Today I finish reviewing 1984 science fiction short stories I read from the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Second Annual Collection. As years go, 1984 wasn't at all like the 1984 in the George Orwell dystopian novel of the same title...but I fear we're sadly getting closer to that scenario here in 2022. I was still a young man at 27-28 years back then, but I felt old. As a matter of fact, I've always felt that way, even when I was a little kid. In some ways I feel younger now at 65. As Dylan once sang, "Oh, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." Here are my reactions to those final six stories...
BLACK CORAL by Lucuis Shepard
Like the author's short story Salvador...also from this year and which I reviewed a few weeks ago...the protagonist here is a young man made cynical by his war experiences. In this story it's Vietnam and after his tour there he has settled on a small Caribbean Island that he knew before, only now he only sees contemptible weakness and laziness among the population. He treats everyone wholesale with that contempt and does a lot of local folks wrong. Outwardly they seem to tolerate it all, but one day three of them get together with him and have him smoke the local drug: black coral, which causes hallucinations of fiery, malevolent spirits long afterwards. A "jerk gets his comeuppance" kind of tale...
FRIENDS by James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel
A psychological drama set in a spaceship shuttling between planets in a distant system and then onward to Earth, the space passenger fleet employees Friends, that is specialists in making sure that the flight goes smoothly among the passengers, ensuring peace and tranquility...and good reviews from them. One such Friend encounters a dilemma when he finds himself personally torn between aiding a dancer to smuggle herself to Earth and reporting her as a stowaway, a major offense. Complicating matters is a former Friend whom he detests...and suspects that he is being put to the test regarding the dancer. What I got out of this story is that sometimes the ones playing the role of keeping others sane and together are in the greatest need of a "friend"....
FOREIGN SKINS by Tanith Lee
Hardly a science fiction story and more a mythical fantasy based on Indian religion, Foreign Skins explores the cultural rift between the English occupiers and administrators of India as a colony and that great land's diverse people. One of these administrators is a very unlikeable man who tyrannizes his family and those he comes in contact with over the course of his day...including his little son David. He takes on a mysterious woman to tutor David...and she turns out to be someone much more than how she presents herself. David's subsequent adventures constitute the bulk of this story...very much like a fairy tale, with a little "wardrobe" Narnia twist at the end...
COMPANY IN THE WINGS by R.A. Lafferty
The premise of this story takes the musings of writers like Stephen King...who sees his creativity as something derived from what is already out there...and make them literal: the imagining of "fictional" characters and places are only the mind's recognition of them as they already exist...albeit in a different plane of reality. The story is very funny and introduced me to a new word: obulus, here a magical coin as the key to entering these other worlds...
A CABIN ON THE COAST by Gene Wolfe
Another not-so-science fiction story, a young man under the sway of his powerful political father escapes to a tropical beach cabin with his girlfriend. All is well, except he keeps seeing a ship off shore and it mysteriously goes in and out of his vision as if it isn't quite all there. One morning he awakes and she has disappeared...and he knows she has been taken by whoever is on that boat. So he swims out to it and his life forever changes. Yet another tale, interesting enough, that Dozois has included although it is outside his stated genre...
THE LUCKY STRIKE by Kim Stanley Robinson
An alternative history story about the closing days of World War II, particularly in regard to the events leading up to the atomic bomb dropping on Hiroshima, Japan in August of 1945. Just a minor change in the chain of events drastically changes everything...but is it for the better or worse? Stephen King explored a similar scenario in his novel 11/22/63: sometimes a better alternate outcome of a specific event can create a bleaker future...or maybe things will be better. The Lucky Strike deeply explores the role of personal conscience in the face of strict orders to do something ultimately immoral...
Next week I begin my look at short science fiction from the year 1985...
No comments:
Post a Comment