Year's Best SF | Pirates of the Universe | Strange Attractors

Year's Best SF

The rebirth of the hard science fiction anthology

• Year's Best SF
• Edited by David G. Hartwell
• HarperPrism
• $5.50/$7.50 Canada
• Paperback, May 1996

ith no date in the title and names like Zelazny, Le Guin, Silverberg and Wolfe weighting the table of contents, a glance at the Year's Best SF might lead readers to believe that they'd picked up a relic from 1960s. In some ways they would be right. In his terse and adversarial introduction, editor David G. Hartwell plants his feet firmly in the bedrock of the genre and declares himself in opposition to other (unnamed) "year's best SF" anthologies, which include stories that, in his view, aren't science fiction at all.

While Hartwell doesn't set out a list of parameters for what constitutes "real" science fiction, most fans know what he means when he talks about the hard stuff: credible science, focus on ideas, straightforward stories and no artsy fartsy literary tricks. The 14 stories in this anthology deliver on all counts, and yet the result is considerably more than just a recycling of old style "sci-fi" by the old guard.

The book is made up of 11 short stories, two novelettes and a novella. The majority of these are not only strong and exceptionally well-written pieces but, considering the premise of the anthology, also surprisingly varied in tone and theme. The basic elements of Golden Age science fiction are represented -- space travel, time travel and alien invasion -- but are treated with originality and a degree of subtlety rarely attempted in the good old days.

There are lots of stories with a heavy emphasis on one or another of the sciences -- geology, biology and good old-fashioned black hole physics -- but also stories dealing with alien sociology, virtual reality and art. It's a nice mix and largely devoid of a couple of the more annoying "traditions" of hard science fiction -- implicit sexism and reactionary bombast disguised as objectivity.

For the best of the best, James Patrick Kelly's Think Like a Dinosaur is a powerful story about the true cost of human expansion to the stars. Coming of Age in Karhide is prime Ursula K. Le Guin -- alien sociology from within, emotionally complex and beautifully written. Downloading Midnight starts off sounding like Raymond Chandler in cyberspace, but author William Browning Spencer sneaks some pretty deep philosophizing into the clever patter. And In Saturn Time by William Barton is an alternate history of the U.S. space program that will move anyone who ever regrets the abandonment of the moon.

Of the rest, most are thoroughly enjoyable reads, and if there is anything disappointing it is that, despite the generally high quality of the stories (or perhaps because of it), nothing stands out as particularly mind-blowing extrapolation.

I have a knee-jerk reaction to declarations of what is and isn't fit for the genre but I grew up on Terry Carr's Best SF anthologies and this really evoked them for me. I will be looking forward to next year's edition. -- LRC

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Pirates of the Universe

If Gun bags just one more Petey, it's off to Pirates of the Universe for him...

• Pirates of the Universe
• by Terry Bisson
• Tor Books
• $22.95/$33.95 Canada
• Hardcover, April 1996

unther Ryder is a Disney-Windows Ranger who needs to complete just one more Petey hunt to make it to Pirates of the Universe -- a live-in theme park for qualified Disney-Windows employees. The Peteys are mysterious alien artifacts that just appear in the solar system, usually somewhere near the moon. Their one-molecule-thick skin has become the most valuable substance on Earth.

But on the latest Petey hunt, Gun's partner Hadj lost hold of the Petey skin, and in the accident another spaceship was lost. Opposition to the Petey hunts is growing, meaning there might not be many more. Returning to Overworld, a Disney-Windows orbital theme park, Gun finds three letters waiting for him, but he can't access any of them -- he has been placed on administrative hold without explanation.

Gun heads to Disney-Windows headquarters in Orlando, where he often spends leave visiting his virtual reality girlfriend. But this visit is cut short when he finds his pay has also been put on administrative hold. A temporary loan gives him access to his mail, where he finds a letter from his imprisoned brother Gordon telling him to visit home. At home he learns that Gordon has escaped from prison, and the family property will be forfeited if he doesn't sign the Death Certificate.

The world author Terry Bisson creates in Pirates of the Universe is a bleak one where ordinary people are at the mercy of corporate and technological powers. Nanobots control part of Overworld, building a section called the Tangle that looks like a tumor. Biologically engineered humans and animals are trademarked. There is no oil left because an engineered microbe designed to clean up spills consumed it all. And the corporations holding power are more bureaucratic and malicious than the governments they replaced.

The acceptance Bisson's characters have for these conditions is both hilarious and haunting. Throughout the novel, Bisson's satire is sharp and often subtle as he extrapolates many of our current political and cultural trends to their absurd consequences.

The plot itself is great fun, but it's the small details that really make this novel. Most of Gun's knowledge seems to come from reading National Geographic, with repeated references to specific articles. He can't remember Commissary Tiffany -- his virtual girlfriend -- except when he's visiting her because she's copy-protected.

Many of Bisson's ideas in Pirates of the Universe seem expansions of themes he explored in his previous novel, Voyage to the Red Planet. (See a list of other recommended books by Terry Bisson). Pirates of the Universe is a good deal more complex than it might at first seem, and firmly establishes Bisson as one of the premier science fiction satirists.

Bisson's work at his best is about as much fun as science fiction can be. -- Clint

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Strange Attractors

John Bandicut is alive and well, but still hearing voices

• Strange Attractors
• by Jeffrey A. Carver
• Tor books
• $5.99/$6.99 Canada
• Paperback, April 1996

t the end of Neptune Crossing (Volume I of the Chaos Chronicles), John Bandicut had saved the Earth from a fatal collision with a comet by crashing a stolen spaceship directly into it at the urging of a voice in his head known as Charlie. He awoke as his ship docked with a gigantic structure far outside our galaxy. Inside this structure he finds a variety of ecospheres, which are joined by teleportation portals and inhabited by countless alien races. Most of the residents of this Shipworld live in groups of their own kind, but some, like Bandicut, are solitary. These other loners have stories like Bandicut's of homeworlds in peril and intervention by a powerful alien protector, sometimes with success, but sometimes not.

Before Bandicut can become oriented to this new world, he is sucked into a desperate battle between the Shipworld residents and a disembodied, malignant force known as the boojum. As best as anyone can tell, this boojum arose out of the chaotic fabric of Shipworld's datanets -- a huge, sentient computer virus. One thing is certain: The boojum's got evil on its mind and craves Shipworld's destruction. Bandicut and some new-found friends take on the boojum not just to save Shipworld, but because the boojum constantly thwarts their efforts to learn about the nature and creators of Shipworld and why they have been brought there.

Strange Attractors has all the makings of an exciting and innovative epic, but it disappoints. Shipworld is so vast and the forces fighting on its canvas are so far-reaching and mysterious that Bandicut is just a pawn in the conflict. Constantly unsure of who to trust, ignorant of all but a fraction of what's going on, he is shuttled from Big Event to Big Event so he and the readers can witness a Big Idea explode. Usually the translator stones -- semi-intelligent artifacts implanted in his wrists back on Triton -- do all the work while Bandicut blubbers in frustration. He has little personal investment in the conflict aside from survival, and when it's over he is swept off to Volume III with hardly a glance back.

Shipworld is a fascinating concept, though, with its multi-dimensional spaces, countless habitats and alien societies. Its infrastructure, information and transit systems, designed to accommodate any species imaginable, are creative and well thought out. (See a real life idea by Jeffrey A. Carver.) The aliens themselves range from people that could be mistaken for human to things like the Maksu, fireflies with a collective consciousness, or the "fractionally dimensional" Shadow-people, who appear as clusters of black triangles half in and half out of our dimension. These aspects bring much fun and wonder to the novel, but they'd be all the better if the plot weren't so hollow.

The Shipworld will stick in my mind for a long time, and I'm sorry Bandicut & Co. left it at the end of the book. -- Brooks

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