Here are my reactions to more of anthology editor Garner Dozois' picks from the year 1996 as they appeared in his The Year's Best Science Fiction, Fourteenth Annual Collection...
DR. TILMAN'S CONSULTANT: A SCIENTIFIC ROMANCE by Cherry Wilder
This is one of two stories (Foreign Devils the other) that fit within the genre of historical fiction, but while the one below goes into alternative outcomes, this one posits explanations for for actually happened in pre-World War I Austria and Russia as a Russian noble family visits a sanitarium in Austria on behalf of one of their own dwelling there. It seems that someone has discovered a cure for the affliction commonly known as schizophrenia, but he is a mysterious presence within the sanitarium and the cure's secret may well vanish among the tumultuous events going down at that time in history. I think the author captured the atmosphere of that era very well with this story...
SCHRÖDINGER'S DOG by Damien Broderick
The famous word picture supposition called "Schrödinger's Cat" by physicist Erwin Schrödinger to Albert Einstein in 1935 in a discussion on quantum mechanics suggested two alternate, simultaneous universes, one with a living cat and the other a dead one...separated by a random quantum event. This is taken in this story to its gruesome conclusion at some time in the near future as scientists literally apply the same principle to terminally ill humans...
FOREIGN DEVILS by Walter Jon Williams
Anyone interested in Chinese history, especially that of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth, will enjoy this take on the decline of the Chinese Empire as Western countries, with imperialist fervor, carve out for themselves economic favors and colonial enclaves. But behind the power struggles at the Chinese royal court is arising a new form of Foreign Devil...I wonder what H.G. Wells would have thought of this bizarre application of his famed tale of extraterrestrial invasion...
IN THE MSOB by Stephen Baxter
At the risk of prematurely giving away this brief tale, the abbreviation MSOB stands for Manned Space Operations Center. Doesn't ring a bell? Maybe that's part of the point of it all as a very old and frail man is verbally abused by his seniors home caretakers and discovers that...for a too brief moment...the outside world would like a word or two from him, and a possible photo opportunity. Cynical as many SF stories are, this one squarely hits the target as it projects into the future the state of the manned space program...
Next week I will conclude my look at science fiction from 1996...
