Today I continue looking at old science fiction short stories from the year 1987, as they appear in Donald A. Wollheim's anthology The 1988 Annual World's Best SF, featuring the editor's picks from the preceding year. In 1987 I was in my first year of marriage with Melissa and during the middle of the year we lived in Leesburg, Florida, where she had grown up and had family. Then in September I began working at the Gainesville Post Office...in November we moved back to Gainesville. I have fond memories of that time in Leesburg, and miss Melissa's mom and dad...they passed away in 2007 and 2009. Sigh, well...back to the reviews...
ANGEL by Pat Cadigan
The editor suspects this story of being "cyberpunk" science fiction...having read that I went into it with a slight feeling of trepidation, not exactly enamored of that subgenre. The narrator is out on the city street where hustlers roam and rescues what appears to be a young man, abandoned and lost, giving him the name Angel. Angel has some paranormal skills that come in handy, like going through walls and the like. It all comes down to Angel's origins and identity...and that of the narrator as well, particularly regarding their sexuality. In 2022 I don't think this story would be as provocative as it might have been in '87...
FOREVER YOURS, ANNA by Kate Wilhelm
This is another of those annoying time-travel paradox stories that I had thought we were rid of by 1987...oh, well. Gordon, a renowned graphologist (handwriting expert), has a new client: an agency searching for special scientific research papers written by one of its recently deceased employees. They suspect his girlfriend of absconding with the research, and would Gordon please try to find clues of this woman's identity from the letters she wrote her lover? A promising tale with a frustrating ending...
SECOND GOING by James Tiptree, Jr.
In an overcrowded Earth threatened by nuclear war and self-annihilation, the arrival of benevolent aliens with special knowledge of genetics promises to make everything better. And they are so, so nice: wait, didn't I see a Twilight Zone episode that started this way? Well, they turn out to be well-intentioned, but their remedy probably wasn't what the human race had in mind. This tale discusses gods as real entities created by people (and aliens)...reminds me of a Neil Gaiman novel...
DINOSAURS by Walter Jon Williams
Many thousands of years into the future humanity has evolved to a much different state than it is now, with the body's functions externalized and highly specialized. Unfortunately, traits like compassion and empathy have failed to keep pace with the changes as an enraged intelligent species finds their planets callously terraformed by the humans with billions of lives lost. The Shars, more human than the humans have become, run into a communications wall trying to deal with the "evolved" emissary from Earth...
ALL FALL DOWN by Don Sakers
The tree-like Hlutr dwell in many star systems and communicate telepathically, yet humans tend to be unaware of their intelligence until a sweeping disease infects their numerous galactic settlements, wiping out every person wherever it reaches. One man seeks the Hlutr's help, although assisting other species is something this life form tends to avoid...will they change their collective mind this time?
Next week I begin reviewing tales from the 1987 Gardner Dozois science fiction anthology...
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