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Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, ed. Ian Whates. (Solaris, 978-1-78108-088-7, $8.99, 439 pages.) Cover art by Pye Parr.

F&SF, May/June.

Tor.com, April 3rd.

Tor.com, April 17th.

Tor.com, February 6th.

Tor.com, April 10th.

Tor.com, May 1st.

Tor.com, March 27th

Tor.com, March 6th.

Tor.com, May 8th.

Tor.com, May 14th.

Tor.com, April 24th.

 

The long-awaited Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ian Whates, is a good solid SF anthology, although, somewhat disappointingly after all the anticipation, there’s little here that is really exceptional. The strongest story is probably “Tom,” by Paul Cornell, the story of an unlikely romance between a human man and an amphibious alien woman, and what the hidden evolutionary motivation behind it might be. Also good is “The Lighthouse,” by Liz Williams, in which a lonely woman maintains a generations-long vigil against alien invasion in a desolate fortresses on an airless world, “With Fate Conspire,” by Vandana Singh, in which telepaths try to save a deteriorating future by influencing the past, “Feast and Famine,” by Adrian Tchaikovsky, in which space explorers encounter vacuum-organisms who might pose unexpected dangers, “When Thomas Jefferson Dined Alone,” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, which offers an explanation for the ghosts who are sometimes seen in the White House, and “Manmade,” by Mercurio D. Rivera, a sensitive study of a psychologist who must try to deal with a suicidal AI. There’s also good work here by Nancy Kress, Robert Reed, Allen Steele, and others.

The best SF story published so far this year by F&SF features in a strong May/June issue, “Grizzled Veterans of Many and Much,” by Robert Reed, which examines a technological development in human evolution (basically, trading the rest of your life for the chance to burn very brightly for a short while) and the unexpected but profound effects that it has on human society; being as good a writer as he is, Reed, of course, doesn’t skimp on a powerful family drama while working out the long-term implications that computer-driven Transcendence has on society. Andy Stewart’s novella “Wormwood Is Also a Star” takes us to Chernobyl after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to meet a group of orphaned children who have been unexpectedly gifted with psychic abilities in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster, and to become embroiled in the story of doomed lovers struggling haplessly to free themselves from intricate webs of ambition, political corruption, and tragic family history. The family story is bitter and strong, but no explanation is ever presented for why the Chernobyl meltdown gave the children psychic powers or what the mysterious Bubble that sheltered them is, nor is it ever made entirely clear why they are all so intent on committing suicide.

There’s more SF than usual in the May/June F&SF, although none of it is as successful as the Stewart and the Reed (particularly the Reed). Rand B. Lee’s “Changes” takes us to an intriguing post-Apocalyptic future where the Great Probability Storm (origin unknown) has splintered the world into ever-shifting probability zones, slices of the past, future, or alternative presents, all of which interact with each other. Lee complicates this by adding an order of what amounts to wandering monks called Fair Dealers who somehow have gained a psychic ability that allows them to stabilize an area against being Changed (although it strikes me as unlikely that the Fair Dealers could have developed their elaborate rituals and procedures or spread chapter houses of their order widely across the landscape in the mere fifteen years that have elapsed since the Great Probability Storm), and then complicates things further by introducing packs of telepathic dogs who “speak” in Shakespearean English and a conflict between a Good Force called the Great Bitch and a Bad Force called the Devourer, and these may be a few complications too many; the story ultimately reads something like a mashup between Walter M. Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz and Stephen King’s The Stand, with a dash of Clifford Simak’s City thrown in. Joe Haldeman’s “Doing Emily” shows us the dangers an English professor can face in becoming too involved with his study subject, and Albert E. Cowdrey’s “The Woman in the Moon” is a snarky academic joke about how falsifying the reports of an expedition that discovers an extinct Lunar civilization can be a good way to get tenure. Paul Di Filippo tells us about the invention of what, for all intents and purposes, is Star Trek’s Holodeck, in “The Mood Room,” and Angelica Gorodischer tells a Club Story somewhat in the tradition of Arthur C. Clarke’s Tales of the White Hart and other such series which turns out to be an elaborate Traveling Salesman joke, in “By the Light of the Electronic Moon.” There’s also a rare story by Ted White, whose last appearance in F&SF was in 1969, and who returns this issue with a story about the doomed romance between an immortal musician and an ambitious young artist, “Systems of Romance.”

The rest of the issue is composed of two well-crafted fantasies. Dale Bailey’s “The Bluehole” is an evocatively written Bradburian horror story, centering around a young boy’s reluctance to swim in a deep blue sinkhole reputed to have a monster in it, where several other boys have drowned—although it’s pretty clear that the real tension in the story is generated by the boy’s denial of his powerful homoerotic attraction toward his best friend, an element you probably wouldn’t have gotten in Bradbury. Bruce McAllister’s “Canticle of the Beasts,” a sequel to his earlier “Blue Fire,” takes us along with the Child Pope, an Emissary of God, and a young girl who is the incarnation of the Madonna of Provenzano as they journey clandestinely toward Lake Como in 1461, hunted by aristocratic vampires, the Drinkers of Blood; the story is clearly the middle story in a longer sequence, ending before it can reach the showdown with the Oldest Drinker, a vampire born on the same night as Christ, which undoubtedly lies ahead at Lake Como, but it’s an unusual and effective take on the standard vampire tale, and entertaining in its own right. Alexandra Duncan’s “Directions For Crossing Troll Bridge” is listed as a short story, but it’s actually a prose poem.

Novel excerpts far outnumber original stories at Tor.com these days, but there isn’t much SF amongst what original stories they’ve posted so far this year. Probably the strongest core SF story they’ve put up so far is “Backscatter,” by Gregory Benford, posted on April 3rd. This is a classic SF problem-solving story, one which, intriguingly, has by coincidence almost exactly the same general plot as Adrian Tchaikovsky’s “Feast and Famine” from Solaris Rising 2—space-travelers encounter a vacuum organism, something like a giant crystal, growing on an airless asteroid, and it proves unexpectedly dangerous. In the Tchaikovsky, they simply flee from it, but in the Benford, the shipwrecked prospector must figure out how to use the inherent natural qualities of the organism itself in order to save herself from death, which makes for a traditionally-satisfying, if not particularly surprising, story. “Sing,” by Karin Tidbeck, posted on April 17th, is ostensibly a science fiction story, taking place on an alien world, and potentially an excellent one, a lyrically written story with complex character interactions, but no explanation is ever made for how the rising of a particular moon renders all the humans unable to speak, something I can see no physical mechanism for, and that makes the story science-fantasy at best.

Many of the other stories on Tor.com so far this year seem also to be caught between fantasy and SF, neither fish nor fowl. Kali Wallace’s “Last Train to Jubilee Bay,” posted on February 6th, is another story that’s ostensibly SF but whose background makes very little sense, drug-dealing by aliens in one of those cities caught perpetually in the midst of a bizarre Apocalypse that seem beloved by slipstream; a similar background figures in the beautifully written “Rag and Bone,” by Priya Sharma, from April 10th, which is theoretically taking place in the future, but features elements hard to reconcile with an actual possible future society. Christopher Rowe’s “Jack of Coins,” from May 1st, does away with the ostensible SF façade and just presents a tale set in a straightforwardly surreal setting, although it’s entertaining and well-crafted. Harry Turtledove’s “Running of the Bulls,” from March 27th, is a Hemingway pastiche of sorts, set in a parallel world where the humans have been replaced by intelligent humanoid dinosaurs and the bulls they’re running with through the city streets are triceratopses, entertaining enough, although weakened a bit, I think, by the Bizarro-world touch of having all the place names be place names from our own world spelled backward, so that, for instance, “Paris” comes out as “Sirap,” something that annoyed me throughout. “Terrain,” by Genevieve Valentine, from March 6th, is a steampunk Western about a communal group trying to set up a Pony Express-like service using mechanical “dogs.”

The best stories at Tor.com so far this year have all been fantasy stories. “Fire Above, Fire Below,” by Garth Nix, posted on May 8th, follows firefighters and a mysterious “Dragonborn,” a hybrid of human and dragon, trying to deal with a dying dragon buried beneath the city who has the potential to destroy the entire metropolis. “Shall We Gather,” by Alex Bledsoe, posted on May 14th, examines the interactions between a rural Appalachian community and what’s clearly Faerie, or at least an outlier of it. “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket,” by Thomas Olde Heuvect, posted on April 24th, a slyly amusing story about what happens to the wishes floated down the Mae Ping River during a Buddhist ceremony in Thailand.