Arthur W. SahaBesprekingen

I loved every story in this anthology, it doesn't matter what year certain stories come from, a lot of them are evocative and timeless! A ton of the masters of sci-fi present in this book, I couldn't put it down. Now I have to check out the rest of the collections in this series!

F/SF

F/SF

F/SF

ISFDB 34902. OCLC 6621308.

ISFDB 205017. OCLC 13567721.

This is an anthology of short stories from 1981, which covers fantasy themes ranging from the traditional princesses and dragons fare, magical realism/urban fantasy, fairytale retellings and even a Gothic-flavoured tale. As with these sort of collections, the quality of the stories vary, even if it is meant to be "the year's best fantasy stories". Highlights include "Proteus" by Paul H. Cook, a story about a modern shape-changer, who exists as multiple men, each with his own life and family; "Spidersong" by Susan C. Petrey, about a spider that plays music with her web; "Wolfland" by Tanith Lee, a dreamy werewolf retelling of Red Riding Hood; and "Melpomene, Calliope... and Fred" by Nicholas Yermakov, a hilarious tale of a blocked writer who is visited by an uncanny muse.

I had this as a teenager: a hardback I'd gotten from the Science Fiction Book Club, back when 'book club editions' were these fake-you-out things shoddily constructed from poor paper and too-little glue, intended to fool you into thinking "wow! I'm getting hardback books at SUCH a bargain!" ... before they fell apart on you.

I recall the paper had a very distinctive smell, too.

The star in this collection was -- for me anyway -- Michael Bishop's "Death and Designation Among the Asadi," from which I can still recall a few scenes with some vividness.

Bought to read Bob Leman's story. Didn't really enjoy it. I also read Lisa Tuttle's story. It was alright and Pooka's Bridge which I thought was good.

~Skirmish on Bastable Street by Bob Leman 2* - Guy rescues demon from pit and gets 3 wishes but can only think of 2. 3rd will be granted to a direct descendant. Takes 100s of years to have one with the same name. Wish ended up sending demon back to pit. I'm confused. Why time loop?

~A Friend in Need by Lisa Tuttle 3* - Imaginary friend turns out to be a real girl able to project herself.

~Pooka's Bridge by Gillian Fitzgerald 3* - wife and heir hidden away asks local supernatural legend "Pooka" for help. She and Pooka fall in love but she wants to take care of her earthly responsibilities like seeing her son re-claim the thrown when older. She is "old" and tells Pooka she is ready but is fearful that he won't love "old lady" her. He restores her youth and asks "Will you leave me alone to grieve for all of my days?"

In my mind I think of the 80's as a really good time for science fiction so I found myself pretty disappointed with the ten stories chosen by the editor to represent the best of 1983 (The collection is assembled in 1984 with 1983 stories). There were only two stories to have my attention: "Homefaring" by Robert Silverberg and "The Harvest of Wolves" by Mary Gentle. I'd read Gentle's story a long time ago - short but well done, and memorable. The Silverberg story answers that timeless question of the far future: What if giant lobsters inherited the earth? Much better than it sounds! Greg Bear's short story "Blood Music" opens the collection. I had read it when it was new, but my memory of it was better than the story strikes me now. It was innovative for the time it was written. A couple stories in here are pretty poor. I'd avoid this collection, except that the novella "Homefaring" is such a good story and it was Nebula nominated as well. A 4-5 star gem amongst the dreck. sigh.

As is usual for his annual World's Best collections, Wollheim selects 10 of the best stories of the preceding year, 1980 in this case. This series ran for 26 years (1965-1990) until the editor's death.

The included stories are:
vii • Introduction • essay by Donald A. Wollheim
1 • Variation on a Theme from Beethoven • novelette by Sharon Webb
30 • Beatnik Bayou • novelette by John Varley
64 • Elbow Room • novelette by Marion Zimmer Bradley
81 • The Ugly Chickens • novelette by Howard Waldrop
105 • Prime Time • short story by Norman Spinrad
119 • Nightflyers • novella by George R. R. Martin
181 • A Spaceship Built of Stone • short story by Lisa Tuttle
199 • Window • short story by Bob Leman
217 • The Summer Sweet, the Winter Wild • short story by Michael G. Coney
230 • Achronos • short story by Lee Killough

Waldrop's 'The Ugly Chickens' is a "cute' story I have read before. Zoological science fiction. It won the 1981 Nebula award for novelette. I wouldn't call this a strong year for science fiction of science fantasy stories based on this collection. I did like the first story pretty well. Sharon Webb speculates on the death of the arts and artists when immortality is achieved for humans in the future. The solution that humanity came up with is presented here. A young boy needs to choose between music or immortality. I don't think this story has appeared anywhere else but this anthology since the early magazine publication in 1980. Varley's 'Beatnik Bayou was a flop for me. I didn't even bother to read the last couple pages of that story. I skipped the Marion Zimmer Bradley story. The other stories were OK and I think my two favorites were 'A Spaceship Built of Stone' by Lisa Tuttle which was an old-fashioned romance science fiction story with a subtly creepy edge about the Anasazi people in modern times and what looks to be a silent invasion. Then, Bob Leman's 'Window' was odd but good also. It completely twists and turns into a nightmare at the end. This story was adapted into an episode of a TV series in 2001 and starred Bill Pullman! Although not exactly the written story, you can watch it on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aAY57plRYQ The actual story is better than the television adaptation, but I think it is kinda cool that it exists at all.

Overall for 40 year old stories I can't complain. There are some good and interesting ideas in here, although most of this is quite forgettable.

Wollheim's Year's Best anthologies (with the assistance in most years of Arthur Saha) were my bread and butter reading over many of their 26 years of issuance (1965-1990). This one has ten OK to very good stories, as follows:

Introduction (1982) • essay by Donald A. Wollheim
Blind Spot • (1981) • shortstory by Jayge Carr
Highliner • (1981) • shortfiction by C. J. Cherryh
The Pusher • (1981) • shortstory by John Varley
Polyphemus • (1981) • novella by Michael Shea
Absent Thee from Felicity Awhile... • (1981) • shortstory by Somtow Sucharitkul
Out of the Everywhere • (1981) • novelette by James Tiptree, Jr.
Slac// • (1981) • novelette by Michael P. Kube-McDowell
The Cyphertone • (1981) • shortstory by S. C. Sykes
Through All Your Houses Wandering • (1981) • novella by Ted Reynolds
The Last Day of Christmas • (1981) • novelette by David J. Lake

I won't detail each story, but there are very good stories in here mixed with some that didn't ring my bells much, which is expected of virtually all anthologies. Won't name a favorite story in here as each has different strengths. There is very much a theme of alien first contact in these tales. I did notice a tendency to paint ship's captains as inflexible and/or not so bright so that the crewmember can be proven right or save the day. "Blind Spot" by Jayge Carr certainly starts the collection off well with this story of a blind artist and the doctor obsessed with trying to restore his patient's vision. Very different. One of the few non-alien stories, "The Pusher" creeped me out with the sexual predator tone that was implied. However there was a twist and we were intentionally misled, and it was a little different than expected. It won the Hugo Award in 1982 for best short story in 1981. Really? Me, I didn't think it was that good and this wouldn't be the first Hugo award winner to make me wonder why.

Another non-alien story, Cherryh's 'Highliner' puts us into the far far far future New York - the sun has begun to die and yet the Cityscraper that is New York builds and builds. There are special people who build and maintain and this is about them, and also about that part of human nature that apparently hasn't changed in the least. My least favorite story in here was the novella 'Polyphemus' a heavily science based story set on another world. What didn't work for me were the interpersonal relationships which were critical to the story. I felt like the story went on far too long.

Each of the remaining stories was interesting. A few quite thought provoking even when they didn't really succeed.

The World's Best for 1986 contains a mix of 10 short stories, novelettes and novellas. Included is:

•vii • Introduction • essay by Donald A. Wollheim
•1 • Earthgate • (1985) • novelette by J. Brian Clarke
•41 • On the Dream Channel Panel • (1985) • shortstory by Ian Watson
•56 • The Gods of Mars • (1985) • novelette by Gardner Dozois and Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick
•77 • The Jaguar Hunter • (1985) • novelette by Lucius Shepard
•101 • Sailing to Byzantium • (1985) • novella by Robert Silverberg
•159 • Webrider • (1985) • shortstory by Jayge Carr
•173 • With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole • (1985) • shortstory by Harlan Ellison
•190 • The Curse of Kings • (1985) • novella by Connie Willis
•233 • Fermi and Frost • (1985) • shortstory by Frederik Pohl
•248 • Pots • (1985) • novelette by C. J. Cherryh

A few comments. If you are going to pick only ten stories out of a year I expect each one to be very good to excellent. That didn't happen as there are a couple of weak stories in here, especially in comparison to the better ones. In his concise introduction and overview, editor Wolheim notes that the genre continues to have a strong influx of female readers and authors. However most of them are focused on fantasy. This book includes 3 female authors of the ten total.

The collection has a strong start with "Earthgate", a story about inter-species relationships and the creation of a stargate on Earth. I think this was the first story I have read by this British author who was active primarily in the 80's-early 90's.

The absolute strongest story in the book is Lucius Shepard's "The Jaguar Hunter." I know the editors included it since it is such a powerful story by a then new author on a meteoric rise. But it isn't science fiction and the editors knew it. I'm glad it is here though. Shepard had written several of my favorite stories in the mid 80's and now this is one more of them. A great piece of fiction set in Central America with magical realism elements.

Harlan Ellison's "With Virgil Oddum at the East Pole" is another very good piece. An angry and very bitter man has been exiled to an arctic like island on another world called Penitence Island. We don't know what he has done nor really why he is so angry and bitter. At first he thinks the solitude may help him put his rage issues behind him as he tries to communicate with and understand a native species, the fuxes. Then appears one "Virgil Oddum".

C.J. Cherryh's "Pots" was also rather intriguing as archaeologists in the far distant future who seem to be seeking their origin study the remains of what one soon realizes is probably the Earth.½

Includes stories by George R.R. Martin, John Varley, Orson Scott Card, Connie Willis, Larry Niven and Steve Barnes, Tanith Lee and Joanna Russ. Interesting stuff.

"Nightflyers" is the most entertaining of the ten stories, a SciFi psycho-thriller. "A Spaceship Built of Stone" is a different take on passive alien invasion, not unlike illegal immigration. All of the stories had some element of interest.

This is the second to last, or as the cognoscenti might say, the penultimate collection of what editor Donald Wollheim thinks were the best stories of the preceding year. The 1989 annual year's best has 11 stories in this collection, and all date from 1988. There were 26 years in the series starting with 1965 and I made it a point to try and read these every year for many years. I probably read 2/3 or more of these collections from about 1970. 1990 would be the last year of the series coinciding with Wollheim's death. Several of the last ones I never did get to, and this was one of them. The first seven years of the series, 65-71 were co-edited with Terry Carr and the later ones (72-90) with Arthur Saha.

There are what seems to me to be a few weak stories here, including the opening story which I found hard to believe was among the year's best despite having been written by notable author David Brin. It isn't bad, i just can't see it as "best." Other readers liked it better as it was nominated in the short story category for a Hugo. There are however a few very good or better stories in here, and no clunkers, and that made this an enjoyable read overall. The included stories are:

1 • Introduction • essay by Isaac Asimov
5 • The Giving Plague • shortstory by David Brin
25 • Peaches for Mad Molly • novelette by Steven Gould
49 • Shaman • novelette by John Shirley
83 • Schrödinger's Kitten • novelette by George Alec Effinger
109 • The Flies of Memory • novella by Ian Watson
159 • Skin Deep • shortstory by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
175 • A Madonna of the Machine • novelette by Tanith Lee
197 • Waiting for the Olympians • novelette by Frederik Pohl
241 • Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog • shortstory by B. W. Clough
253 • Adrift Among the Ghosts • shortstory by Jack L. Chalker
269 • Ripples in the Dirac Sea • shortstory by Geoffrey A. Landis

I'll comment on several that I thought were among the best here.

"Schrödinger's Kitten" was pretty good (and it won the 1988 Nebula award for best novelette), an early entry in Effinger's series of stories and novels set in a future world with a heavy arabic influence. "The Flies of Memory" by Ian Watson was long, just about novella length and luckily was modestly entertaining with a scenario of bug-like aliens arriving on earth. Do they come in peace? Are the here merely to watch and "remember" the earth with their flyselves all over the planet? I thought this might be light fluff at first but it became much more weird, complicated and interesting. The story was apparently expanded into a novel a couple of years later. I don't find Watson's writing style reader friendly however and it prevents me from saying I really liked it.

"Skin Deep" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch was very good. To me it had the feel of one of Ray Bradbury's better Martian Chronicles stories where colonists deal with the unknown. Nice, compact story that really packs a surprise punch. I was surprised to discover this was one of the author's first published stories. I also found Tanith Lee's "A Madonna of the Machine" quite interesting - it is set in a future where humans live and their needs met inside of a giant machine. All goes along until the visions start.

Jack Chalker's "Adrift Among the Ghosts" is a powerful story I have read before, and it is one that will stay with you. Out there among the stars a man is collecting the televised programs of earth.

"Ripples in the Dirac Sea" by Geoffrey Landis was the final story and my favorite of the collection. A man had discovered time travel and can travel backwards in time only. A very thoughtful and moving story is wrapped around this.½

Another mixed bag. Not my favorite era in sf; a little too philosophical/ meta-physical. I was impressed by A Spaceship Built of Stone by Lisa Tuttle.

I always enjoy these "little slice of history" anthologies... this one, while not dramatically outstanding for me, was good as always, as most of this series is...
I'd read the Cowper, Del Rey and Tiptree stories before, but long enough ago that I read them over...

Appearance of Life - Brian Aldiss
Holographic recordings of a long-dead couple lead to an insight(?) about the nature of our universe.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank - John Varley
A futuristic 'vacation' technique involving transfer of consciousness leads to a man being stuck inside a computer system in this playful tale.

Those Good Old Days of Liquid Fuel - Michael Coney
A nostalgia-fest for the future - pretty original gimmick, actually. The 'classic' early spaceships are being phased out by new technology. A man remembers his boyhood watching the dramatic launches and landings with his best friend - who has grown up to be a very different person.

The Hertford Manuscript - Richard Cowper
Could H.G. Wells have been telling the truth when he wrote The Time Machine? Excellent recreation of the Victorian literary style.

Natural Advantage - Lester Del Rey
Humans are smart, and underestimated by some rather fatalistic aliens.

The Bicentennial Man - Isaac Asimov
A classic tale investigating the nature of humanity through the story of a robot who wants to be human. Won the Hugo and Nebula that year, but honestly, I thought the robot was way too whiny and frustratingly stupid. And WHY does he want to be human, anyway? Is it just pressure to conform and be like everyone else?
OK, so I haven't read it in many years, but I really thought "Pinocchio" did a better job with this same theme. (Did you know that in the original (1883), Pinocchio dies at the end? I didn't, until just now! Collodi apparently was pressured by publishers to write a 'happy ending.')

The Cabinet of Oliver Naylor - Barrington Bayley
The inventor of the 'thespitron' (a sort of automatic movie generator) is asked to transport (unbeknownst to him) a government agent in his spaceship in order to apprehend a petty criminal. Things go badly.

My Boat - Joanna Russ
I haven't been a huge Joanna Russ fan - I've sort of WANTED to like her work, but I've read Extra(ordinary) People and We Who Are About To, and neither of them really did it for me. But I liked this story quite a lot - featuring a couple of kids who escape the mundane misery of life in 1960s America into glorious history and the worlds of H.P. Lovecraft(!) - from the perspective of one who doesn't go. Really nice piece!

Houston Houston Do You Read - James Tiptree, Jr.
Also won the Hugo and Nebula.
Strangely, this story reminded me a lot of Joanna Russ' short story "When it Changed," which was retrospectively awarded the Tiptree award. "When it Changed" was written first (1972.) Both feature a situation where, due to a plague or epidemic, only women have survived, and have created a self-sufficient, peaceful all-female society. Men arrive, and don't get it.

I See You - Damon Knight
Shortlisted for the Hugo. Inventor creates a "far-seeing" machine which can view both through space and time. He disseminates these machines widely, and they become omnipresent, changing the nature of society radically.

I've read several of these World's Best SF anthologies from the 80s in the last couple of years, and this is definitely the best of them so far. Just a really solid collection, featuring meaty. well-written stories with lots of good world building, all of which have aged remarkably well. Even the weakest stories are interesting, and the best of them are great.

Some brief comments on the individual stories:

"Permafrost" by Roger Zelazny: On a planet where winter lasts for fifty years, a man returns to the site of an expedition where things went very wrong for him a very long time ago. An interesting story set on an interestingly alien world, with a nicely creepy ending. But, while Zelazny is a very good prose stylist, it almost feels like he's trying a little too hard in places here.

"Timerider" by Doris Egan: The story of a woman whose job is to travel through time to observe, or to snatch away objects or people. I liked this one a lot, not least because it somehow manages to use a lot of very familiar elements without the story itself ever feeling the least bit tired or clichéd. My one complaint is that, even though it's a good-sized story, it ends before it feels quite finished, and left me thinking that it might work even better as a novel.

"Pretty Boy Crossover" by Pat Cadigan. A sharp, well-written little piece set in a world where hip, young, pretty boys have the chance to be hip, young, and pretty forever, possibly at the expense of their souls. The editor's note refers to it as "cyberpunk" (albeit with some snarky bemusement about what that term even means), and I suppose it is, but, unlike a lot of cyberpunk, it does not feel at all dated, shallowness and exploitation having sadly not yet gone out of style.

"R & R" by Lucius Shepard: A soldier fighting a near-future war in Guatemala takes some leave in a small, squalid town and contemplates desertion in this dark, oddly mystical, very literary-feeling novella about the insanity of war. Seems a bit long to be included in a collection like this, but I'm not complaining, because it's darned good.

"Lo, How an Oak E'er Blooming" by Suzette Haden Elgin: A woman commands an oak tree to burst into miraculous bloom in the middle of winter. It does. Scientists are baffled, and the Establishment is not pleased. It's a decent little satiric metaphor of a story, but some grumpy part of me wants to complain that it's fantasy, not science fiction. Although I think I'd care less about that if the sheer stupidity of the editor's note preceding it, embracing examples of utter bunkum that supposedly "confound conservative scientists," hadn't resulted in me feeling rather hostile when I started it.

"Dream in a Bottle" by Jerry Meredith and D. E. Smirl: A spaceship is run by disembodied brains who live in fantasy worlds, controlling the ship with the actions they take in their dreams. It's a potentially interesting (albeit logically pretty ridiculous) idea, but the execution is only OK. There's more of an old-fashioned SF feel to this one than in the previous stories, I think, with less carefully crafted prose and more exposition. It's also not quite as cleverly twisty as it seems to think it is.

"Into Gold" by Tanith Lee: A marvelously creative variation on a familiar fairy tale, set not long after the fall of Rome. As with the oak tree story, this one is clearly fantasy, rather than science fiction, but by this point I was back to my usual disinclination to quibble about genre definitions. Which is fortunate, because the important thing here is that it's really, really good.

"The Lions Are Asleep This Night" by Harold Waldrop: A glimpse into an alternate history where mammoths still roam an unpopulated North America and European colonialism in Africa never fully took. It's an odd little story, and one I'm not sure has any point beyond, "Hey, look, I made a world where white people didn't screw everybody else over!" Which is probably a worthwhile exercise, but it didn't work for me nearly as well as most of the other stories here, I'm afraid. Although it does have the advantage of featuring a bookish kid as a protagonist, which always holds some appeal for me.

"Against Babylon" by Robert Silverberg. Aliens land in California, accidentally set it on fire, and come between a slightly xenophobic firefighter and his hippie-chick wife. Not Silverberg's best, by any means, but the way it takes a very human angle on what otherwise feels like a B-movie scenario is interesting.

"Strangers on Paradise" by Damon Knight: A writer working on a biography comes to the planet Paradise, where everything is beautiful, there is no disease, and happy immortality is looking like a very real future possibility. Of course, you can't help but spend the entire story tensely waiting for the other shoe to drop... and I found it surprisingly effective when it did.

Reading this shows why the "greats" are remembered and read, and the rest slip into obscurity.

"Goat Song" (Poul Anderson) - good
"The Man Who Walked Home" (James Tiptree, Jr.) - excellent
"Oh, Valinda!" (Michael G. Coney) - dull
"The Gold at the Starbow's End" (Frederik Pohl) - excellent
"To Walk a City's Street" (Clifford D. Simak) - dull
"Rorqual Maru" (T. J. Bass) - confusing but mildly interesting
"Changing Woman" (W. Macfarlane) - confusing and dull
"'Willie's Blues'" (Robert J. Tilley) - quite interesting except the ending sort of fizzled out
"Long Shot" (Vernor Vinge) - very good
"Thus Love Betrays Us" (Phyllis MacLennon) - ok

Like last time, I'll be evaluating the stories in this book on the basis of their seeming worthiness of being in a "year's best" anthology: thumbs up means the story feels like it belongs in a "year's best" book, thumbs down means it most definitely does not, and thumbs sideways means I'm essentially neutral on the issue.

"Alphas" by Gregory Benford
Aliens come to Venus, and I don't even know what they do because it was so ridiculously boring. There are multiple charts and diagrams. Thumbs down.

"The Magic Bullet" by Brian Stableford
Something about mice that live forever-- long-winded and dull. Brian Stableford, I liked  Scientific Romance in Britain, 1880-1950, and based on this, please stick to criticism. Thumbs down.

"North of the Abyss" by Brian W. Aldiss
Some guy discovers the Egyptian gods are real or something? Third story in a row where I struggled to even care about the basic elements of the story. Second story in a row where the author would be better off writing more criticism. Thumbs down.

"Chiprunner" by Robert Silverberg
Just when you're starting to think that 1989 was a completely awful year for science fiction, this story-- about a psychiatrist trying to stop a kid from losing himself in computers-- comes along. Not amazing, but interesting enough. Thumbs sideways.

"Abe Lincoln in McDonald's" by James Morrow
Abraham Lincoln travels to the future to see what it will be like if he compromises with the Confederacy. This was fun, but somewhat disturbing at times. The title scene alone would be enough, but Morrow balances the comedy with some nightmares. Thumbs up.

"Death Ship" by Barrington J. Bayley
Some kinda dystopian regime invents a train that goes to the future, kinda. I didn't entirely get it, but it was disturbing and evocative and the ending felt real. Thumbs up.

"In Translation" by Lisa Tuttle
In the future, aliens live in camps around the Earth, and they employ translators an go-betweens. A lonely guy tries to find sexual solace with them, only to discover that nothing is not that straightforward, but especially not sex. Ambiguous but powerful, and the best story in the book. Thumbs up.

"A Sleep and a Forgetting" by Robert Silverberg (again)
Scientists build a machine that can communicate with people in the past, and our hero makes contact with Genghis Khan... kinda. An interesting premise, but I dislike invention stories that spend most of their time establishing the invention, rather than getting on with the implications. Give me the transformed society, not the transforming. Thumbs sideways.

"Not Without Honor" by Judith Moffett
Aliens make contact with a Mars base, trying to find the host of The Mickey Mouse Club because there's a crisis with the kids on their home planet. Kinda goofy, but delightful and sometimes even heart-warming without being too saccharine. Thumbs up.

"Dogwalker" by Orson Scott Card
A fun tale of an adult trapped in a kid's body who can figure out your password by learning enough about you. Entertaining, but not quite "year's best" material, I don't think. Thumbs sideways.

"Surrender" by Lucius Shepard
I wanted to like this story, given how interesting Shepard's story in the 1988 volume was, but this one never really grabbed me, though it has its moments (particularly the sex scene and the ending). Thumbs sideways.

"War Fever" by J. G. Ballard
A clever story of war in the Middle East, where U.N. peacekeepers intervene and a smart protagonist figures out how to stop it all... only for there to be a twist... and then another twist. Good stuff. Thumbs up.

So: twelve stories, five thumbs up-- marginally a better hit rate than the 1988 volume (4/10). There were also more thumbs downs than last time, and they were unfortunately clustered at the book's beginning. I think we have to conclude, thanks to this highly scientific methodology, that 1989's science fiction was slightly not as good as 1987's.

This was the last volume of Wollheim's Annual World's Best SF series, but at some point I'll be looping back to the 1984 volume, and I also have a few volumes of the Dozois's Year's Best Science Fiction to look at.

Unsurprisingly, in 1987 science fiction (at least in the form of Lucius Shepard) expected continued Latin American/anticommunist wars. Doris Egan contributes the story of a possibly sociopathic and definitely interesting time traveler, reminiscent of what Kage Baker would later do and packed with tantalizing hints of a larger world. Suzette Hadin Elgin has a grating story about gender politics (I used to find her work really interesting, and then it just became essentialist and grating) and an indestructible miracle tree. Also represented: Roger Zelazny, Pat Cadigan, Tanith Lee, Howard Waldrop (inexplicable AU Africa), Robert Silverberg, Damon Knight, and Jerry Meredith & D.E. Smirl.

I read the 1983 and 1984 volumes of this series not long ago, having picked them up along with this 1988 installment at a library sale a while back, and I'm finding it interesting to compare them. Both the '83 and the '84 versions had a mixture of two very different kinds of SF stories. On one hand, there were a smattering of very old school-style works, with scientific ideas (or, occasionally, adventure plots) taking firm precedence over character and prose, and on the other were stories with more of a literary sensibility, ones that were more inclined to be emotionally evocative and maybe a little experimental. Although that's something of a false dichotomy, of course; a lot of the stories actually come somewhere between those two ends of the spectrum. Well, I don't know whether it's a statistical fluke, an indicator of a trend in the history of SF, or simply a result of the editor's evolving tastes, but this installment features only the more soft/literary/experimental stuff and some of those in-between kinds of stories, with none of that real old school SF sensibility at all. Which, honestly, is fine by me. I like good classic SF as much as the next geek, but I just didn't think the examples in those previous volumes were all that great; they often had a stale, backwards-looking feel about them. With this batch, even the ones I didn't care for that much were reasonably well-written, free of clunky exposition, and at least trying to do something creative.

A breakdown of the specific stories:

"The Pardoner's Tale" by Robert Silverberg: The story of a computer hacker who alters people's records for a fee, in a world that's been occupied by aliens. It's decently written, in a breezy sort of way, and I kind of like the way the lightly sketched worldbuilding deliberately leaves a lot to the imagination. But it's very slight, and the vaguely cyberpunky elements feel almost quaint now. (Hey, remember when "megabyte" was an impressive-sounding word?)

"Rachel in Love" by Pat Murphy: A scientist imprints the memories and personality of his dead teenage daughter onto a chimpanzee. Then he dies, and the chimp is sent to a primate research facility. The result is a quiet, understated little story about identity and adolescence and the fuzzy dividing line between humans and animals.

"America" by Orson Scott Card: A strange story about a repressed and rather sanctimonious Mormon kid, a middle aged Indian woman from the Brazilian rainforest, prophetic dreams, some kind of mystical force or god, and a ruler destined to reclaim the Americas from the Europeans. Well-written, but it's debatable whether it's more science fiction or fantasy, and there's something about it that makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable, and not in a good way. Although that may have as much or more to do with what I know of Card and the fact that I sort of expect to dislike any political or religious statement he might be making than with anything inherent in the story itself. It's really hard to say.

"Crying in the Rain" by Tanith Lee: A quietly disturbing little story about everyday life -- short, sad, limited everyday life -- in a world so contaminated by poison and radioactivity that even walking in the rain is deadly.

"The Sun Spider" by Lucius Shepard: The story of a scientist obsessed with the idea of finding life on the sun, and his wife, and... well, I'm honestly not entirely sure. It was interesting, taking ideas that could have been handled in a pulpy fashion and doing something much more complicated with them, but ultimately it was a little too abstract, and I had difficulty connecting with it.

"Angel" by Pat Cadigan: The story of an alien exiled to Earth, and the humans he bonds with, in his strange, alien way. The basic concept has an almost too-familiar sort of feel to it; the idea of a creature who is in some way beyond human who comes among us and has a profound effect on the people he encounters is older than science fiction itself. But the execution isn't bad.

"Forever Yours, Anna" by Kate Wilhelm: A graphologist is asked to analyze the handwriting on some letters, and discovers an unexpected connection with the letter-writer. A very short story with a Twilight Zone-ish twist ending that works better than it really ought to.

"Second Going" by James Tiptree, Jr.: Humanity encounters some seemingly friendly aliens, and discovers that they've also brought their gods along to Earth with them. Kind of an odd story, and far from Tiptree's best, but, like most Tiptree stories, it's weirdly thought-provoking.

"Dinosaurs" by Walter Jon Williams: A nicely chilling glimpse of the far-future descendents of humanity, who are much, much more alien than the aliens they're trying to have diplomatic relations with. This one is definitely my favorite of the anthology. It's disturbing in some subtle and effective ways.

"All Fall Down" by Don Sakers: Humanity is suffering from a devastating plague, and a race of sentient trees debates whether or not to help. This is actually a sequel to a story that was included in the 1984 volume. That wasn't one of my favorites in that collection, and I can't say I felt any happier with this one. There's just something about the wise, mystical, "like, totally in touch with the natural harmony of the universe, man!" alien tree people that rubs me the wrong way.

Rating: I'm going to give this one a slightly generous 4/5. Even if there aren't that many stand-outs, it's a worthwhile collection, overall.

Rather intermittently I’ve written about sci-fi and I find that if I don’t take the time to slow down and write something out then I promptly forget whatever it is that I just read. This post is not only an attempt to share but also one of self-preservation for my own recollection.

Appearance of Life – Brian W. Aldiss

The introductory paragraph for this story says, and I quote, that Brian has been writing stories that “baffle the comprehension.” I don’t find personally that this story is completely beyond my comprehension but I will say that such a statement does little to recommend such a narrative. The bits that stand out for me, many days after reading this story, center around a planet-wide museum constructed by an ancient and extinct race. Our narrator visits the locale and spends many months seeking out some greater truth about our history as a species. Eventually, he comes to a conclusion which his mind cannot accept, that drives him mad, that causes him to extract himself from humanity entirely lest he loose this knowledge upon the universe and create havoc.

Overdrawn at the Memory Bank – John Varley

If this book were a pop song, this story would be “the hook.” Our narrator, in a far distant time is visiting the equivalent of Disney World. He’s having his consciousness implanted into an African lion for a few weeks to relax and disconnect from the world around him. Unfortunately, when he returns from his excursion he finds that his real body has been misplaced. In the months and months which follow while Uncle Walt looks for his body, he discovers a few key truths about himself and about mankind in general.

Those Good Old Days of Liquid Fuel – Michael G. Coney

The Wonder Years meets Trainspotting. ’nuff said.

The Hertford Manuscript – Richard Cowper

In this short tale Cowper does a fairly reasonable job of filling in some of the narrative holes left in H.G. Wells “The Time Machine”. Cowper’s protagonist doesn’t come to anything approaching a happy ending but it is good nonetheless to have an answer, even if it isn’t the most uplifting one.

Natural Advantage – Lester Del Rey

Aliens are nice enough to visit Earth, but sadly, it’s with nothing but bad news. A solar flare is coming to wipe us off the face of the planet within the decade. This particular race has trinocular vision and that allows them to not only perceive depth of field but depth of time and thus they can see that our puny race is about to snuff it. At least they’re nice enough to tell us though, right? After delivering their news they agree to an exchange of technology with our sadly doomed race and go on their way. When they return to their homeworld years later they find that humanity had a little more ingenuity than they bargained for.

The Bicentennial Man – Isaac Asimov

In this old and familiar story we find a robot with an ambition. Before the story of this robot there was a wooden marionette with the same ambition. So many are the articles of furniture which yearn to be human. Why do we write of such things? Is it possibly because we want to make our finite and human frailties seem somehow valuable? The Bicentennial Man yearns to be human, to expire, to pass on from a mortal existence. How many of us would give everything to NOT be human?

The Cabinet of Oliver Naylor – Barrington Bayley

Mankind’s technology has outpaced his morality. He can travel not only faster than light but exponentially faster. He can cruise about the cosmos and watch every possible sitcom produced mechanically by a simple box. (Not that there are all that many possible combinations mind you). So what WOULD happen if the entirety of the omniverse became the equivalent of the wild west?

My Boat – Joanna Russ

A young black girl close on the heels of the civil rights movement proves to be more than she might seem. In fact she might be downright alien…

Houston, Houston, Do You Read? – James Tiptree Jr.

Our protagonists were on a mission. All they had to do was loop around the sun and come back to Earth. Unfortunately for them, the Earth has changed since they left, especially since 300 years passed when they approached perihelion. Pesky temporal distortions. Plague has ravaged the planet they’re returning to and they’re the last three human males in the universe. What greater paradise could there be? Or perhaps it’s really hell in disguise….

I See You – Damon Knight

Television has come a long way. Now you can dial in the time and location of whatever you want to view, even your next door neighbor. What exactly WOULD happen if all of history both distant and recent was wide open to scrutiny from a hoard of people with a $7 gadget from Radio Shack?

Like the 1983 volume, which I read a few months ago, this anthology is a decidedly mixed bag. I'm coming to the conclusion that either the editor of this series has rather different standards than I do for what constitutes the world's best stories, or else the 1980s were a worse decade for science fiction than I remember them being. Which is entirely possible; I was 13 in 1984, and didn't exactly have highly developed tastes. Still, there's just enough good stuff here to make it worth a look.

Some brief comments on the individual stories:

"Blood Music" by Greg Bear: A scientist injects himself with intelligent microbes that begin to change him from the inside. It's an interesting, if massively implausible, idea, and the story's ending has some impact, but it's marred by way too much clunky technobabble at the beginning and a storyline that feels far too compressed. Bear later expanded it into a novel, which I read a few years ago. I remember thinking that, while also massively implausible, it was considerably more entertaining than the other novels of his I'd read. That's not necessarily saying all that much, though. Greg Bear is one of those authors whose stuff I keep thinking I should like and then inevitably feel disappointed by.

"Potential" by Isaac Asimov: A pair of scientists investigate a teenage boy who possesses a gene sequence that might make him telepathic. More clunky dialog here, and a not terribly successful twist ending. Definitely not one of Asimov's more memorable stories.

"Knight of Shallows" by Rand B. Lee: A man is sent into parallel realities to track down a version of himself who is murdering other versions of himself. Now, this one I liked. It's a weird and messy little story, but it's interesting, and it makes the parallel worlds concept feel fresher than it really is -- or was, even in 1984.

"Spending A Day at the Lottery Fair" by Frederik Pohl: A nicely chilling little story about a future in which America has introduced a novel form of population control that's fun for all the family... until it's not.

"In the Face of My Enemy" by Joseph H. Delany: A woman who supposedly has some kind of professional skills, but exhibits absolutely no competence or personality whatsoever sets out on some kind of planetary survey with her assigned bodyguard, a virile manly man, who is also immortal and has special superhuman abilities, and knows everything about everything, and solves all the planet's mysteries at a glance while she looks on admiringly, constantly asks him what they should do next, and, at one point, breaks down sobbing. I swear, I had to check the cover of the book again to make sure I hadn't picked up The 1944 Annual World's Best SF by accident.

"The Nanny" by Thomas Wylde: The last survivor of humanity is headed for Alpha Centauri with a cargo of human genetic material, but something goes wrong on the way. A decently written, slightly dark take on a familiar idea with a an effective ending that's marred a bit by the fact that the last adult survivor of humanity too often comes across as an idiot who has trouble remembering what he's even supposed to be doing.

"The Leaves of October" by Don Sakers: An alien tree attempts to make contact with humans who have trouble realizing it's sentient. I like the attempt to portray an alien POV, but there's a tiny bit too much of a not-all-that-subtle New Agey eco-hippie flavor here for my taste.

"As Time Goes By" by Tanith Lee: A well-written and interestingly ambiguous tale of a space pirate, a beautiful woman, and a time travel paradox... maybe. I'm not sure quite what to make of this, in the end, but it was an intriguing, atmospheric read.

"The Harvest of Wolves" by Mary Gentle: This one's just a brief little nugget of near-future dystopia. Depressingly, it feels at least as relevant today as it was in the eighties, possibly more so, and there's a nice little sting to the ending, but there's really not very much story meat on its social-commentary bones.

"Homefaring" by Robert Silverberg: A man's consciousness travels forward some unspecified but immense period of time, and he finds himself sharing a body with a sentient lobster. This probably sounds ridiculous, but for my money it's by far the best story in the book, or at least the most engrossing. It's smoothly and intelligently written, and does a good job of conjuring up that sense of wonder and awakened curiosity that SF at its best does so well. And for all that he's sharing a brain with lobster, the main character is the most believably human of any to be found here.