It's Wednesday again, time for another look at what I've read in the realm of short fiction this past week. I'm continuing the Gardner Dozois anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeenth Annual Collection, showcasing short sci-fi from the year 1999. I managed to get through the next story in the book, which I discuss below...
A MARTIAN ROMANCE by Kim Stanley Robinson
In this "hard" science fiction tale, it is in the not-too-distant future, but well enough ahead in that people can have their lives extended some threefold. Also, terraforming has been accomplished on the planet Mars to make it Earth-like, with sustainable temperatures, flowing water and breathable air. Sadly, though, for this story the planet has undergone a sudden, severe ice age, and a party who had worked on the terraforming are visiting it to assess how badly their project has gone. As it turns out, very badly! So in the end, it all comes down to whether making our neighbor planet livable again or abandoning the notion. The author, as do some of the characters, conclude that dealing with setbacks like this is just a part of the expected process and that people need to broaden their perception on how long things take...chances are that the goals people set...especially on a cosmic scale like this...cannot be fulfill within one lifespan, even if that lifespan has been enhanced...
Next week: more stories from 1999...
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