Weekly Short Stories: 1994 Science Fiction, Part 5

It's time once again to return to the year 1994 and Gardner Dozois' anthology titled The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twelfth Annual Collection, full of stories from that year.  Like his others in this series, it's a thick book with a lot of stories, several of them lengthy novella...like the second one below.  Back during that year, I was still working the late-night shift at the Gainesville Post Office processing center on their flat sorting machine. I would often ride my bicycle eight miles to work and then back the next morning.  On the way there I'd almost always make a "pit stop" at the then-Books-a-Million on NW 13th Street and get a coffee there and browse their books.  I also would read old sci-fi short stories on my breaks at work...some things change, and some stay the same.  And now, some more stories...

DEAD SPACE FOR THE UNEXPECTED by Geoff Ryman

In a cutthroat future business environment, an aspiring executive, obsessed with the numerical scores of his performance and those of his colleagues, has to fire a co-worker...and has to come to grips that his own scores are now being sabotaged. The story reminded me a bit of the movie American Psycho with the business social environment...that would come out in 1999...

CRI DE COEUR by Michael Bishop

Three huge spaceship "arks" are heading toward Epsilon Eridani, where what seems to be a suitable planet for habitation is awaiting their arrival. The people are mostly under deep sleep that suspends their aging while a skeleton crew attends the ships' operations.  One of them, who writes poetry, has a Down's Syndrome son...he encounters a bitter man who comes to grip with his own inner demons.  With the others, they go through a sort of odyssey, both with themselves and their futures.  This was the novella for this week...

THE SAWING BOYS by Howard Waldrop

Explained with an actual glossary at the end, it's out in the country and a musical band playing saws is going to a local hick town where they are holding a contest.  Another group is going there, too, a violent bunch of con artists, also coveting the grand prize.  It was hard for me to muddle through the narrative as the author deliberately obfuscated it all with arcane slang...albeit explained at the end.  Should have started with the glossary...

More about 1994 science fiction short stories next week...