ixteen original stories by old hands and newcomers, plus an introduction by editor Hayden, make up the third entry in this award-winning series.
Ted Chiang chronicles a world where celestial intervention is an inescapable reality for both good and ill in his "Hell Is the Absence of God." A solar system whose swollen red sun still permits the strangest kind of life on an asteroid-sized world is the focus of Stephen Baxter's "Sun-Cloud." Maureen McHugh depicts the grubby streetlife endured by a future teen in "Interview: On Any Given Day." Angels crop up a second time in Colin Greenland's "Wings," where a long-simmering love affair goes off the boil.
The plight of a female werewolf chained by love is examined in Susan Palwick's "Gestella." Jane Yolen's "The Barbarian and the Queen: Thirteen Views" offers a montage of riffs on the many ways the regal can meet the brutish. Greg van Eeekhout, in "Wolves Till the World Goes Down," employs Norse mythology to examine armageddon. A myth of the space age is found in Geoffrey Landis' "The Secret Egg of the Clouds."
Brenda Clough's examination of the death of Ulysses in "Home Is the Sailor" is another mythopoetic excursion. "Tom Brightwind, or, How the Fairy Bridge was Built at Thoresby," by Susanna Clarke, postulates an alternate universe where fairies and humanity have co-evolved. Madeleine Robins's "La Vie En Ronde" focuses on a hapless woman undergoing severe neurological problems that open up her senses to another continuum. "In Which Avu Giddy Tries to Stop Dancing" finds the title character making a futile antisocial rebellion, as expertly sketched by D.G. Compton.
Cory Doctorow's "Power Punctuation!" follows the rise and fall of a paper-shredder technician named Jasper in a future corporate world. From a remote vantage, a future historian tries to recreate the sufferings of a famous political prisoner in "The Sea Wind Offers Little Relief," by Alex Irvine. American-style politics comes to Middle-earth in Andy Duncan's "Senator Bilbo." Finally, Terry Bisson offers a sardonic twist on state-sponsored executions in "The Old Rugged Cross."
Snapshot of the state of the art
Can it be that Starlight is the last surviving original anthology series? Sure, there are other volumes of freshly minted stories, mostly from Ellen Datlow and Martin Greenberg these days. But a quick cudgeling of memory turns up no other brand-name line. Gone are the glory days of New Dimensions, Orbit and Universe, to recall just a handful. And this is a shame, since volumes of this nature can, if granted time to grow, acquire enticing identities and do much to shape the field, giving older writers room to push the envelope, and debuting younger writers as well.
Not to say that every story in this or any other original anthology is necessarily a knockout. Like all its brethren, Starlight 3 contains both wonders and--well, not blunders, but lesser works serving almost as foils to the masterpieces. To treat the latter first:
Stephen Baxter can easily create weird alien environments with his left hand, and does precisely this in "Sun-Cloud," where, however, the resonance with the non-human protagonist is less deep than elsewhere in his work. McHugh's "Interview," although cast as a Web documentary 20 years in the future, really speculates quite minimally. Susan Palwick's heavy-handed feminism in "Gestella" reminds one of how Jack Williamson or Fritz Leiber managed to deal with similar material more vividly 50 years ago. The Yolen, Landis and Duncan pieces are amusing but slim, one-note conceits.
Among the strongest texts: Ted Chiang, starting off the minor thread of theology in this book, tells a story about salvation and damnation, pride and humility, which cannot be reduced to easy moral taglines. Colin Greenland's "Wings" deals with similar issues, but in a slyer, wryer manner. Madeleine Robins' protagonist, Vivey, undergoes an absolutely harrowing catalog of medical catastrophes that nonetheless have a strangely beneficial effect. One of the U.K.'s great writers of SF from the '60s, D.G. Compton, assumes a Vonnegut-ish puckishness for his tale of a doomed one-man revolt against the "dance police." Cory Doctorow is in fine gonzo fettle with a silly-serious story that would be right at home in H.L. Gold's Galaxy. Like a blend of Gene Wolfe, A.A. Attanasio and Ursula LeGuin, Alex Irvine unreels a multilayered meditation on power and art. And although not quite as hard-hitting as his "macs," Terry Bisson's newest satire on the death penalty still bites.
But by any standard, the finest story here is Susanna Clarke's. Conjuring up a whole universe complete with a deep history in merely 40 pages, this tale of two unlikely companions, the Fairy Tom Brightwind and the Jewish doctor David Montefiore, might have flowed from the pen of Jack Vance. And no higher praise than this is possible.
Knowledgeable and ambitious, editor Hayden has done a fine job here, assembling a grab-bag with a treat for everyone.
