gives a great sense of dread to the common trope of parallel worlds, without ever having any truly bad happen right in front of you. Everything is done through intimation.

Where the Woodbine Twineth, Norman Partridge (from The Man With The Barbed-Wire Fists)

Horror tale set just after the Civil War featuring a Confederate soldier that can’t quite forget the war. Again, not particularly inspiring to me.

Struwwelpeter, Glen Hirshberg (from SciFi.com)

I really liked this story, and it really irritated me as well. It’s set in Ballard, which is a plus, though it’s not quite the Ballard I know. Hirshberg has taken liberties with the location. That’s totally fine. It works well in the story. What I didn’t like about it was a couple of things about suspension of disbelief. Like a lot of horror stories, Struwwelpeter asks the reader to believe something that it just plain weird. No, not the supernatural. I mean the idea that a haunted house on the hill will be completely ignored by kids for ages and ages until the kids in our story come along. Aside from that though, this is an awesome story. Kind of a classic ghost story feel to it, even though it’s not an old classic. The kids in the story explore the yard of a haunted house type of place, and are scared away by the owner telling them they’ll wake the dead. Two years later they return to the scene, one of them determined to reclaim his superiority over the one place that affected him. Of course, it’s Halloween, and it’s dark, and they have a couple of girls with them.

Outfangthief, Gala Blau (Conrad Williams) (from The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women)

Well now, turns out that one of the stories in the so-called Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women is actually by a man. Gala Blau is Conrad Williams. So is it bad to use an ad hominem criticism here? I kinda wondered how a supposedly previously unpublished author was included in a prominent anthology. Not that new writers can’t appear in anthologies, but anthologies usually have people that have been published once or twice. I wonder if the editors knew. Anyway, this is actually a pretty decent, if pedestrian, vampire story. Sarah and her daughter Laura are running from loan sharks who own a rather large amount of debt owned by Sarah. In her flight, Sarah crashes a car. But something saves Laura in the night. The saviors, Manser (the criminal element), Sarah, and Laura all converge on a lonely house in the countryside at night.

Rites: Cleaning the Last Bones, Gavin J. Grant (from Dark Planet)

Poetry about animals picking the bones of something dead. Very eh.

Watch Me When I Sleep, Jean-Claude Dunyach (from Interzone, subscribe)

A re-working of the fairy trope. In this version, fairies are parasites that pupate in a person’s stomach, stealing the person’s intellect when they emerge. Seems like a fair number of fantasy short stories (especially vampire short stories) fall into the category of re-working a fantasy trope. My internal reaction is usually along the lines of Well, aren’t you clever? You have to imagine that with dripping sarcasm. That’s probably not fair to the stories, but it seems to be automatic in my case.

The Tattoo Artist, Patrick Roscoe (from Fall 2001 Descant)

A unique tattoo by a legendary artist becomes a burden over time instead of a boon.

Cleopatra Brimstone, Elizabeth Hand (from Redshift) (2001 International Horror Guild Award, Long Fiction)

An award winner it may be, this seemed to be a pretty run-of-the-mill revenge fantasy with a bit of a supernatural twist. I think I didn’t like it because so little was revealed of what went on in our protagonists head. If you are going to make the bad guy the protagonist, just simply iterating through his actions makes it uninteresting.

Grass, Lawrence Miles (from September 2001 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)

A short alternative history story about mammoths in the Louisiana Territory and Thomas Jefferson sending Lewis and Clark to find them.

If Death, a Preprimer, Sandra J. Lindow (from The Magazine of Speculative Poetry)

Poetry goths would like.

The Bird Catcher, S. P. Somtow (Somtow Sucharitkul) (from The Museum of Horrors)

How one child met a serial killer and blames himself. Not for what you might think tough. Not great, but pretty good.

Black Dust, Graham Joyce (from Black Dust)

Ghost story. By the numbers. Man talks to boy, turns out he died minutes before.

Annabelle’s Alphabet, Tim Pratt (from Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet No. 9)

Cute little story about a little girl, Annabelle, who dreams of flying.

Tom Brightwind, or, How the Fairy Bridge Was Built at Thoresby, Susanna Clarke (from Starlight 3)

A decent story, but one that seems to be overwhelmed by how little goes on. Clarke’s novel showed how lots of text can describe very little when the author is aping a Jane Austen feel for her writing. This is the same. Seriously, it’s a one-trick pony and shouldn’t be trotted out story after story (just like Gregory Maguire).

Gestella, Susan Palwick (from Starlight 3)

So far this is vying with Struwwelpeter and Onion for my favorite story of the collection. It’s a werewolf tale, with somewhat of a twist. It doesn’t really re-work the rules of werewolves, thank god. Just takes the trope and extrapolates some of its implications, then puts a human face on it and combines it with some human foibles. Vague enough? Okay, here’s the gist: werewolves age at a wolf rate rather than a human rate. A man and a werewolf woman hook up and fall in love. But she (Gestella) ages at a much faster rate than he does. Now run with that. It’s one fucked up, awesome story.

The Legend, Ray Gonzalez (from The Ghost of John Wayne)

I think this story concerns when a ghost haunts the person who killed her. I think. It could be the ghost is helping him instead. I can’t tell.

Oh, Glorious Sight, Tanya Huff (from Oceans of Magic)

John Cabot sails to America with a little bit of help from a magical flute and a ragamuffin he saves on the dock before sailing. Of course, being religious he thinks the magical flute is witchcraft. Good story!

Home Cooking, Daniel Ulanovsky Sack (from With Signs and Wonders)

After the death of their mother, a family discovers that Eustaquia has learned how to cook mom’s specialty dishes. Maybe I’m just a foodie at heart, but I liked this story even though I never quite figured out all the relationships in the story. I can totally understand bonding over food and associating certain meals with particular people, so that part totally sucked me in.

Queen, Gene Wolfe (from December 2001 Realms of Fantasy)

Two men show up in town to take an old woman to the coronation. The town’s wealthiest man helps them find her, and then serves them food before they all leave. Not a particularly exciting story.

The Project, Carol Emshwiller (from August 2001 Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)

An interesting story, one without much in the way of overt fantastic elements. Harrier is a mountain man, though he suspects he may be a bastard son of the bigger lowlands people. Because of his size, he’s the foreman of the tribe’s Project, which involves moving large rocks for reasons I never quite figured out. But it’s really important to him. A mountain lion eats his child while he works on the Project. His wife is livid at his devotion, and sets off to stalk the mountain lion herself. Harrior discreetly follows and kills the mountain lion (as his wife wouldn’t be able to do it herself). But it seems Mrs. Wife has plans to head off the mountain, and Harrier can’t understand why. Despite not quite getting everything, I still found myself really getting into Harrier’s mind. It’s done so well I can understand his devotion to the Project even though I never figured out what the hell it was.

The Man in the Comic Strip, Liz Lochhead (from Winter 2001 Poetry Review, subscribe)

Again, I’m not so much on the poetry, but I do like hearing this reading of a version of the poem by the author, Liz Lochhead.

Strange Things About Birds, Scott Thomas (from Cobwebs and Whispers)

Short story where an older woman tells disturbing stories that involved birds that happened to her in her youth.

What We Did That Summer, Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg (from Redshift)

Pretty creepy story, but I totally didn’t get the ending.

Aesculapius in the Underworld, Ryan G. Van Cleave (from May 2001 Poem)

Didn’t get it.

Scarecrow, Gregory Maguire (from Half-Human)

A mostly decent story about assuming things from the perspective of a newly conscious scarecrow who is told stories by crows and foxes about how he came to be and what happened to the farmer who owned the field. And then he’s the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz and I got irritated.

The Bockles, Melissa Hardy (from The Uncharted Heart)

Always keep your word with magical creatures. This was so by the numbers I could count to ten using it.

His Own Back Yard, James P. Blaylock (from SciFi.com)

Heading down nostalgia lane, Alan stops at his old house while his wife and son are out of town. The house is boarded up. He digs up a coffee can time capsule he buried as a kid, which transports him magically into the past. In this case, he can go home again. Pretty good story.

Title: The year’s best fantasy and horror: fifteenth annual collection
Editors: Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling
Cover creator: Thomas Canty (artist)
Series: Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror; 15
Imprint / publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin / Holtzbrinck
Format: Paperback
Length: cxviii, 542 p. (includes supplemental material)
Publication date: August 2002
ISBN-10: 0-312-29069-1
LC classification: PN6120.95.F25 Y4

I’ve been working on this collection for a week and a half. I never seem to get through Dozois’ Year’s Best S.F. editions quickly. They are big. But I think the short story format means I keep getting jarred out of a reading rhythm as well. Just as I get going on one set of assumptions, or one mode, or whatever, the story ends, and I start out at zero with the next story.

Anyway, for today’s Sunday Salon, I finished up with the last couple of hundred pages worth of stories. Forgive me any etiquette faux pas by including my previous reading in today’s review.

On a personal note, I started wearing spectacles earlier this week. Thirty-seven years old and I apparently haven’t been able to read with my right eye for a couple of decades. Not that I really realized this as my left eye has nearly perfect vision and dominates. With glasses, the pages became so much clearer though. But oh is it a change! I am not liking the adjustment. I don’t know how you glasses-wearers do it!

On to the stories…

Tiny Tango, Judith Moffett

Imagining a future in which AIDS and HIV cause carriers to be reviled by the general population. Kind of like in 1989, when the story was published. The story follows a woman who is infected but keeps it secret, as she attempts to live a completely stress-free, ambition-free life in the hopes that it will extend her life. Of course, stress-free is difficult after a nuclear accident makes her home city of Philadelphia uninhabitable and an alien race (the Hefn) appear in the sky. Decent story.

Out of Copyright, Charles Sheffield

A fairly mundane story about multi-national corporations vying for a contract to crash asteroids onto Io. In order to do it better, they all clone famous scientists to run the projects. But clones don’t have memories of who they were. And sometimes they don’t even have the skills that the originals did. Nature vs. nurture and all. The hook for the title is that a scientist has a copyright on himself for 75 years after his death, and so he can’t be cloned until that expires.

For I Have Touched the Sky, Mike Resnick

A story set on Kirinyaga, where ethnic Kikuyu are attempting to create a society based on the old ways of the Kikuyu. One of those ways is that girls are not to learn how to read. And yet Kamari is smart enough to learn to read behind the mundumugu’s (the shamanistic leader) back. He tells her she cannot learn further despite having a taste of it. If she wishes to read she must accept exile from Kirinyaga. She does not like her choices.

Alphas, Gregory Benford

Bleah. Boring story. If you were stranded in space, falling toward a planet cored out by a superstring rotating very rapidly, falling straight down the middle of the axis of rotation, falling with no thrusting power in your space suit, how would you escape? If you can’t do it, you’ll just fall back in when you reach the other side, eventually setting down in the middle of the planet where the hear incinerates you. Oh yeah, the Alphas are the alien race that is coring out the planet.

At the Rialto, Connie Willis

A story about quantum physics. I gave up reading around five pages in. Just not my bag.

Skin Deep, Kathe Koja

A man becomes obsessed with a thing that has sex with him. A lump of flesh kind of thing. Oookay then!

The Egg, Steven Popkes

I really enjoyed this story! In a future Boston beset by flooding and gangs and whatnot, a young orphan Ira and his alien caregiver Gray come across an egg. Ira fixates on the egg as his relationship with his aunt and cousin degrades, but Gray thinks it might be dangerous. Nothing amazing (nor bad either) science fiction wise in the story, but Popkes does a good job putting you in Ira’s head and making it feel right.

Tales From The Venia Woods, Robert Silverberg

This is an alternate history story from Silverberg’s Roma Eterna universe. The key difference from our history being that the Roman empire did not fall, at least not like it did for us. This story is from a present day Roman republic, somewhere near Venia (Vienna?). Two school children come upon a haunted house in the woods, one that used to be a hunting lodge used by the Roman emperor, and they come across a very aged caretaker who remembers times before the republic supplanted the empire. I kinda liked it, even though it was pretty simple.

Visiting the Dead, William King

While on Earth for a funeral from the space-based overtowns, a visitor is caught in the center of war fever. Not too bad, though not groundbreaking either.

Dori Bangs, Bruce Sterling

Lester Bangs and Dori Seda, two real-life people I’ve never heard of died in the 1980s. Both were involved in counter-culture type stuff. Lester Bangs as a rock journalist. Dori Seda as an alterna-comic book artist and writer. Sterling writes the story of the two of them not dying and instead meeting, dropping out of the counter-culture, and getting married.

The Ends of the Earth, Lucius Shepard

I usually have liked Lucius Shepard stories that have appeared in The Year’s Best S.F. but not this one. An author struggling with a past relationship heads to the Yucatan to exorcise his demons in a relaxing tropical beach setting. There he plays an ancient Mayan game for which he doesn’t know the rules, and is transported into an alternate world. Like Jumanji, but without Robin Williams. Maybe it’s because I’ve already been ruined by the concept of Jumanji that I didn’t like this, even though I never saw the movie.

The Price of Oranges, Nancy Kress

I loved this little time travel story. Harry, a modern day retiree, has a portal to the 1930s in his closet. So he keeps going back then to buy things at cheaper prices and thus making his Social Security check go farther. But he also thinks the 1930s were less cynical, and he wants his grand-daughter to meet someone from that time period so she’ll be less depressed. He hatches a plan…

Lottery Night, S. P. Somtow (Somtow Sucharitkul)

A fantasy story where Samraan goes to the cemetery to spend the night. His great-great-great-aunt’s ghost will hopefully come to him and reveal the winning lottery numbers so his family can reverse their decline. Hopefully. Of course, Samraan could meet demons as well. Dozois calls this story gonzo in the introduction. I agree. It’s different than most fantasy stories that I’ve read.

A Deeper Sea, Alexander Jablokov

This could’ve been a really good story, but in the end I was really disappointed. The premise isn’t too unusual: humans can communicate with dolphins and whales. This is the story of Colonel Ilya Stasov. He tries to use aural pictures to communicate with dolphins. He’s successful, but mostly because in doing so he fakes sonar of the sea bottom to the dolphins, which drives them mad. Kind of like if we established communications with aborigines by feeding them hallucinogenics. Turns out the dolphins could talk the whole time; they’d collectively decided to boycott human interaction in the time of the Greeks. But the hallucinations basically made them cry out I want to die!. The rest of the story is Stasov trying to atone for dragging out speech from them as well as involuntarily enlisting them in the Soviet military.

The problem is that the story doesn’t reveal what was so horrible that Stasov did until late in the plot. And then when it does I don’t think Jablonkov really put enough effort into what pain he imagined the dolphins went through. Stasov’s atonement is to help the dolphins achieve their Messiah story culmination. But the authors explanations of that were so choppy I couldn’t figure out what it was he was actually doing.

The Edge of the World, Michael Swanwick, The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award

This isn’t really science fiction. It’s fantasy, set in a world very much like our own. All the countries of Earth exist, and there is conflict of some sort between the U.S. and some Arabic countries. Here’s the difference: the world is flat. Swanwick doesn’t bother to explain how it would all work. There’s no directions in the story about where all the countries of a spherical world would fit on a flat one. It doesn’t matter. Three kids, Russ, Piggy, and Donna live somewhere near the edge. One day they decide to descend a set of stairs built into the side of the world. They aren’t the first at all. There’s lots of graffiti and vandalism, as well as trash thrown over the edge and caught up on the landings from air flows. But even this isn’t a huge part of the story. Really, it’s just additional flavor for a story of three kids and how they relate. Pretty damn good.

Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man, Megan Lindholm (Margaret Ogden)

This is an eager story about a failed writer working as a sales clerk at a department store. A nondescript balding fortyish man comes in asking for silk. She only notices him because work is slow that evening. He comes in again another day, and that leads to magical adventures.

The Third Sex, Alan Brennert

Brennert tries to get inside the head of a new third sex, androgynes, people without a sex. How do you find love? Do you care? That sort of thing. I thought it not all that insightful.

Winter on the Belle Fourche, Neal Barrett, Jr.

Barrett’s story isn’t a deep exploration of anything. It’s a nice alternate history western what-if. What if Emily Dickinson traveled the west and got herself stranded in the winter in a cabin with a western woodsman/trapper/hunter? What if he was also a poet? I really liked it, because Barrett made some pretty good, if somewhat stock, characters.

Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another, Robert Silverberg

In U.S. elections lately there has been a focus on personality. George Bush is your next door neighbor. Hillary Clinton is too emotional, and simultaneously too cold. As if we really know how to judge what or who a person really is. All we have is their public persona. There is a large volume of information about politicians these days. Is it enough to really know?

Silverberg’s story explores what a person might be like if we recreated them based on the public record. A fantastic computer program creates artificial intelligence based on what we know about a historical figure. The idea is common (Hyperion had one), but in this short form it’s done fairly well. Francisco Pizarro meets Socrates in a computer simulation. It definitely reminds me that I hate the Socratic method. Resnick uses it in dialog in a particularly annoying fashion. Here it isn’t overdone and it fits, because it is Socrates.

Relationships, Robert Sampson

Short short story about a guy who starts seeing women he’s been involved with appear out of thin air. Mad? They tell him he is not, and also that he can’t continue to live in the past.

Just Another Perfect Day, John Varley

This is 50 First Dates. I don’t suppose they made the movie from the story, but the parallels are there. After an accident, a man wakes up every morning with no recollection of what he did the previous day. He last remembers a day in the summer of 1986. He continually wakes up the day after, at least to his recollection. It’s all written as a letter to himself from his previous day’s self. Also, there’s some business with aliens.

The Loch Moose Monster, Janet Kagan

At first I didn’t like this story of life on a colony planet, but as I read further it grew on me. What annoyed me at first was not understanding what was going on, but in the end I think Kagan introduced things at just the right point to keep the story moving along. Loch Moose is a lake jokingly named after Loch Ness with a twist. Jokingly at least until a real monster shows up and the colony’s genetic policewoman (so to speak, she has more duties than that) Mama Jason heads there to find out what’s going on.

The Magic Bullet, Brian Stableford

A murder mystery of genetic engineering. Rather pedestrian except for the ending. Meaning I can’t really say much about the premise of the story without ruining it.

The Odd Old Bird, Avram Davidson

This is a Dr. Eszterhazy story. It’s a recurring character in some sort of European empire/country. In this case, he and his genteel fellow scientists are discussing Archeopteryx, the transitional species between reptiles and birds. Except on of the folks in the discussion dismisses the topic with Seen it. This story just bored me. I think I skipped the Ezterhazy story the one other time I saw one. They just don’t grab me.

Great Work of Time, John Crowley

A work of time travel fiction, concerning a secret society started by Cecil Rhodes to preserve the British Empire. I think I am tired of time travel stories, what with all the jumping around to avoid paradoxes and whatnot. Occasionally there’s something interesting about them, but it’s rare. The more interesting part of this story is the whole preserve the British Empire aspect of the story. What would British hegemony look like? Is British civilization a good thing? This review looks at the secret society as an allegory for the British Empire itself. As it tries ever more complicated means to attempting to keep control, the more it inevitably will lose it. In the order the story is told, I agree. In the order of time, when time travel is involved, things become much more muddled. Which happens a lot with time travel stories. Of course, I did like another time travel story in this collection, so don’t mind me.

Well, my general impression is that I wasn’t as fond of this anthology as I have been of some other volumes in Gardner Dozois’ series. I’m not about to go check statistics, or even really compile them. I quite enjoyed five of the stories. A lot of others were decent, but didn’t really move me. Dozois seems to like to end these with a longish novella. I think he’d do better to start and end with punchy, really good stories. Draw the reader in quickly and send them off with a bang. That didn’t happen this time, at least not for me.

Title: The year’s best science fiction: seventh annual collection
Editor: Gardner Dozois
Cover artist: Thomas Gold (or Cold, I can’t read his signature real well and neither can I find any info on the web)
Series: Year’s best science fiction; 7
Imprint / publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Format: Paperback
Length: xxvi, 598 p.
Publication date: 1990
ISBN-10: 0-312-04452-6
LC classification: PS648.S3 Y43

Not much to say generally. Another pretty good collection of short fiction. Though I do wonder at the preponderance of fantasy stories, particularly given that St. Martin’s was in the 2nd year of their Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror series at the time this was published. They did have that niche covered.

Surfacing, Walter Jon Williams

This story takes two S.F. plots and mingles them, and I don’t really like the effect too well. In the first plot, Anthony brings whales to another world because they can help him communicate with a species that lives underwater on that world. Anthony was a scientist who helped decode whale speech. After the discovery that a set of resonances underwater were actually an alien species, Anthony heads to that world to try to decode it, and to figure out what these unseen creatures are. Plot two revolves around a Kyklops, a multi-dimensional alien. This alien has a contract with a woman that allows him to take over her body at will. Anthony falls in love with her, and they plot to release her from the alien’s control. I’ve found other decoding alien languages stories boring, but here I was very interested in it. The damsel-in-distress story? Not so much. The mix? Eh.

Home Front, James Patrick Kelly

Using an apparently unintentional prescient plot device, Kelly explores youth who are eligible to join the military and fight for America. It kind of covers the same ground as Ender’s Game and Lord of the Flies, but in a shorter more digestible chunk. The prescient part is an interchangeable position of Johnny America, the P.R. soldier of the military. Unlike G.I. Joe, Johnny is more of a reality show construction. Except there weren’t reality shows in the 80s when this was written.

The Man Who Loved The Vampire Lady, Brian Stableford

A kind of S.F. take on a fantasy trope, vampires. In this version, vampirism is a blood-born disease sometimes transmitted sexually that allows the vampire to live a long time. Vampires have essentially become the ruling nobility in Europe. Someone finally invents a microscope, and Lady Carmilla (a vampire) assigns her former lover Edmund (a human) to examine the device. He’s a mechanician, which I assume means he’s a tinkerer. He grasps the microscope, and understands the meaning of the little amoeba animals he sees, that they carry the vampirism trait. He knows that the vampires won’t let him live long with the knowledge. Fairly pedestrian idea, but decently well-written.

Peaches For Mad Molly, Stephen Gould

Wow! This was an awesome story. Characterization not so involved. It’s more a concept, and a pretty original one at that, wedded to a thriller mentality. The concept is that when giant skyscrapers are built in the future, a culture of people will live on the outside of them. Think rock climbers in the extreme. The are poor and unable to afford to live inside, or they are malcontents who just don’t fit in there. Our main character decides to go on a trading run down the side of his building, but he has to cross a 10 story area controlled by bandits. He gets past them easily on the way down. But climbing is slower and on the way back up they are ready and waiting for him. Just an awesome story!

The Last Article, Harry Turtledove

Alternate history where the Third Reich wins World War II. In India, the newly dominant Germans take over from the English and inherit their problems with the restless subcontinent. A German officer who is the military governor takes on Mohandas Gandhi. Turtledoves conclusion is that this time Gandhi does not win. The analysis seems to be that nonviolence requires two things to work that would not be present: a very courageous population that would be willing to sacrifice their lives on a large scale, and an opponent that is squeamish about killing people. If the authority has no problem with killing thousands of non-violent protesters, then they will emerge victorious if it scares people into compliance. I think Tian An Men just might have proved Turtledove right.

Stable Strategies For Middle Management, Eileen Gunn

A story about gene manipulation where people can get animal-like bodies. Then it gets surreal by being set in a middle management office and the workers use their changes for advancement. It didn’t really click with me, though it was an interesting juxtaposition.

In Memoriam, Nancy Kress

Would you give up your memory of who you are if that enabled you to live forever?

Kirinyaga, Mike Resnick

I’ve read this story before, but for some reason I always think of the plot of Ivory when I see the title Kirinyaga. Ivory is not as good. Koriba is the mundumugu of the Kikuyu tribe. Originally located in Kenya, they now have their own planet maintained by Maintenance. Kenya is essentially one big metropolis by this time in the future. Maintenance is supposed to have a prime directive like instruction. The Kikuyu get to run it how they want and Maintenance is not supposed to interfere. Only one of the traditions of the Kikuyu is that babies born feet first are demons, and must be killed. Which horrifies Maintenance, as the child of course had no choice in which tradition he would like.

The Girl Who Loved Animals, Bruce McAllister

In the future, many animals are extinct. Some people want to bring them back, using methods like we have heard for dinosaurs. D.N.A. for dinosaurs can be found embedded in amber on occasion. Or mammoths in ice. To my knowledge, we don’t have enough D.N.A. for these animals to clone them yet. And we really don’t have a way to gestate them. Dolly the cloned sheep was gestated by another sheep. But, in the future, we will likely have genetic records for some of the animals that might become extinct. We have live specimens. We can take samples and record everything about their D.N.A. And so if they become extinct, we could recreate them. If we have a way to gestate them. Without artificial uteruses, we’re kind of S.O.L. But, there may be these groups of people trying to revive them. They may have money. And some women may need the money badly enough to take it for these purposes.

The Last Of The Winnebagoes (Hugo award for best novella, Nebula award for best novella), Connie Willis

A nice novella about a future when environmentalism is standard. States have outlawed gas hogs and water is a precious scarcity. Many animals, particularly pets, have become extinct. The protagonist is a photojournalist, one of a dying breed as automation pushes humans out of even that field. On the way to his assignment, he sees a dead jackal in the road. Jackals are rare, though not extinct. But seeing it brings up memories of his dog, over which he obsesses. Still, he dutifully shows up to take pictures of and talk to two older people who live in an R.V., traveling highways and making a living by charging people to see their Winnebago. Human interest story. But he’s too distraught to continue on to his second assignment at the governor’s press conference. Here’s the catch: that makes him look suspicious to the Humane Society which is investigating the death of the jackal. I loved this story.

Love In Vain, Lewis Shiner

This story was included in The Year’s Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection which I reviewed in July. It’s still a great story, but it doesn’t really seem like S.F. to me. Love this story. Go read it.

The Hob, Judith Moffett

Hobs are gnomelike creatures that live in Britain. Creatures of legend. They feel a need to serve masters, kind of like house-elves in Harry Potter. But as modern life encroaches, the hobs retreat from interacting with humans and hide. Except one of them, Elphi, gets careless and allows a backpacker, Jenny, to see him. It’s a nice story, but it didn’t do a whole lot for me. Very ho-hum. Oh, and the S.F. hook is that hobs are really stranded aliens. And that’s about the length of that hook too.

Our Neural Chernobyl, Bruce Sterling

A really short story that describes a future evolutionary cataclysm from the perspective of an even further future. The neural Chernobyl depicted is a genetically engineered virus that makes people smarter, though most can’t handle it and burn out crazy. But it also jumps to a few animals as well.

House Of Bones, Robert Silverberg

A time-traveler is stranded in the past, among Cro-Magnons. Pushes the idea that our assumptions that Cro-Magnon’s were primitive may not be quite correct. The premise isn’t all that exciting, but it’s a pretty well-written story. I enjoyed it.

Schrödinger’s Kitten, George Alec Effinger

Supposedly illustrating the Schrödinger’s cat phenomena, I just found this story confusing.

Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?, Howard Waldrop

Another story that I really wouldn’t classify as science fiction. Maybe I’m just missing something. Frank is still a local in the town where he went to high school. It’s time for the 20 year reunion. Frank becomes a guide to show all the returnees what’s happened to the various places the class used to haunt. The highlight of the reunion is supposed to be a performance by the long since split up high school rock band that briefly achieved stardom right after high school. Only something interesting happens when they play one of their songs. Howard Waldrop stories always seem to have a bit of fun in them. At least the three I’ve read previously. Not deep, but decently good.

The Growth Of The House Of Usher, Brian Stableford

A bit of a homage to Edgar Allen Poe, including the use of language and style of Poe’s period. Here a scientist named Usher lives in a house of biomass in which genetically engineered creatures live. They build the house. They keep it running. Usher wants to pass on his knowledge before he dies, and so invites a colleague to the house.

Glacier, Kim Stanley Robinson

A new ice age has descended on North America. A large glacier is just north of Boston, where the Canadian refugees at the center of the story live. Dad is a professor. Son heads out to the glacier to play by himself a lot. Times are tough. I’m not generally a Kim Stanley Robinson fan, but I liked this story. It shows the effect of climate change on ordinary people. No real explanation of the societal impact of this ice age. You have to glean that from the conversations the kid has with his parents, and some of his interactions with others. So it comes off as a very personal story rather than a birds-eye view.

Sanctuary, James Lawson

This story reminds me a lot of Altered Carbon, except this was written well before. Basically, a computer software designer is found in his office with his mind wiped. And another one working for another company is as well. Cardenas is a cop. His job is to figure out who killed these guys when there is no evidence except the bodies. I’m gonna do something here that I don’t normally do: issue a pretty blatant spoiler. These guys kill themselves. Here’s why I’m spoiling it. They kill themselves because of The Secret. In other words, the law of attraction, which is the stupidest thing ever. The version in this story is that if you repeat something often enough, you set up a harmonic resonance for that action that embeds itself in space-time. Anyone else doing that action latches on to that resonance and can do the action just a bit better than would be expected. So these guys get a super-computer to repeat some program that emulates their brains. And it does it so often that they are literally whisked into the space-time continuum. Urg. Since when did the law of attraction get any traction in anything having to do with science? I’ll buy faster than light travel before this crap.

The Dragon Line, Michael Swanwick

Mordred and Merlin in modern times. I wasn’t so impressed with this.

Mrs. Shummel Exits A Winner, John Kessel

Another story that isn’t really science fiction so much as fantasy. Did Dozois do this in the other anthologies I’ve read and I just not notice? Anyway, it’s not a bad story. Mrs. Schummel is a sad old woman who plays bingo. Lots of bingo. One night at the bingo hall a boy sits next to her. He doesn’t talk. He wins on every bingo card, but never yells bingo! or even waves over the judges. Mrs. Shummel is flabbergasted but doesn’t want him to win over her so she says nothing. He offers her the card, for a price. Will she take it?

Emissary, Stephen Kraus

A researcher finds an alien artifact and turns it on. There isn’t anything groundbreaking in this story, but I thought it was pretty snifty nonetheless.

It Was The Heat, Pat Cadigan

Not science fiction. Not something I liked. The second story in the volume to have appeared in The Year’s Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection.

Skin Deep, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

On an alien world a young woman is starting to have signs of a mysterious disease. Decent story.

Dying In Hull, D. Alexander Smith (David Alexander Smith)

Man, it must suck to have a common last name like Smith and on top of that use your middle name only to have some famous author come along, use your name, and hog all the top Google spots. Anyway, this is a story of the sea rising and slowly inundating the town of Hull Massachusetts. Like Washington State’s Harry Truman, who refused to leave the side of Mt. St. Helens knowing it would probably be his death, Ethel Cobb continues to live in Hull. There she deals with marauding gangs and memories of people long gone. I think this is the oldest story I’ve read that deals with global warming. I recommend it.

Distances, Kathe Koja

Eh. People are specially altered to received faster than light communications from robotic space ships on their way to Alpha Centauri. This story had no oomph for me. Characters were stock. The ideas were stock.

Famous Monsters, Kim Newman

This was fun! A Martian gets in the movies and after a long career mostly in B-movie roles writes this memoir-like retrospective.

The Scalehunter’s Beautiful Daughter, Lucius Shepard

Wow! Beautiful fantasy novella! Original and powerful. Of course, every Lucius Shepard story I’ve read has been unique. Definitely a fitting end to this anthology.

Title: The year’s best science fiction: sixth annual collection
Editor: Gardner Dozois
Cover artist: Armand Cabrera
Series: year’s best science fiction ; 6
Imprint / publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Format: Paperback
Length: xxiv, 596 p.
Publication date: 1989
ISBN-10: 0-312-03009-6