Today I start my look at 1995 in short science fiction, "short" meaning not full-blown novel length as some of the entries from my selected anthology, Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, are novellas, which to me are "almost-novels". The very first tale in the book was such a novella and challenged my attention-deficit tendencies. As for '95, the most prominent event in my own "nonfictional" live was the birth of our dear Rebecca, a great joy and source of pride for me. But back to those stories...
A WOMAN"S LIBERATION by Ursula K. le Guin
Set on a socially regressive planet in le Guin's Hainish fictional universe that provides the setting for so many of her stories, a slave girl learns to please her sexually abusive masters and, upon her gradual liberation from forced servitude, must learn how to live and relate to others over and over again as her circumstances change. This is clearly an allegory to slavery and the civil rights and feminist movements in our own country's reality during its history...and present day. It's a brutal story that kind of reminded me of the movie The Color Purple...
STARSHIP DAY by Ian R. MacLeod
This story's a puzzle, reminiscent of the old Twilight Zone TV series. People live on a planet that is just like Earth and they live their lives exactly as if it's Earth. Yet they are eagerly awaiting a message, sent across the cosmos, from an Earthship that is looking for a new suitable planet to settle. When the puzzle is solved at the end after the message is received, I thought "Wow, this is what science fiction should look like"...
Next week: more 1995 stories discussed...maybe I'll get a respite from those novellas (and maybe not)...
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