Once again, it's time to examine some bygone sci-fi, appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixth Annual Collection, spotlighting tales of that genre from 1988. It takes me awhile to get through the year-by-year Dozois books, in contrast to the much briefer ones from Donald A. Wollheim. But Wollheim's final anthology was for 1989...he died the following year, it won't be too long before I'm only reviewing stories from Gardner's series. But for now, let's go back to look at some more stories from '88...
SANCTUARY by James Lawson
Initially about an Arizona police detective in the near future (from 1988, that is), blinded in duty and provided a loyal dog that tends to him long after advanced surgery restores his eyesight. He is assigned to investigate two employees from the area's competing technological think tanks...they are found calmly lying in a room in one of their offices, apparently physically unharmed but their minds completely sucked out of them. Quite a quandary, but our hero, with his faithful companion and a sidekick female employee of one of the think tanks, solves it all and then goes one enormous step further. Reminded me of Tad Williams' wonderful Otherland book series and its resolution for a terminally ill character...
THE DRAGON LINE by Michael Swanwick
A speculative resurrection of the Arthurian mythos, with principal characters Merlin and Mordred...the latter the story's narrator...set in modern times. I learned quite a bit about the original story of King Arthur and those around them. Just about everybody had some serious character flaws...talk about anti-heroes. It reminded me a little of Neil Gaiman's later novel American Gods...
MRS. SHUMMEL EXITS A WINNER by John Kessel
An elderly woman regularly plays bingo at her hometown's VFW lodge. Already overcritical of others, she objects to a strange young mute man already sitting in her favorite seat. But then he keeps winning and winning, and the buzz starts to go around the place that he might be cheating somehow. He tells her she can win, too...at a price. And the price she is willing to pay makes this story brilliant, like one of Shirley Jackson's best psychological short stories...
EMISSARY by Stephen Kraus
Roger, a friend and former colleague of the narrator and who has recently been missing following his termination from a research professorship, stumbles exhausted into his home and tells his remarkable story, one about his ancestors in a rural England mining town and an incredible discovery there from centuries past. It's a first contact tale like no other, and has a curiously cyclic nature to it like the great old Time Machine movie from 1960...
Next week I conclude my look at science fiction short stories from the year 1988...
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