Weekly Short Stories: 1993 Science Fiction, Part 4

Here are my reactions to three more sci-fi short stories as they appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Eleventh Annual Collection, edited by the late Gardner Dozois, a respected writer of this genre in his own right.  In 1993, although there was plenty of good new music out there...at least with alternative and hard rock (R.E.M's Automatic for the People and Coverdale/Page's self-titled album stand out)...I was more focused on albums and acts from years earlier, especially the progressive rock group Yes and their six album-side-length tracks from the 1970s.  One of these, Close to the Edge, became my "song of the year" for 1993 although it was twenty years old at the time.  But now it's time to get back to those stories... 

GUEST OF HONOR by Robert Reed

In his introduction, Gardner makes reference to "the decadent world of ultrarich immortals" that he tongue-and-cheek recommended you avoid if you encounter it...I'm already freaked out by the cruelty and corruption rampant in the real decadent world of mortals!  He's right: this is a haunting, unforgettable story that in a sense reminded me of the old 70's sci-fi flick Logan's Run as to how they try to snow people into thinking that being killed is only a transformation to the next level...

LOVE TOYS OF THE GODS by Pat Cadigan

Obviously meant to be funny, this not-quite-so-funny short tale pokes fun both at the then (and now) ongoing narrative of alien abductions and at rural American culture, making everybody out to be ignorant dumb-ass rubes...guess there are some folks out there you can trash and ridicule without being canceled...

CHAFF by Greg Egan

Of the three stories I read this week, this one has the greatest chance of becoming true, and frankly that scares the hell out of me.  An artificially biologically engineered area in the northern South America jungle is growing...and producing mind-altering drugs of a sort never before humanly experienced.  A "black ops" operative is sent down there in a clandestine mission...like in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness or the movie Apocalypse Now...to find and capture (or terminate) a leading scientist believed to be largely responsible for the crisis. What this ruthless agent discovers at the end of his quest to me is entirely feasible...and bone-chilling...

Next week: more sci-fi from 1993...