Today I continue my look at the year 1983 in short science fiction with six stories from the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, First Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois, first published in 1984, and featuring his picks from the preceding year...
CRYPTIC by Jack McDevitt
A physicist-turned-administrator is cleaning out the files left by SETI, the previous occupant of his new research facility somewhere in the American Southwest, when he discovers a computer disk containing cryptic data. SETI stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence, a real organization that examines the stars for non-random radio signals indicating other life...I know of them from interviews on the late-night Art Bell radio show while at my then-graveyard shift job assignment. After meeting with the former SETI director, now long retired, the physicist discovers the somber truth of the information...and why it was hidden away...
THE SIDON IN THE MIRROR by Connie Willis
On a human mining settlement on the thinly crusted surface of a spent-out star...a truly unique sci-fi setting...a man with the special gift (or curse) of being able (or compelled) to closely reflect and imitate others around him has been sent there by his uncle after trouble on his home planet. Ruby is a Mirror, and is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by some of the locals, who fear this ostensibly mild-manned man may turn violent on them...like the sidon, a native predatory species. There is a backstory here of what happened on Ruby's native world, and it seems the characters have been transplanted wholesale to this one...I didn't quite get that. What I did get was that it isn't Ruby whom the folks around him need to fear...it is themselves as they manipulate him to their own sometimes nefarious designs...
GOLDEN GATE by R.A. Lafferty
A man at a bar sometime off in the future attends their nostalgic Melodrama show and gets a little too involved in hating the villain, who seems in real life to be just an ordinary actor, but for Barnaby is evil incarnate...he must kill him. In the meantime, Barnaby flirts with the club's owner and her two daughters while planning out his deed. The twist to this brief story at the end changes its entire complexion...while at the same time making me scratch my head a little in confusion. Also, it didn't quite seem to be a science fiction tale although the author is well-known within that genre...
BLIND SHEMMY by Jack Dann
In a future, decadent post-apocalyptic and technologically-advanced Paris, gambling is taken to extremes as a compulsive gambler goes there with his companion to wager his own body's organs. But what seems at the start to be gambling transforms into a telepathic chess game as he and his partner first work out their differences with each other and then face the formidable opponents sitting across from them. I think in a way we are all gamblers...some of us just choose more creative ways to express it. I liked the way the story ended...
IN THE ISLANDS by Pat Murphy
Nick, a biologist specializing in ocean life, has a friendship with Morris, a boy living on an offshore island from Honduras. It goes back to the time years before when Morris saved Nick's life from a shark attack in the area...it was also when Nick discovered Morris's special adaptability to living in the water. This is a poignant tale reminding us that people aren't necessarily what they seem on the surface...but that doesn't mean that their often hidden natures are bad: just different enough to present a danger to themselves should their secret be revealed...
NUNC DIMITTIS by Tanith Lee
Here's yet another story...the third one I've found in this one anthology so far, that stretches the bounds of what defines the science fiction genre. It's about an immortal vampire woman whose devoted servant of many decades informs her of his impending death. He sets out to find a replacement for himself, and his chosen candidate reflects his own memories as to how he became devoted to his "Princess" so long before. The story's title roughly means "permission to depart"...
Next week: more from 1983 and the Gardner Dozois anthology covering it...
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