Today's my final review article for the short stories and novellas appearing in the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Twelfth Annual Collection. There are just two left, but that last one is yet another novella...Dozois had a penchant for them. So, without further ado, let's delve into them...
SPLIT LIGHT by Lisa Goldstein
This is a special little tale that lays out the life's journey of a special figure in history: the Jewish leader Shabbetai Zevi (1626-76), who proclaimed himself as the messianic fulfillment of scriptural prophecy before suddenly converting...under compulsion of the Ottoman Empire's Sultan imprisoning him...to Islam. The author proposes an alternative theory to the notion that Zevi was a fraudulent pretender: was he really the Messiah after all?
LES FLEURS DU MAL by Brian Stableford
A few centuries into our future, humans (with the means) can have their own bodies rejuvenated, drastically extending their life spans. One such individual, who calls himself Oscar Wilde, teams up with a police sleuth whose style befits that of the old Sherlock Holmes character...in fact, her last name is the same. This to me was an entertaining novella, partly because of the witty dialogue between Wilde and Holmes, and partly because the explanation of the murder mystery they are investigating has pretty deep philosophical and ethical implications, even for our own time...
Next week I'll start looking at sci-fi stories from 1995 as I continue with the Gardner Dozois anthology series...
No comments:
Post a Comment