Visions, Vectors, Escape Velocities: A Collection of Space Futures, ed. Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich. (Arizona State University, 978-0-9995902-2-5, 347 pages.)
Clarkesworld, June.
Clarkesworld, July.
Clarkesworld, August.
Clarkesworld, September.
Clarkesworld, October.
Clarkesworld, November.
Clarkesworld, December.
Lightspeed, December
Asimov’s, November/December.
Analog, November/December.
F&SF, November/December.
With 2018 looming on the horizon, only a few days away as I write these words, let’s do some mop-up of things I haven’t covered yet.
Last month we discussed futurology/Think Tank anthologies. The strongest of this grouping snuck in under the wire, just in time to be still eligible for consideration among 2017’s anthologies, Visions, Vectors, Escape Velocities: A Collection of Space Futures, edited by Ed Finn and Joey Eschrich. Sponsered by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, this is a mixed fiction/non-fiction anthology dealing with the near-future prospects for space travel and the eventual colonization of other worlds in the Solar System. The essays are beyond my purview here (although they look interesting), but the fiction part of the anthology is quite strong, including a few of the best stories of the year. The best stories here are “Vanguard 2.0,” by Carter Scholz, dealing with the moral choices faced by an astronaut who discovers intrigue and political machinations at a space station in Near-Earth orbit, “Death on Mars,” by Madeline Ashby, in which astronauts on a mission to Mars learn that while you sometimes have to keep secrets, there’s always a price to pay for keeping them, and “Night Shift,” by Eileen Gunn, in which a programmer must struggle to control the increasingly eratic behavior of an AI overseeing the manufacturing of Von Newman-machine mining robots on an asteroid. There are also superior stories here by Karl Schroeder, Steven Barnes, Ramez Nam, and Vandana Singh.
The last half of the year was uneven for Clarkesworld; while a few of the issues were unexciting, they also published some of the year’s best stories along the way.
The June Clarkesworld was another good issue, with three strong stories, “My Dear, Like the Sky and Stars and Sun,” by Julia K Patt, which follows the owner of a shop that sells quasi-legal bionic body-modifications as she deals with a strange new customer, “The Ways Out,” by Sam J. Miller, which portrays the struggle of mutant children with bizarre opportunities to get by in a continuous-surveillance society that regards them as potential menaces, and “Neptune’s Trident,” by Nina Allan, a melancholy Post-Holocaust tale about a women in a small village of survivors trying to conceal the fact that her lover has a sickness that they other villagers would consider to be contagious.
Strongest stories in the July Clarkesworld are “The Bridegroom,” by Bo Balder, about a young man reluctantly taking his place in a generations-old tradition to which he’s expected to devote the rest of his life, “Travelers,” by Rich Larson, a grisly technohorror piece about a woman waking from suspended animation before she’s intended to in the middle of a colonizing starship’s voyage to a distant planet, and “The Significance of Significance,” by Robert Reed, following the life of a young woman who believes that the entire universe as we know it is an elaborate simulation.
The August Clarkesworld is a bit weaker, but does contain worthwhile work such as “Twisted Knots,” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires (the second story Clarkesworld has published this year about the problems involved in using a 3D printer to print meat), “In the Blind,” by Sunny Moraine, and “The Stone Weta,” by Octavia Cade.
The strongest story in the September Clarkesworld, and one of the best stories that Clarkesworld has published all year, is “Pan-Humanism: Hope and Pragmatics,” by Jess Barber and Sara Saab. Here they join forces to tell a story of star-crossed love, love that remains unrequited for many years—and of how to rebuild a troubled world; this is one of the few stories this year that, rather than wallowing in hopelessness and despair over the climate changes we’re undergoing now and the even more major ones to come, explores ways that we might come to terms with change and build a viable human future. Also good in September is “The Secret Life of Bots,” by Suzanne Palmer, which follows a stalwart maintenance robot as it battles a powerful predator infesting—and endangering—a starship on a desperately important mission.
The October Clarkesworld features a strong and creepy story, “The Last Boat-Builder of Ballyvoloon,” by Finbarr O’Reilley, which takes us to a future in which the seas have been rendered off-limits to humans by an all-to-plausible human-created menace as frightening as any horror out of Lovecraft. Also good here is “The Sum of Her Expectations,” by Jack Skillingstead, which shows us a woman willing to go to extremely dangerous lengths to attempt to rescue her AI, which is stranded on a hostile—and forbidden—alien planet.
The November Clarkesworld is somewhat weaker. Strongest story here is probably “Who Won the Battle of Arsia Mons,” by Sue Burke, an enjoyable story about a Battle Bots-style combat being fought out on Mars by small remote-controlled robots. Also interesting, although somewhat unlikely, is “Praetya Plastics,” by D.A. Xiaolin Spires, in which all the plastic being continuously dumped into the sea eventually evolves to become alive and sentient.
After a strong year, Clarkesworld unfortunately closes out 2017 with a weak December issue. Best story here is probably “The Rains of Mars,” by Natalia Theodoidou, about a woman having an emotional melt-down that eventually leads to a psychotic break—well-crafted, but didn’t really need to be science fiction at all. Also interesting is “Crossing Lasalle,” by Lettie Prill, about someone desperate enough to upload their consciousness into a computer that they’re willing to take big risks to achieve that goal; unfortunately, since they have no really compelling reason for needing to do this, it’s hard to build up a lot of sympathy about whether they secede or not.
After a so-so year, Lightspeed closes out 2018 with a weakish December issue. Best story here is “A Third of the Stars of Heaven,” by Cadwell Turnbull, about a woman who refuses to be cured by modern medicine provided by sophisticated alien medical technology; well-written and nicely characterized, but gains little from not being mainstream story about a Christian Scientist facing the same crisis of conscience instead.
Asimov’s caps a strong year with a strong November/December issue. Best stories here are “The Discrete Charm of the Turing Machine,” by Greg Egan, in which a programmer learns the sinister secret behind the tide of automation that’s putting almost all humans out of work, “And No Torment Shall Touch Them,” by James Patrick Kelly, in which a dead man whose consciousness has been downloaded and manifested as a hologram projection must struggle to prove the continuity of identity with his former organic self, and “In Dublin, Fair City,” by Rick Wilber, another of Wilber’s Alternate History tales about the adventures of Moe Berg, professional baseball player turned spy in an Alternate World War II, this one concerning efforts to smuggle Werner Heisenberg and the secret of the atomic bomb out an occupied Ireland. Also good in November/December are “Afloat Above a Floor of Stars,” by Tom Purdom, which takes a couple of quarreling politically divided astronauts further into space than anyone has ever gone before, “Confessions of a Con Girl,” by Nick Wolven, about a student who falls afoul of a system which constantly evaluates what the people around you think of you, and Connie Willis’s reimagining of the Little Magic Shop story, “I Met a Traveller in an Antique Land.”
2017 was a particularly strong year for Analog, and they end the year with a good November/December issue. Best stories here are “Reentry,” by Brendan DuBois, in which an astronaut returned to Earth after a mining accident on an asteroid gets a far different greeting than the one he expected to receive, “Two Hours At Frontier,” by Sean McMullen, in which the crew of a spaceship en route to investigate a mysterious artifact at the outer edge of the Solar System wakes from hibernation to find themselves transformed and faced with mysteries to be solved, “Hybrid, Blue, by Firelight,” by Bill Johnson, another in Johnson’s series of stories about a man lost in time struggling to restore the obliterated timeline he came from, and “Native Things,” by Catherine Wells, which takes us to a devastated Post-Apocalyptic America for the first meeting for a generation between two separate groups of survivors, who must now try to find ways to live with each other. There are also good stories in November/December by Bud Sparhawk, Jay O’Connell, Scott Edelman, Ian Creasey, Tom Jolly, and others.
After an exceptional September/October issue, its best issue of the year, F&SF heads out of 2017 with a disappointing November/December issue. Best work here is by the Old Pros, veteran authors Kate Wilhelm and Larry Niven. In “Attachments,” Kate Wilhelm gives us some very good reasons why you should stay away from haunted castles, and in “By the Red Giant’s Light,” Larry Niven takes us to Pluto in the last days of the Solar System, when the swollen Sun is in the process of swallowing Venus, for the story of how Pluto’s sole human resident must find a way to work with an alien robot to keep a massive comet from destroying the planet.