Weekly Short Stories: 1993 Science Fiction, Part 6

Once again, it’s time to look at three more short stories from the year 1993, as they appeared in the anthology The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Eleventh Annual Collection and edited by the late Gardner Dozois.  I remember around this time being exposed to horrific news stories about fighting and massacres going on in what was formerly Yugoslavia, once a nation applauded for its unity of diverse nationalities (Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Kosovan, Bosnian, Macedonian) and religions (Roman Catholic, Muslim and Orthodox), which had escaped the Soviet domination after World War II that afflicted other countries in this area…only to fall into this tragic, belligerent and divisive chaos.  It would go on there throughout the 1990s, sad to say.  But, as I usually say at this juncture, back to those stories…

THERE AND THEN by Steven Utley

In yet another time travel story, it’s the Silurian period during the Paleozoic era and humans are there studying it all while, true to their nature, hatching schemes to exploit what they find to bring it back home to the (story’s) present.  During this the protagonist, along with the other crew members and some begrudgingly welcomed visitors from “back home”, behave like characters in a dumb reality TV show in spite of their incredibly exotic surroundings.  Yep, that sounds like the human nature I’ve come to know…                                                                                                                                                              

THE NIGHT WE BURIED ROAD DOG by Jack Cady

A brilliant, unforgettable tale about like in the 1960s in the rural, mountainous American northwest when and where well-built, souped-up legendary cars speed dangerously down the treacherous highways and one man decides to begin a graveyard for them, complete with headstones.  Only there’s something Jesse isn’t sharing with others, including the narrator: there’s somebody who looks just like him prowling the roads while leaving behind cryptic messages: the Road Dog.  And here’s where the story heats up.  As good or better than anything Stephen King has produced, and that’s saying a lot…

FEEDBACK by Joe Haldeman

This story deals with a future when people can temporarily blend their identities through technology.  Of course, human nature being what it is (see previous story), it becomes big business as an artistic painter hires himself out to blend identities with a sinister, wealthy man to paint the portrait of a nude model.  And with this kind of story being what it is, the artist gets more than he bargained for…

Next week: more from ’93…