Time for another look back at the year 1997 in short sci-fi, as revealed in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fifteenth Annual Collection and spotlighting series editor Gardner Dozois' picks. Reading the following two stories reminded me of how much I liked and admired the meticulously-crafted scenes in the movie The Godfather, Part II...especially the one in which Michael Corleone pays a visit to his rival, gangster financier Hyman Roth, at the latter's south Florida home. I could almost swear the dude lived in the old West Hollywood neighborhood where I grew up in the sixties, it was done so well. And that's the problem I see in stories (like the two below) that bend reality into alternative, virtual ones...I think it's harder to capture reality on paper or the screen while the more fantastic creations in science fiction give the author more literary license but are more difficult to visualize. But how about those stories, anyway...
NEVERMORE by Ian R. Macleod
Gustav, a painter (artist) residing in a future Paris, spends most of his time in the virtual worlds instead of the "foreal" world of what you and I would term "reality". He is despondent over the death of his love Eleanor, yet he sees her often...and fully vibrant...in virtuality. What is real and what isn't?...it's easy to get confused and lost in this tale. Yet although we're not yet at that stage with virtual technology, I think a lot of us have gone over the proverbial cliff with regards to designing our own personal realities, especially concerning the personas presented on social media...
OPEN VEINS by Simon Ings
The virtual world in this story...based more or less on a "future" closer to the time when it was written, is a place people can literally plug themselves into...and make real, grave changes in the world if not checked. So it's all hush-hush, "black-ops" secret government stuff, yet one former worker has somehow slipped into the virtual network, apparently committing suicide while in it. The protagonist/investigator must find out what she was up to, who helped her...and then contain it all from leaking out. Along the way he gets maybe a little too involved with the couple residing there...
Next week: more from '97...
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