Today I continue my look at short sci-fi from the year 1995 as it appeared in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection. In my not-so-pleasant memories, 1995...at least the first half...I was stuck at my job with some toxic, manipulative and (I believe) emotionally disturbed coworkers who rendered the most extreme reality TV shows tame by comparison with their dramatics and false narratives: it was a relief to change shifts to a more peaceful and professional work environment later in the year. But enough about me and my world, how about those stories...
FOR WHITE HILL by Joe Haldeman
This has to be one of the most somber, bleak science fiction stories I've ever read...and that's saying something since there are quite a few of them out there. The narrator, an artist in the distant future, relates his experiences with another artist, a woman named White Hill, on a war-destroyed Earth. Humanity has settled nearby star systems but tragically also acquired a lethal enemy who has engaged against them in a centuries-long war of survival, with Earth being one of the casualties. It's a beautifully written tale of what was, what is, and at the end, what seems unavoidably destined to be: a classic...
SOME LIKE IT COLD by John Kessel
Take the premise of the 2009 resurrected Star Trek movie starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk where an embittered Romulan takes his ship back in time to retroactively change history and you have what's going on here with time travel. Except that it's the greedy entertainment industry, not vengeful Romulans, here digging into the past, extracting notable people from it and spotlighting them for mass profit in their ongoing shows. The author demonstrates that sometimes what at first seems altruistic is merely a cynical exercise in self-enrichment...
Next week: More from 1995...
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