avid Smeds, author of over 100 short stories and five novels, gathers together here a representative sampling of all the many modes in whicch he works. (A future collection will bundle up linked tales of a nanotech future.) Copious introductory material to each piece is an alluring bonus.
In "Suicidal Tendencies," the problems of the "ultimate generation gap" are bloodily enacted. With every human immortal, the youngest generation—60 years old themselves—are chafing under the weight of their unbudging elders. A daughter named Cheryl has taken to acting out her frustrations with her mother Monica by serial suicides and serial matricides. Will the limits of nanotech be reached before Cheryl's neurosis is cured? Just how many deaths does a mother owe her child? A crippled young man finds solace in the perfect world of VR, where he is embodied as an ever-victorious karate master. But will he remain "Fearless" when he meets a challenger whose aggression spills over into the real world? Jordan Welles just wants his dead wife back in "A Wife of Acorn, Leaf, and Rain." But a bargain with the elves who have come to live among mankind carries burdens he never envisioned.
Rock and roll will never die? Not necessarily so in the alternate universe of "The Eighth of December," where cold winds of change threaten to shut down the music beloved by the musician protagonist. Bioengineering to make over the human race goes askew in "Termites," and one woman struggles to save a single life from the chaos. "A Raven on My Shoulder" limns the plight of humanity under close supervision by strict alien mentors the Thwaa, as a colony on Gamma-Leporis A-III struggles to solve a murder that might derail mankind's future expansion.
The daily grind of a future prostitute who caters to aliens is explored in "Family Values." "Ubiquitous computing" is a hot topic nowadays. But even three years ago, Smeds was examining its implication in "The Cookie Jar." An abandoned girl child rescued by a wizard grows up to become "The Sorceress of the Gulls," but not without many trials and challenges.
The plight of "The Little Mermaid" is recast in "Foam," where Smeds explores with more-than-fairy-tale verisimilitude what would happen to a sea-being cast away among humans. Finally, a pair of Vietnam War fantasies round out the book. "Short Timer" finds a soldier named DeWitt forced to relive his wartime experiences 14 years after the last shot is fired. And "Survivor" details the effects of the subtle curse placed upon a grunt named Troy by his mysterious unicorn tattoo.
Embracing a undervalued voice
In a more equitable world, the name of David Smeds would carry as much weight among lovers of the SF/F/H short story as that of Joe Haldeman or Spider Robinson or George R.R. Martin or Dennis Etchison, all of whom his work variously brings to mind. Alas, Smeds has not attained such a high profile—yet. Perhaps this fine collection, one of the highlights of the new century's small press offerings, will remedy that.
Smeds employs a straightforward, muscular, distinctive prose. His stories are all instantly recognizable as uniquely his, whatever the topic or sub-genre. They cohere to present a unified vision of the cosmos, a vision supplemented and enlarged here by his chatty story notes. Smeds is—in a somewhat cramped nutshell—a liberal, a realist, an aficionado of science and a painstaking professional devoted to his art. In short, the classic profile of so many good SF writers.
When he turns his hand to Hard SF, as in "Termites," he does not neglect the human component of his future. In fact, the human-interest angle occupies center stage, while the global changes are subtly kept in the background yet fully explored. When he writes a pure fantasy like "A Wife ... ," he endows the mythic component of the tale with practical angles: the bond between the grieving husband and the elf who assumes the dead wife's shape is not just arbitrary nonsense, but rather both logical and reversible, a real "contract." And the two Vietnam fantasias combine both chilling supernatural aspects and gritty reality into a whole that is stronger than either two elements alone.
Smeds is not shy about freighting his stories with his deepest beliefs. The autobiographical tinges in "Fearless" add roundness to the protagonist and his crisis of confidence. In "The Eighth of December," Smeds' fondness for the brief "greening of America" that occurred circa 1969-1980 invest his alternate-history tale with both melancholy and moral weight. Yet he's never didactic, always subordinating any "message" to the needs of the narrative. Moreover, Smeds has a good sense of humor. The daily life of the whore Beth and her brothers on a pleasure satellite provoke lots of chuckles. Even the Grand Guignol of "Suicidal Tendencies" carries its own share of black laughter.
David Smeds is a writer willing to tackle big topics, and he's got the skills and ambition to do them justice. Now all he needs is more readers. And they'll feel lucky they found him.
