Today I continue my reactions to stories appearing in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois and featuring his picks from those first published in 1983. That was the year that...at least in my mind...marked the music video explosion, although MTV had been in existence since 1981. Ted Turner decided to run a competing weekend music video marathon show on his Superstation, and I was hooked on it. This was a period of great experimentation in videos, and although they weren't always good, they usually were interesting...unlike much of the crap that's put out today (well, that's just my opinion). But back to those stories...
HARDFOUGHT by Greg Bear
This novella starts its narration out from the viewpoint of a young human woman, Prufax, in the distant future when humanity is in a life-or-death war struggle against an ancient race, the Serexi. The adversary is gas-based with a completely different chemistry, and the story jumps to their perspective as well. The problem I have with stories like this is that much of their mystery is in the deliberately cryptic way the author unravels their circumstances...eventually we discover exactly who...or what...Prufax is and how humankind has reached this state but, in the meantime, we're struggling to understand what the author is talking about. Still, Greg Bear is a "hard" science fiction writer, and you stand to learn some interesting facts reading any of his stories...
MANIFEST DESTINY by Joe Haldeman
I'm not exactly sure why this story has been placed within the genre of science fiction...it's more of a historical western with a little prophecy thrown in. A bold young man is determined to make his fortune in Mexico, back in the 1840s when they were at war with the United States. He receives a fortune teller's message that he cannot die in Mexico...that's fine for him since he plans to live there for the remainder of his anticipated very, very long future life. I myself anticipated the story's intended surprise ending, being cognizant of American territorial gains in that era, especially that often-overlooked 1853 Gadsden Purchase...
FULL CHICKEN RICHNESS by Avram David
I vaguely remember reading another story like this one, involving the same species of bird (not the chicken). At a locally-owned burger joint, presumably in the U.S.A., they serve a great chicken soup...the protagonist thinks he remembers somebody very similar to the owner/cook from his European travels and decides to check him out to see what he's up to. A time travel story with a hook that, well, seems too familiar to me. Also, it just might be that Stephen King got some one of his ideas from it that he used in his own time-travel epic novel 11/22/63...
MULTIPLES by Robert Silverberg
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, following the blockbuster TV movie Sybil starring Sally Field, multiple personality disorder became something of a chic trend in psychology, with books and claims coming out that different people had "different people" within themselves. Now imagine a future in which it's all not only true, but that it's no longer considered a disorder but rather something that makes people's lives more interesting and conversely paints "singletons" as being unattractive and drab. A young woman with no multiple personalities tries to convince a "multiple" guy she's interested in that she's one as well...it's a comedic spoof on something that was a big deal in popular culture back then...
Next week I'll continue looking at 1983 science fiction short stories...
No comments:
Post a Comment