Whew, finally I conclude this long, long look at the year 1988 in science fiction short stories, finishing up on the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Sixth Annual Collection. Of course, had I been doing this the "right" way (as the publishers probably wanted), I would have been writing these blog articles when these anthologies first came out, with the whole year over which to spread out my reading. Only there were no such things as blogs back then, were they...dang it, here I go feeling old again! What floors me about some of the stories I read is when they point to a time in their near future, but which for me is already in the past...and they often get the trends right but overdramatize them. Well, here are my reactions to the final five tales in the Dozois book...next week I begin reviews of 1989 sci-fi from the much shorter...and, sadly, final book in the Donald A. Wollheim anthology series...
IT WAS THE HEAT by Pat Cadigan
A married female executive makes a business trip visit to rowdy and raunchy New Orleans, where she encounters a man full of the "heat", which infects her and brings out her passions and sexuality. Yes, this is a very sensual tale...but I'm not sure it quite belongs in the science fiction genre...
DYING IN HULL by D. Alexander Smith
In the little coastal Massachusetts town of Hull on the outskirts of Boston dwells a single elderly woman who is staying put in spite of the encroaching sea level that is destroying her hometown building by building. There civil society has broken down into lawless gangs and ruthless smugglers. Ethel must find a way to deal with them as well as the rising water in her home to survive, yet she cannot bring herself to admit defeat and leave for Boston. I found this story peculiarly similar in premise to Kim Stanley Robinson's Glacier earlier in the same anthology...
DISTANCES by Kathe Koja
Interstellar travel is developed...but the human travelers are altered volunteers called "glassheads" with their brains and neural systems altered to be able to adapt to the sensory input that the probes provide. Michael is second-generation and ready for his mission; his "handler" Halloran, is first-generation glasshead and cannot go. Furthermore, she is dying because of this alteration and although she is there to comfort Michael, the two find their roles reversed. I couldn't quite get into why they had to drastically their nervous systems to travel virtually through space and it kept bugging me as I read...
FAMOUS MONSTERS by Kim Newman
A brief, very tongue-in-cheek look at the tawdry, cheesy side of the fifties' science fiction film industry as a Martian actor, tentacles and all, looks for supporting work in some of the B-flicks. It's also an alternative history as, for example, James Dean has grown fat and over the hill instead of his tragic death in 1956 after only three acclaimed movie appearances ..
THE SCALEHUNTER'S BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER by Lucius Shepherd
More a novella than a short story, a pretty and frivolous young woman makes light of romance in her home village, situated on a bewitched vast, still dragon. Pursued by her enemies, she escapes to the dragon's inner parts where she finds herself both captive and destined for a special, unspecified purpose. I thought this story might do well adapted to the screen, but I admit to not getting the point of it all. A whole lotta suffering going on here...
Next week I start with Donald A. Wollheim's anthology covering 1989 science fiction short stories...
No comments:
Post a Comment