It's Wednesday again, time again for me to discuss a story from 1999 I slogged through reading editor Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction, Seventeen Annual Collection. With the following tale I realized one of my problems sticking with this fictional genre...
THE SKY-GREEN BLUES by Tanith Lee
A journalist whose assignment is covering another planet's humanoid, jungle-bound society that resembles a Buddhist take on life finds frustrating opposition when she tries to convince Lohno, its leader, to flee an brutally sadistic advancing alien army. But Lohno is unperturbed at the coming calamity and suggests Frances avail herself of the escape opportunity with his assistant Laitel. It's how this story progresses that sharply reminded me of an old original Star Trek TV episode titled Errand of Mercy, from 1966. In it the savage advancing enemy is the Klingon Empire and the "good guys" trying to save the native Organians on their threatened world are Kirk, Spock and company on the Enterprise, of course. Only the Organians...like Lohno in the story published 33 years later...aren't at all concerned about their own well-being and strongly urge "their" humans to leave. Ultimately, at the end of Tanith Lee's brief tale, the reader is left confused about who really holds the reins of power in this universe of ours...as is also the case with that Star Trek episode. Which brings me to the point where I'm beginning to admit to myself that the genre of science fiction has become overly derivative over the years...it can only get more so. I should have been surprised by the plot-twist in Lee's short story, but instead just groaned to myself, "Not another one like this". Maybe I should just take a break for a while from these weekly reviews...or switch to another genre. It just doesn't seem as fun to read this stuff anymore, especially when the stories too often seem like ripoffs of material from earlier times...
So we'll see where I stand on all this next week...
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