Today I continue my look at 1995 short sci-fi tales as they appeared in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection and edited by the late Gardner Dozois, himself a recognized writer within the genre. In doing this I'm temporarily skipping by a full-blown Poul Anderson novella featured in the book...I plan to review it next week. So here goes...
COMING OF AGE IN KARHIDE by Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin was one of those writers who has, like Isaac Asimov or Stephen King, created their own fictional universe from which to derive creative inspiration and a ready-made setting for stories...hers is the Hainish universe of settled worlds scattered across the galaxy eons into the future and which provide a laboratory of observation as to how human societies can all be the same on some levels...and very different on others. In this story people on one world, normally sexually neuter and inactive and being essentially hermaphrodites (possessing both male and female sexual organs), go periodically through a sexually-intense state called "kemmer". Here a young person goes through it, and the accompanying fears, for her/his very first time. Le Guin was a bold groundbreaker in the examination of sexuality using the genre of science fiction...
FEIGENBAUM NUMBER by Nancy Kress
A mathematician is plagued by a special problem, which he thinks is unique to him: everyone he encounters presents two images of themselves, their real selves and, behind them, who they could have been ideally. He believes that it all somehow comes down to a special number (hence the story's title) and how it relates to cause, effect, and chaos, as he joins his colleague in developing a special equation that he hopes will solve this enigma that is oppressing his life. And then, what do you know, he finds another sharing his gift/curse. I have to admit to having some difficulty understanding the mathematics of this story, but then again maybe the author was winging it, too...
HOME by Geoff Ryman
In a dystopian future where just going out one's own door (and even staying at home, for that matter) can bring physical violence from the hands of roving young criminals running rampant, an elderly man has a view of "Home" that might eerily remind some of what is evolving in our society these days with the advancement of video games and virtual reality...if plugging into the real world is unbearable, then why not one more suitable, humane, meaningful and safer? The shortest story of the three today, it is also the most chilling for its immediate relevance to what is developing around us...
Next week: my reaction to that '95 Poul Anderson novella...
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