What's inside Starlight 1

Introduction by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Nielsen Hayden describes the philosophy behind the Starlight series, which is to provide a forum for short science fiction in the tradition of Frederik Pohl's Star Science Fiction, Damon Knight's Orbit, Robert Silverberg's New Dimensions and Terry Carr's Universe. Starlight will feature fiction spanning the entire range of science fiction and fantasy, according to Nielsen Hayden.

"The Dead" by Michael Swanwick

Donald is taken to a business dinner by his sometimes-lover, Courtney. The purpose of the dinner is to persuade Donald to take a position with a company marketing re-animated corpses from sub-Saharan Africa as a new labor force. But there are more personal implications awaiting Donald as well.

"Liza and the Crazy Water Man" by Andy Duncan

A talent scout for a radio show discovers a great new talent in the hills of 1936 South Carolina. But she's had a trial recording session before, and it didn't work out very well.

"Sister Emily's Lightship" by Jane Yolen

Emily Dickenson falls ill at her Amherst home. The strange visitor comes after she recovers.

"The Weighing of Ayre" by Gregory Feeley

Malcolm Weymouth, a Royal Society scientist with a Dutch mother, is forced to spy on Holland during the Anglo-Dutch War. The British government is particularly interested in Leeuwenhoeck's discovery of bacteria and Huygens's optical work, hoping for possible military applications.

"Killing the Morrow" by Robert Reed

A man finds himself suddenly living with a woman he doesn't know, as time travelers from the future manipulate the present for their own purposes.

"The Ladies of Grace Adieu" by Susanna Clarke

In the English village of Grace Adieu, three women practice magic that the leading magician of England doesn't believe exists.

"GI Jesus" by Susan Palwick

A woman who doesn't believe in religion tries to comfort her best friend and confronts a heartless priest and medical miracles.

"Waking Beauty" by Martha Soukup

Amy, an office manager, lulls her employees into a dream state in order to spend an uninterrupted romantic afternoon with the charismatic Edward.

"Mengele's Jew" by Carter Scholz

Werner Heisenberg tells Josef Mengele about Schrodinger's thought experiment, in which a cat is placed in a sealed container with radioactive material decaying according to quantum mechanical principles. When the material decays completely, lethal gas is released. According to quantum mechanics, until an observer opens the container, the cat is neither alive nor dead, but in some intermediate state. Mengele suggests that perhaps the cat's consciousness can resolve the uncertainty, but if not, a man's certainly can. He becomes obsessed with trying it on a Jew.

"Erase/Record/Play: A Drama for Print" by John M. Ford

Foreign soldiers have liberated the death camps. Now a psychiatrist, also liberated, describes to an interviewer how re-education camps employing a drug to erase long-term memory became death camps, while his patients act out A Midsummer Night's Dream as therapy.

"I Remember Angels" by Mark Kreighbaum

A man describes one of his childhood memories during the Year of Riots, when he saw police gang-rape a prostitute.

"The Cost to Be Wise" by Maureen F. McHugh

Two anthropologists from Earth come to visit a primitive village on a primitive, long-lost world. But the village, which makes a liquor, is unarmed, and armed nomads arrive to take what they want.

ack to Off the Shelf.