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5.0 out of 5 stars
Some of the best of the best, December 17, 2011
This review is from: Into the New Millennium: Trailblazing Tales From Analog Science Fiction and Fact, 2000 - 2010 (Kindle Edition)
One of my earliest introductions to science fiction anthologies was a paperback called "Analog Annual" in the early 70s. Stories from that book are still some of my favorites nearly 40 years later. That was my introduction to Analog, the longest-running SF magazine in existence.
And this latest anthology carries on in that tradition, representing some of Analog's best stories of the new millenium. There's a little something for everyone here:
* "Outbound" by Brad Torgersen starts with the end of civilization. Then it goes on a roller-coaster ride from there as a lone survivor, a young boy, tries to survive and find hope.
* "The Universe Beneath Our Feet" by Carl Frederick shows us life in a very alien society, a race of intelligent crabs that live under an ice layer; and it shows the challenges they face when one of them dares to question common wisdom.
* "Quastiones Super Caelo Et Mundo" by Michael F. Flynn is an alternate history, but not a military story (as so many alt-histories seem to be). Rather, it's an alternate science history, exploring what would change if one small bit of knowledge had not been lost in ancient history.
* "The Purloined Labradoodle" by Barry B. Longyear is... just... weird. And I say this as someone who has been reading Longyear since his first stories back in the 70s. The man is one of my writing inspirations; but this story reads like nothing else of his I've ever read. It's loopy and silly and a whole lotta fun. In a world where personality is easily recorded and transferred to humans, animals, and artificial life forms, nothing and no one is what they/it seem. Jaggers (an android who looks like Basil Rathbone) and Shad (a duck) play Holmes and Watson in this story of interrelated crimes involving people transferred into robot birds and other unlikely places. It's really hard to describe while sober; but it was amusing enough to convince me to buy
Jaggers & Shad: ABC is for Artificial Beings Crimes, Longyear's collection of Jaggers & Shad stories.
* "His Hands Passed Like Clouds" by Rajnar Vajra starts as a simple little story about a boy who meets a man who paints clouds; and by the end, that boy has grown up and learns the man has many secrets. I found the ending of this story particularly moving.
* "Sheena 5" by Stephen Baxter is an interesting story of a genetically enhanced squid bred to serve on space missions where humans cannot go. If that sounds completely off the wall when you read it (it sure does when I write it!), it makes perfect sense when you're in the story. You come to like Sheena 5, and then to worry about her. And then it gets scary...
* "Tiny Berries" by Richard A. Lovett postulates a world where email spam and malware are out of control. No, REALLY out of control, worse than you've ever imagined. I enjoyed the characters in this one.
* "Shed Skin" by Robert J. Sawyer presents something of a twist on the transhumanist personality transfer story: what happens if the personality isn't transfered, merely copied? What happens to the original?
* "Fly Me to the Moon" by Marianne J. Dyson is a story I'm not sure I can fairly review. It's like Ms. Dyson sat down and wrote the story just for me, so it's hard for me to be objective. I'm a huge fan of the Apollo program, and this story is a touching tribute to the twelve men who walked on the Moon. When I was done reading it, I went back and read it again.
* "Kyrie Eleison" by John G. Hemry is a story of a lost colony and how the culture developed as a result. There are echoes of Heinlein and others here. There's not a lot that's original, perhaps, but the ending is particularly satisfying.
* "Pupa" by David D. Levine is another exploration of an alien culture, this time a race of insects. There is a point-of-view shift in the middle of the story that turns your understanding of the story completely on its head.
* "Forget Me Not" by Amy Bechtel is the story of a doctor who goes to a memory clinic to lose the memory of his biggest mistake; but sometimes bad memories serve a purpose.
* "The Night of the RFIDs" by Edward M. Lerner tells of a strange new cyber attack spread through RFID tags, and what happens once Big Brother becomes blind.
* "Alphabet Angels" by Ekaterina Sedia and David Bartell tells the story of a woman, a pet store worker, and some very unusual fish. The ending is more or less revealed in the first paragraph, which seems like an odd choice, but it makes you want to read the whole thing just to understand what you read.
* "But it Does Move" by Harry Turtledove is another alternate history. This time we see what the trial of Galileo might have been like if it had been managed by Sigmund Freud.
* "Cold Words" by Juliette Wade tells of a society of intelligent canines (at least they seemed sort of canine) and their attempts to negotiate a treaty with the humans who have found their world. This is complicated by the structure of their society, which is largely dominated by those who can best survive their cold world.
* "Chain" by Stephen L. Burns tells the story of an emancipated robot. But is he really free?
Not all were to my taste; but over all, it's a great anthology, and I highly recommend it.
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