Today marks the second week of my examination of 1989 short science fiction as it appeared in the Donald A. Wollheim anthology The 1990 Annual World's Best SF, featuring stories the editor picked from the previous year. Marking the climax of the collapse of communist regimes in central and eastern Europe, on November 9, 1989, celebrating Germans tore down the Berlin War separating East from West Berlin....the most visual symbol of the decades-long Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States and allies. It's sad to see how, over the past few years, the hopes for a truly peaceful and cooperative international community of nations have been squandered...but enough of that for now, here are my takes on the next four stories in Wollheim's book...
ABE LINCOLN IN McDONALD'S by James Morrow
Abraham Lincoln has in his hand a treaty, already signed by Jefferson Davis, that would prematurely end the Civil War and keep slavery alive in the South. He steps through time into our own and discovers the ramifications of his inclination to sign that treaty: slavery and the accompanying racial prejudice not only survived, but it has spread to the entire country...while industrialization and modernization continued. A specific event occurs that old Abe witnesses which makes his final decision for him...
DEATH SHIP by Barringtion J. Bayley
In a future Orwellian dystopian totalitarian state always at war, an official maneuvers himself to be on a time machine craft into the future in order to alter the life of his son, whose attitudes he disapproves of. This story conjectures on there actually being a "future" independent of our present...it was a little difficult for me to understand, although I had no trouble grasping the final conclusion....while the "state" went on as if what was shown true really wasn't. Reminds me of some of our politicians in the "present"....
IN TRANSLATION by Lisa Tuttle
An alien presence has established itself on Earth, and while humans are aware of them, they themselves are very unobtrusive, almost invisible. The visitors inspire a cult following, and man is willing to abandon his own wife while seeking their presence. I can't help but think this story is an analogy to how some "good" people get totally carried away with religion and religious fantasies of interacting with incorporeal "good" spiritual entities to the detriment of their own lives and relationships...
A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING by Robert Silverberg
I wonder if the creators of the movie The Sixth Sense got their premise from this story about the discovery that centuries-old voices from the dead past can be heard from a probe around the planet Mercury...it seems the sun's gravitational pull warps time around it...hey, didn't the movie Star Trek IV about the whales follow this idea as well? But the protagonists are in for a rude awakening: the dead can hear them as well, and a disturbing character from the past is revealed. Great old sci-fi tale from a great old sci-fi master...
Next week I conclude my look at Donald A. Wollheim's anthology...
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