Below are four more reviews of mine as I read through the 1992 sci-fi short story anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Tenth Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois. In 1992 I was working at the post office in the "graveyard shift" processing flats (magazines and 8½ x 11 envelopes) on the flat sorter machine, both to specific Gainesville routes according to the addresses or to other offices in the area. I liked this work, because it gave me the change to spend long stretches of time learning and reviewing different subjects of interest, and I also dug listening a bit to music, with Rock 104 being my favorite station that time. I'm still working in the same building, but have things changed! But anyway, back to those stories...
THE GLOWING CLOUD by Steven Utley
This is a brilliant time travel story set during the days of the 1902 eruption of the volcano Mount Pelée on the West Indies island of Martinique. The time traveler there from the future is on a mission to find and bring back a fellow time traveler, a fallen renegade. During his ordeals on Martinique, he not only has to deal with his target, but also his missing companion on the assignment. And of course, there is the volcano, spewing ash and rocks all over the area, ruining everything they touch, killing off the birds and livestock in the process. The exact date and time of the most fatal part of the eruption is, of course, history to our hero...unfortunately the island's inhabitants, especially the local politicians in charge, are completely clueless regarding their grim fate. A suspenseful, historically enlightening novella...
GRAVITY'S ANGEL by Tom Maddox
Set in a contemporary time in the American southwest, a supercollider has a full docket of projects for it. But a woman physicist from a competing organization sneaks in a special one of her own design, regarding the creation of a singularity, and that's when the mayhem truly begins. A good commentary on the economics of scientific research as well as the glass ceiling for women who make key discoveries but are denied proper recognition...
PROTECTION by Maureen F. McHugh
This story paints a dismal picture of a leftist totalitarian state taking over America, with criminals and political dissidents sent to "re-education" concentration camps much in the old Soviet and Chinese style of the previous century. A woman inmate, uneducated and sent there for assault and petty thievery, befriends a man incarcerated for his political work. It becomes clear that the authorities need information from him, which he refuses to divulge. For me, it's always been assumed that this kind of future scenario would come from the political left, but I sadly see a large growth of authoritarian fascism from the right in recent years...regardless whichever direction you're looking, it's all ultimately a human failure...
Next week: more about science fiction short stories from 1992...
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