Today I begin reviewing science fiction short stories from the year 1987, as they appeared in Donald A. Wollheim's anthology The 1988 Annual World's Best SF, featuring the editor's picks from the previous year. Ever since my reviews of short science fiction in 1983...as I gradually go forward in time...I have been alternating between two different "year's best" science fiction anthology series: the other one has Gardner Dozois as its editor. Between the two books coving 1987, there is an overlap of five stories...three of them (the first ones I've discussing below), appear in both. Now to the first five tales in Wollheim's anthology...
THE PARDONER'S TALE by Robert Silverberg
In a future where a small number of gigantic, very intelligent purple squid-like creatures called Entities have taken over the planet and rule over the human population, a man with a talent for hacking into their intricate computer system plies his trade of "pardoning" people who need certain records of themselves altering or destroyed. John Doe, as he refers to himself, from time to time "stiffs" a customer by deliberately failing to alter their records, done in order to deflect suspicion from the Entities. How the story plays out shows the author to have some good insight into computer hacking for someone writing this 35 years ago, and I liked the ending...
RACHEL IN LOVE by Pat Murphy
A primate researcher has discovered how to save the mental imprint of people...and monkeys. Before his own daughter dies in an accident, he has saved hers and afterwards transfers it, along with her memories and self-awareness, to a young female chimpanzee, Rachel. The author spins a credible tale as Rachel tries to reconcile her chimp identity with that of the little girl within her. Very compelling...
AMERICA by Orson Scott Card
An alternative future is suggested in this story where Native Americans have taken back their lands and the white man is in retreat. At the crossroads of this story is the relationship between a white Utah Mormon man and an Indian woman with the reputation of a witch, that is she practices natural healing for her people. They meet in Brazil when he is just a boy...years later there is a reckoning as their child has become the leader of the Indian insurgence taking back the Americas. I get the author's Mormon background and his interest in Indians, but he never got down to the details about how the whites are overthrown...
CRYING IN THE RAIN by Tanith Lee
Stories about the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust with radiation permeating just about everything and sickening the population are usually depressing...this one doesn't disappoint in that regard. The poor folks on the outside of a protected fortress of a city have very low life expectancies, but those on the inside aren't much better. A feisty survivor of a woman is dying nonetheless, but she schemes to protect the children in her family by trying to sell off her oldest daughter to a well-off man in that city. Well-written, it's still all very difficult to read through, which may have been the point in the first place...
THE SUN SPIDER by Lucuis Shepard
This is a tale about telepathy not only transcending space but also the division between different species, even sentient life forms with vastly different chemistry and physics. A scientist, famed for his Solar Equations but regarded as something of a flake by others, goes with his wife to the solar space station to try to complete them...and confirm the existence of life within the sun that he has dreamed about. Told from the viewpoints of himself and his wife, they encounter there the jealous hostility of a fellow scientist who mercilessly plots against his rival. It was hard for me to follow the very mystical kind of interaction between that solar entity and humans...how can an author translate it into words? Still, I could see this story as a big screen hit...
Next week I continue looking at science fiction short stories from 1987...
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