Today, as I look back at the year 1989, I switch over from the final Donald Wollheim "year's best" sci-fi short story anthology in his series to the continuing one edited by Gardner Dozois: The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventh Annual Collection. There is very little overlap between the two anthologies: only Gregory Benford's Alphas and Brian Stableford's The Magic Bullet...already reviewed previously...appear in both. Below are my reactions to the first six stories...
TINY TANGO by Judith Moffett
This 1989 story about AIDS/HIV projects into the future a few decades, making some predictions that didn't come true...thankfully...but ultimately presenting some insight as to how different people afflicted with chronic medical issues adjust their lives to accommodate their conditions...and search for new ways to fulfill themselves: a hopeful message. A young woman caught AIDS and has become a long-term survivor, in more ways than one...
OUT OF COPYRIGHT by Charles Sheffield
Cloning past scientific and inventive geniuses from the past gets the treatment here as figures like Einstein, Fermi, Newmann, Bohr, and the like work for different companies competing for fat space development contracts: Al, the story's narrator, heads such a team as they attempt a difficult problem on one of Jupiter's moons. The story's punchline is when we discover at the end who Al really is...
FOR I HAVE TOUCHED THE SKY by Mike Resnick
A few weeks ago, I reviewed the story Kirinyaga by the same author, creating a traditional Kikuyu (from Kenya) society on another planet. The thread continues with this tale for a girl whose thirst for knowledge and enlightenment directly conflicts with the authoritarian ruling witch doctor's insistence on traditional roles, which he believed would be threatened by the girl's explorations. A disturbing but thought-provoking story that has analogous ties about the ethical limits of knowledge and the rights of people to pursue it...
AT THE RIALTO by Connie Willis
Dr. Ruth Baringer is a physicist attending a convention of quantum physics at a Hollywood hotel. It isn't long before she discovers that her surroundings begin to imitate the uncertainty and frustration involved in making sense of quantum theory itself. It's a funny tale and made me want to go a little deeper into the field myself...think I'll steer clear of L.A., though...
SKIN DEEP by Kathe Koja
This is a completely different "Skin Deep" story than the one I discussed a while back. This one read more like a Stephen King horror tale as an obviously alien, hideous blobby creature has a penchant for somehow luring people...men and women both...to its squalid apartment room where they sexually expend themselves on it and become addicted to the experience. The horror becomes magnified by what happens at the end...not for the faint at heart...
THE EGG by Steven Popkes
In a far future Boston, the sea level has drastically risen, submerging large parts of the area. And human contacts with other races in the cosmos has flourished, with a robust alien presence all around. An orphaned boy lives with his cynical aunt and her son...he has as a guardian companion an alien being named Gray. The circumstances of his parents' deaths weigh heavily on them all...this story treats relationships and reveals that some of the strongest and most loyal can transcend family ties...even those of home worlds...
Next week: more reactions to 1989 science fiction short stories from the Garder Dozois anthology...
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