Today I move into another decade from the past, the seventies, as I beginning examining sci-fi short stories from 1970 as they appeared in the anthology World's Best Science Fiction 1971, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr and featuring their selections from the previous year. By early '70, President Nixon's honeymoon period in office was clearly over as the country erupted in protests and a "moratorium" over his decision to invade Cambodia and enlarge the scope of the Vietnam War: the Kent State shootings were a tragic byproduct. Also, Earth Day began...I remember a witty little song on the radio, The Pollution Song, which went like this: "If you visit American city, you may find it very pretty. Just two things of which you must beware: don't drink the water and don't breathe the air!" Around the time that spring when this song was getting airplay, Apollo 13 made its fateful voyage, the crew's lives saved after an onboard explosion in space and some very quick, innovative thinking by the three astronauts and those on the ground. Here are my takes on four stories from that year...
SLOW SCULPTURE by Theodore Sturgeon
A middle-age man living in rural isolation tends to his estate with its plants and his experiments...in his home is a bonsai tree, which requires more than mere caretaking if it is to be "sculptured". A young woman, distraught that she may have cancer, visits him one day and he offers a cure. His brilliance on so many levels intrigues her and she wonders why he hasn't made his genius more available to others. His response hit me hard, for I have during much of my life experienced reactions similar to what he had gone through: the feeling that anything I said or did of quality value either went down like a lead balloon, was simply ignored, or interpreted in the most cynical light to make me look bad. The man healed the woman...and now it's her turn to heal him. The bonsai in the story serves as an analogy to a workable philosophy of living. I can see why the editors chose to lead off with this compelling tale...
BIRD IN THE HAND by Larry Niven
An appropriate story for the budding environmental movement (see my above introduction) as it is far off into the future and Earth's atmosphere and water are polluted to the point of being poisonous...the small variety of life that remains, including humans, have biologically adapted to be able to breathe carbon dioxide-saturated air. All of Earth and its extraterrestrial settlements are ruled by the Secretary General, now a hereditary position currently (in the story) occupied by an intellectually challenged boy. The Institute for Temporal Research, concerning itself with time travel, is in a rivalry for influence against Space...to enhance its own image, its agents go back in time to find old extinct animals like elephants or ostriches to copy and bring back for the ruler's private museum...they discover that the ostrich is an example of neotenous evolution, which to me as an frustrated reader of time travel tales was a refreshing new theme that seemed to have possibilities. A glitch in an effort to recover the "first car" accidentally cleans up the air in the "present", causing all kinds of problems, including with the bird which has genetically altered to grow into its full adult form as a roc...
ISHMAEL IN LOVE by Robert Silverberg
An interspecies love story, uniquely written from a dolphin's perspective as he pines for his human female companion, an expert on relating to his form of life. Ishmael, as she has named him after Melville's opening line in Moby Dick, works to clear ducts at a water condensation plant at St. Croix in the Caribbean. He receives as pay all the fish he can eat as well as books and instruction: Ishmael is literate and well-learned. His perspective on what makes his crush so attractive from his dolphin perspective is hilarious yet profound...some of our human standards for attractiveness do seem a little arbitrary when you think about it. I enjoyed this more humorous tale on unrequited love...
INVASION OF PRIVACY by Bob Shaw
Set in the present time, a man's seven year old son recounts to his parents his experience at the local small town's old, abandoned and dilapidated haunted house, having looked into a window one night and seen several seniors sitting around alive in a lighted room...including his recently deceased grandmother. The boy falls ill and is taken for care by the elderly family doctor. The father investigates and finds himself going down a rabbit hole of body-snatching and conspiracy...you alien abduction fans and conspiracy theorists would love this tale of someone caught up to the point where he wonders how far down that hole goes...and then makes an interesting decision at the end. This story had a Steven King horror feel to it...
Next week I continue my look at science fiction short stories from 1970...
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