Here is my ninth week of slogging through the short stories and novellas appearing in Gardner Dozois' anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Thirteenth Annual Collection, featuring his picks from other writers' works in that genre for the year 1995. Below are my reactions to three of them...
THERE ARE NO DEAD by Terry Bisson
Dozois prefaced this story by stating it reminded him of the whimsical, nostalgic tone of many of Ray Bradbury's child-themed tales...I agree. I kept waiting for the science fiction angle to it, though...until the ending, which made it seem more like a Twilight Zone episode. Three boys grow up into adulthood and continue to hold reunions in which they revert to playing as if they were still little children, but life still catches up with them...or does it?
RECORDING ANGEL by Paul J. McAuley
On a societal-stagnated world in the far distant future, there are very tightly defined roles for everyone, including the protagonist, who is the official archivist. A spaceship lands and a runaway woman escapes to show the seeds of discontent and rebellion wherever she goes. This story tends to support the argument that only through violent revolution can society fundamentally change: I beg to disagree...
ELVIS BEARCLAW'S LUCK by William Sanders
In a future Earth where an infectious disease wipes out human life except the immune Native American Indians...a reversal of what happened to them with the smallpox catastrophe a few centuries ago...a celebratory fair of games is being planned and staged. The story's title figure, Elvis Bearpaw, is looking to enhance his luck in them. But in the end, was he lucky...or exactly the opposite? A funny but ultimately gruesome tale...
One more week to go with this anthology, which ends with yet another novella...
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