OUTSIDE THE BOX by Jerry Oltion

I’m always impressed with flash fiction that works, as “Outside the Box” works. As a writer, I find that trying to fit all that goes into setting, character development, and plot, impossible or just damn difficult at best. Rarely are all three used to their full potential in flash fiction, one always seems to make way for the other two, and the story enters the realm of antidote.

Oltion’s two pager, has a clear message that is more important than the characters, setting, or plot (there really isn’t a plot), and rightly so. The message is one that is timely and very important, I would think, for all Americans or anyone who loves freedom. It is a message for anyone who thinks that the definition of Terrorism is too broad.

The story is about a kid who grew up on the Moon in a lunar colony. He has never been outside the dome. He has only experienced the creators and valley through probes and scanners. So he as acquired a space suit and has gone for a walk. He is only gone for fifteen minutes before he is called back by the lunar police.

He is met at the air lock by the police and a lawyer who urges him to keep his mouth shut. Instead of keeping quiet, he confesses his desire for freedom, the freedom to walk on the surface of the moon without fear. This confession is soon twisted until his crime of moon-walking fits the definition of terrorism.

This is good piece of flash fiction that I think everyone should read.

Oltion, Jerry. “Outside the Box.” Analog. July/August 2008, Vol. CXXVIII, No. 7 & 8. P 132 – 133

THE SWARM by Frank Schatzing (Finished)

I have Northwest Airlines, stormy weather, and a delayed flight from Las Vegas back home this week, to thank for the extra (free?) time to finish The Swarm. My partner in crime and I wrapped up our vendor booth on Friday in record time. This was his sixth event in a row. He was burned out and wanted to catch an earlier flight. He ended up catching this original one. I stood stand-by for an early flight that had been delayed, but they were full up. So, I had a four original wait until my flight that turned into eight. What was crazy was that Sun Country had three flights come and go in that time. Next time, I’m flying Sun Country for sure!

I’m kind of sad that I’ve completed this novel so quickly. It was that good. I really think that it could have been a few hundred pages longer. I would have hung in there. As it stands the ending is felt a little flat, not what you what to hear for a commitment of almost 900 pages. A stylistic change in the writing occurred in the last 50 to 70 pages. I wasn’t really expecting a dream sequence or journal entries to summarize the final minutes of action. To me, the ending felt like Hollywood pandering.

Some of the reviews that I’ve read really go after the big chunks of science. I don’t know why. I found myself rushing though the character stuff to get to the next discussion of what it means to be intelligent or to posses consciousness or how DNA and RNA work in single celled organisms. The science evaluated this book from a simple disaster, the world is going to end, book into a master piece that should be read by every aspiring student or advocate of environmental ethics and animal (non-human) rights. The arguments put forward for the ethical treatment of non-humans and for a holistic view of the world we inhabit are superbly written.

I think that part of the reason that the character development was not as engaging as the science had to do with the infectious excitement that the characters had for their work and their stereotypical inability to connect on a personal level with other people. Case in point, Leon Anawak’s father dies. This section is a long development section that happens late in the book. Anawak tries to reconnect with his tribe and extended family at the funeral. He even goes out on a sled trip and talks with a shaman. However, he just can’t bring himself to feel passionately about being an Inuk, and so why should I. However, when is breaking down that was thought as the limits of memory and coming up with new theories, he is as animated as my cat at meal time.

I’m looking The Swarm on my desk and I’m sad that I will soon have to shelve it. Yes, it was that good! I hope that the page length will not keep you from sinking your teeth into this amazing book. It is both educational and entertaining. I can’t see you going wrong with his as your summer read.

Enjoy!

Schatzing, Frank. The Swarm. Trans. Sally-Ann Spencer. New York: HC, 2007.

THE SWARM by Frank Schatzing

This has to be one of the most amazing books that I have ever read. I should restate that. The Swarm is an amazing book that I’m currently reading. I have just finished the prologue, pages 2 – 13, and Part 1: Anomalies, pages 15 – 363. The total page count of The Swarm, the trade paperback version is 898. So far, I have loved every word. With novels, there seems to always be slow, dry sections of descriptive summary. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of descriptive summary going on in The Swarm, long detailed sections where characters impart their scientific knowledge to other less informed characters and sections where the narrator gives the reader background into situations or characters that you would not get any other way.

I’m not sure that I can do this book justice here. Several of my professors at Hamline University in the Masters of Fine Arts in Writing program have said that if you can summarize or reduce a novel to its plot alone than it is not good fiction. This is part of their argument against typical pulpy-styled genre fiction. Well, I’m happy to say that The Swarm approaches their definition good fiction, or at least deifies the negation. However, that does not mean that I can’t spin a little of the plot with the hope that The Swarm will find even more readers.

My favorite character out of the montage of personalities that are introduced in Part 1: Anomalies has to be Sigur Johanson. Johanson is a handsome biologist from Trondheim, Norway. His story begins when he is asked by a long time associate, Tina Lund, who works for the Norwegian national energy conglomerate. Johanson was asked to classify a strange new worm found in mass in Norwegian shelf clustered over methane hydrates. The company that Lund work’s for wants to start collecting the methane gas is escaping from the hydrates into the ocean. However, these worms need to be checked out.

The other character that I’ve fallen in love with is a young PHD in aquatic behavioral science specializing in whales, Leon Anawak. Anawak is complicated and troubled. He struggles with his Native American heritage. He is as passionate about his friends as he is about whales. Honestly, I had trouble with the back and forth between Johanson and Anawak. As much as I loved the ever cool and collected Johanson, I wanted more of Anawak. Anawak is not only a bright mind, but he is an adventurer and risk taker. He will take things into his own hands and is not willing to just sit around and wait for answers.

So what is going on? Well, the world is changing for the worse. This is an apocalyptic novel. The sea and the creature in it are rising up. The only question is why. Ultimately, this book will be about finding the root cause. However, the fist 360 pages are about the beginning of the end. Disjointed signs appear and no one person has all the answers or enough clues to piece together the coming destruction in the North Sea.

This is my first installment for The Swarm. I’ve already moved into Part 2. When I have finished Part 2, I will post again. This book is consuming my reading time. I don’t expect to post about much else until I have completely finished all 800 plus pages. So hang tight and The Soulless Machine Review will get back to short stories in late June or early July.

I must also say that I’m a really big fan of the Eco-Thriller. I hope that as more and more people come to terms with the destructive power of our environment that more novels and short stories in this genre will emerge. I’ve been trying to come up with a list of novels, movies, and short stories, what would fit into this genre.

Check this out (it is like parts of this book are comming true):
Scientists Discover Stinging Truths About Jellyfish Blooms In The Bering Sea
ScienceDaily (2008-05-31) -- A new study helps explain a cyclic increase and decrease of jellyfish populations, which transformed parts of the Bering Sea -- one of the United States' most productive fisheries -- into veritable jellytoriums during the 1990s.

Schatzing, Frank. The Swarm. Trans. Sally-Ann Spencer. New York: HC, 2007.

PS. Here are some other reviews by bloggers that I respect, if you can’t wait for me to finish the next 500 plus pages.

The Swarm Fantasybookspot
The Swarm by Frank Schatzing - Official sffworld.com review
Strange Horizons Reviews: The Swarm by Frank Schätzing, reviewed ...
The SF Site Featured Review: The Swarm
Biology in Science Fiction: Marine Biology of The Swarm

NATURAL SELECTION by Dave Freedman

I read this book a few years ago but have been thinking about it a lot in the last few days. One of my favorite subgenres of science fiction is what I like to call the eco-thriller. Eco-thrillers are any movie in which the plot can be reduced to Man vs. Nature. The reason that this book has been on my mind is that I 115 pages into The Swarm by Frank Schatzing (I will put up a Part 1 review when I finish the first 300 some odd pages).

Natural Selection is a monster book. It is about Manta Rays that learn and begin to feed on humans because their natural food source has been depleted. It seems so unreal at times, but that is the fun part about books like theses.

I think that what I like most about eco-thrillers is all the science that gets handed down to the reader. At times it can be a little over whelming, but the pay off is rewarding enough to keep at it. Also, I only care enough about most of the characters that I don’t mind when a few of them start to disappear, become snacks for the Manta Rays. I was actually looking forward to a few of them dying. However, the first main character to die does not take place until the last third of the book.

I don’t want to ruin this book for you. I want you to run out and read it. It is a good summer read. Not only did I learn a lot about real Manta Rays, the ocean, and environmentalism, but I was thoroughly entertained the entire time. I liked this book so much that I’m going to give it to a friend, Mr. Horrorpants, on Friday.

Freedman, Dave. “Natural Selection.” New York: Hyperion, 2007

TRUANCY by Isamu Fukui

I just finished Truancy while sitting in my car waiting form my final visit with my thesis advisor. I have passed out of Thesis I and I’ve registered for Thesis II in the Fall. I’m so close to being done that I can taste it.

Truancy is a really good novel. There are some things that could have been handled better, but over all this going to be a read that I recommend to friends. It has enough action to keep the pages flipping and just enough philosophy and world building to flesh the story out.

A lot happens in this book. I’m still just starting to get my head around it all. Most of the time, I ruin books and short stories by giving away too much of the plot. I don’t really want to do that this time. I think that you’ll want to enjoy it all on your own. Instead, I think that I will go though some of the ideas that characters are struggling with in the novel.

School. What is school? Why go to school? Why is school important? What is the fundamental purpose of school? Why should we want to go to school? Why do we want to send the next generation to school? What should be taught in school? These are the questions that I had to ask myself over and over again while reading Truancy.

The answer that the book as a whole gives, through the plot and the characters, is that school, any way you look at it, is about control. Schools help condition the next generation to become citizens of the larger culture. They teach consequences for things like tardiness – something that a future employer will also not like. They help to break our wild and selfish ways. They prepare us for a world where someone (parents, teachers, bosses) will always hold sway over us. Everyone is accountable to someone else. These are the lessons that come along side of algebra, biology, literature, art.

What is the alterative to an ordered school system? I don’t know. However, the book puts forward two ideas about how to bring about change. These ideas are represented by two people that Tack, the main character, runs into. Zyid is the Leader of the Truancy, a rebellion comprised of students who have either been expelled or left school on their own. Zyid believes, well, he says it best:

“We were taught that we could earn anything that we wanted so long as we sacrificed enough of our dignity to do so. We sold ourselves to the Educators, Takan, from the moment we stepped into the classrooms.” Zyid’s face darkened. “Security and happiness are by no means guaranteed to graduates, but the educators would have us believe that they are. They school us into believing that their way is the only way” (320).

That has to be my favorite quote from the entire book. Zyid represents the aggressive angle. The Truancy uses, gorilla, terrorist methods to fight against the Educators. Zyid hands out orders for assassinations and bombings. The body count is enormous.

However, there is another that proposed diffrent path to elicit change. His name is Umasi and he is pacifist. He teaches that change will come in time. Someday, enough students will have graduated who feel the educational system is broken and needs to fixed, and when that day arrives the old system will be replaced.

The problem is that Ziyd sees a system where the graduates become the Educators they hated in school. Just like the hazing of freshmen on Freshmen Friday, the one day where teachers look the other way, while the upper classes hand out a significant beat down. You would think that when freshmen become part of the upper class that they would remember what it was like to be a freshman. But his is not how the world works. They want their turn to mean.

I’m very impressed that this book was written by a high school student. I had all of the feelings that are in this book while I was in school. I just did not have the words.

Who should read it? In short everyone that has been through an oppressive American style school system. The Truancy provides enough critical reflection to help wake up the next generation and help them to at least ask: Why is all this education really important anyway?

My advice, find this book and read it. My feeling is that the Truancy might very well be the beginning of a new social revolution.

For more fun check out the three part review over at Fantasy Debut:
Truancy - Initial Impressions
Truancy: Hard to Put Down
Truancy: Final Review

Take a look at the really cool website: The Truancy.

Stuyvesant student Isamu Fukui is in a class by himself
BY NICOLE LYN PESCE
Saturday, March 8th 2008, 4:00 AM

Fukui, Isamu. Truancy. New York: TOR, 2008

DEMAND ECOLOGY by Craig DeLancey

This is an interesting story that suites my world view. Even on good days, when I’m feeling that the human race is more than a virus, I don’t find much in us redeemable. We make mistakes. We do not learn. We make the same mistake again. This may seem counter intuitive. The example goes: A child places his hand on a hot burner and burns his hand; he will then remember and not touch the burner again. However, in adults, for some reason, we out grow this physical knowledge. We somehow are able to rationalize that what we do, even if it is bad for us. Personal Example: I’m violently lactose intolerant. I love donuts. Some of the donuts that I love are sometimes under cooked and the in the under cooked dough is too much for my system. I’m sick for hours. However, I will not give up doughnuts.

Wow. Sorry for that.

“Demand Ecology” is about humanity’s mistakes. The earth is crap. Yeah, we did that. Animals are non-existent. We did that. So when the Galactics showed up and said that humanity does not deserve to join the intergalactic multi-species drama because we trashed our planet, no one was surprised. Well, the younger generation was not surprised.

The main character has a daughter. This daughter is very angry with her father and anyone her father’s age. See, she thinks that her father should have done something to save the animals and protect the environment. Novel idea! What is hard to hear is that he did do something. He protested and wrote letter. He attended rallies. He was member of the Green Party. This was not enough for the planet and not enough for his daughter. She wanted him to do more.

He gets his chance to do more. He is part of a space mission to collect a needed mineral resource. He was asked because he is a Green. It was in the best interest of the politicians to include a Green and appear balanced. He was not being listened to and humanity was going to make yet another grievous error. So, our hero, the Green becomes saboteur. He stops the mission, saves one of the Galactic races.

This is a great story about how humanity can change. How one person can make a difference and bring our species out of the mud from which we evolved. It made for good reading, hopeful reading. However, it took an act of subversive decent. How any of us are really prepared to attempt to bring about real change. I’m not. I’m comfortable. I’m part of the problem.

I sure hope there is someone out there that is ready to act, do what is necessary even when that act is not a polite letter of out rage, but more…

DeLancey, Craig. “Demand Ecology.” Analog. June 2008, Vol. CXXVIII, No. 6. P. 64 - 82

Truancy by Fukui Isamu

(Read my review here: TRUANCY by Isamu Fukui 5/6/08)

My epic battle with DHL is now over and I’m in possession of a copy of “Truancy” by Fukui Isamu.

I will get around to reading it in the next couple of weeks. It looks and sounds really good, but I have a few things to get before I can really check it out.

If you can’t wait for my two-cents, check out the three part review over at Fantasy Debut:

Truancy - Initial Impressions
Truancy: Hard to Put Down
Truancy: Final Review

Or take a look at the really cool website: The Truancy.

Or: http://www.nydailynews.com/
Stuyvesant student Isamu Fukui is in a class by himself
BY NICOLE LYN PESCE
Saturday, March 8th 2008, 4:00 AM

All I have to say was that at 17, I was composing bad poetry, playing Nintendo and Sega, and trying to hold down a job. I wish would have been so fortunate to compete a book before graduating High School.

Fukui, Isamu. Truancy. New York: TOR, 2008

A BUTTERFLY IN PEKING by Nina Munteanu

A Butterfly in Peking is another short story of that seems to deal with the conflict that consumes the earth in Munteanu’s fiction.

It is the story of war, a war between two polar views of how humanity should or should not move into the future. The Greens want to progress with scientific advances and the Techno vigilantes believe that science will lead to humanities destruction.

In this specific story, two children escape a band of Techno vigilantes to a Techno Corporate Farm. (Munteanu likes to use the word Techno a lot. So, I’m not sure that the Techno vigilantes and Techno Corporate Farm are one in the same or not.) On the farm they find a hard refuge.

However, these children grow up to become educated members of society. One a Green Chaos theorist, the other will go to work for DIE (Department of Industrial Ecology).

What I like about Munteanu’s short fiction is that they are so long in time. They seem to mostly begin with children and end with adults that have join society. What’s weird is that I feel that I know how here characters get from one place in their life to the next without having to have seen it.

Check this story out! It was posted today: A Butterfly in Peking

Munteanu, Nina. A Butterfly in Peking

TAKLAMAKAN by Bruce Sterling

As far as I know, which is not much at all, “Taklamakan” is the third and final story in The Chattanooga Stories. I have enjoyed these stories immensely. They are the kinds of stories that I really want to write. My fiction seems so little in comparison. The Chattanooga Stories have such a cultural depth that I wonder why I’m not even more of a social critic than I already am.

Anyway, “Taklamakan” follows Spider Pete, a Shadowrun like punk techboy spy want-a-be. Spider Pete loves his toys. He has all the latest military grade stealth and spy gear needed to get in and get the picture. See, the Spiders are a street organization that use guerrilla like tactics to disrupt or document government functions, blunders, and secrets.

However, this particular mission Spider Pete is working with the military to uncover the truth about a strange valley. This valley has never seen humans. It is inhabited solely by robots. Or that is what it seems like at first look.

Spider Pete discovers that the valley, an industrial waste dumping yard, is also a cover up for strange kind of ethic relocation program designed and implemented by Sphere. Deep beneath the surface there are three enormous space ships. Each ship contains a specific ethnic minority that would not join the 21st century. Sphere had promised to send them into space in a desperate search for a new home. Instead, they were buried deep and forgotten.

There is a lot more to this story as there is to any Sterling adventure. My advice is finding them and read them. I can’t really do justice to The Chattanooga Stories here.

Enjoy!

Sterling, Bruce. “Taklamakan.” Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling. Burton: Subterranean Press, 2007. p 409 - 445

FERRET AND RED by Josepha Sherman

Work is work, right? It is the thing that we get up and do everyday in order to fund (pay for) the fun. Some are more successful and funding the fun than others. I think that I have a pretty good time, but the human nature is always wanting, and saking, “could I be earning my way to more fun if…”

Anyway, Space Inc is all about work in space, the jobs that being in space will create. “Ferret and Red” is a story about two Mechs, mechanics, which have an unfortunate run in with the Ateil, an avian race that think of themselves at the True People.

Red is your classic red haired Anglo-Saxon with an over achieving work ethic. He is partnered with the narrator of the story, Ferret. Ferret is a humanoid that looks like the Earth mammal. She has another name, her real name, but it is never said because humans cannot appreciate it anyway.

Red and Ferret take a job fixing an Ateil ship that is docked at the space station. Red is very reluctant having a bad past experience with the so called True People. As it turns out the Ateil are very sensitive to color and are superstitious of the color red.

One thing leads to the next and Ferret and Red are arguing with one of the Ateil about their work. It turns bad. However, Red and Ferret finish the job. Mech’s have a deep sense of honor about the quality of their work.

The rest of the story is about how Red and Ferret get out of pretty big jam. It seems that the work they did on the Ateil ship was faulty causing an explosion and killing one of the True People. You will have to read the story to find out more.

I’m normally not a fan of talking and walking critters, ferrets and birds or what have you. Yet, this story did not feel fuzzy at all. I really liked the characters and the plot kept me reading. It had a real Star Wars feel to it.

I hope that you take the time to read this little mystery.

Sherman, Josepha. “Ferret and Red.” Space Inc. Ed. Julie E. Czerneda. New York: DAW, 2003. p 63 - 80

THE BOY IN ZAQUITOS by Bruce McAllister

I’m slowing down, which is due to reading The Ruins by Scott Smith in anticipation of the movie, The Ruins in theaters April 8th.

Anyway, my loving wife bought The Best American Short Stories 2007 for me last month for my birthday. I was hoping that because the collection was edited by the master of horror himself, Stephen King, that he would have the courage and the pull to select from outside the mainstream. The one story that does not come from the big fiction guns is McAllister’s, which was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction. So, I guess that I should count my lucky stars and believe that one out of twenty isn’t bad.

McAllister’s story is a timely one. The main character is an American patriot. He is the son of a retired military leader. He wants nothing more in the world than to serve his country in one of the big civilian intelligence agencies. However, his grades are not the best. He is not outstanding in anyway. While in college, he makes an important connection with one of his professors and is soon granted an interview.

The agency eventually finds a place for him. He is one of the rarest individuals on the planet. He is a carrier. He can contract the plague and spread it without himself getting sick, a Typhoid Mary. The United States then begins to use him to spread the plague and destabilize foreign governments. He is, however it is never said, an American terrorist.

What is brilliant about his story is the way in which it is told. It is a first person account of the adventures of a plague carrier told to a classroom of students. Through his account to the students, the reader comes to understand how he got himself into the plague carrier line of work and how he eventually is released from service.

In today’s political climate, I feel that this story is all too real. It rings of a corrupt government that is willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives to ensure that the political experiment can continue.

This is an excellent story that is well worth your time.

McAllister, Bruce. The Boy in Zaquitos. The Best American Short Stories 2007 (The Best American Series) Ed. Stephen King. Series Ed. Heidi Pitlor. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co, 2007. p. 248 – 267.

BLANKENSHIP & DAWES IN THE ISLAND OF IGNOMINY by Jens Rushing

This is the story of two English gentlemen on a cruse. The cruse liner sinks and they find themselves stranded on an island. On this island they encounter strange spider like beings with human heads.

Wow, really, spiders with human heads. Okay, so the spider things with human heads believe that humanity is vile and corrupt. The source of human evil is the human body, hungers and lusts. They believe that they have found perfection. This perfection is the preservation of the human mind through severing the head from the evil body and transplanting it onto one of these spider bodies. Okay, it sounds weird, but the way that they explain it, perhaps not.

What impresses me most about Rushing’s writing is his ability to write with in a genre and turn it on its head making it his own. In this example, Rushing is using the Victorian travel log. It reminds me a little of the Heart of Darkness, discovering strange and new tribes.

At any rate, Pantechnicon, Issue 6 is free to down load as a PDF. So, if you have a few minutes and would like something weird, strange, and entertaining, check out this story (and Rushing’s website: http://www.jensrushing.com/).

Rushing, Jens. Blankenship & Dawes in The Island of Ignominy. Pantechnicon, Issue 6 p 21 - 47

INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT by William Gleason

Work in space is dangerous. You have to be wiling to make snap decisions that might sacrifice a few to save many.

Harry is a newly assigned MAN Operator, mechanized-automated-neurolinked (or, if you will, power armor designed for space maintenance), and is being checked-out on the equipment in 4.5 Gs. He trained on Earth in 1G. He is having a little trouble with the check list. He is laughed at.

But then, something happens and Harry is forced into action to help save everyone from destruction. Harry is enlisted by the notorious Bob Roberts. Harry takes his orders from Roberts and gathers the parts and tools to fix the station.

Everyone hates Roberts. Roberts is a hard ass and does not like to work with partners. I get the feeling that Roberts is like that detective that loves his job so much that he doesn’t want someone to come in and ruin it for him.

Anyway, more problems arise, more complications that prove that Bob Roberts is a hero.

This is a quick read. The writing is very engaging. The action and plot is tight. The narrative does not deviate from the problem at hand. There is very little back story and no flashbacks. This is very refreshing. As a reader, I like being dropped in a situation that propels itself forward with little to no effort.

You will want to find this story. I hope that can learn from it and fix a couple of my own stories to reflect this kind of focus.

Gleason, William. “Into that Good Night.” Analog. April 2008, Vol. CXXVIII, No. 4. P. 80 - 85

THE HOUSE BEYOND YOUR SKY by Benjamin Rosenbaum

I’m sure that I’m not smart enough to fully understand this one. I might need some help. If you’ve read this story and would like to chime in, please leave comments.

Here is my take. The main character is named Matthias. Matthias has the qualities of a god, or creator. There is mention of a bookshelf with several universes shelved in a row. The one that Matthias is looking through and concerned with in this story contains a young girl and her stuffed bear.

This girl’s parents are fighting in the kitchen. The fight escalates into domestic abuse. Matthias can’t take it and has to reach out to her through her bear. The bear speaks. She asks, “Are you God?”

From here the story becomes elusive for me. The reader is taken into Matthias’ world where he is experimenting, trying to create something important. However, it would seem that an elder or parent (the relationship is unclear, perhaps that is just the way it is among godlings) disapproves.

A question is raised, would this girl be better off dead? The other answer is for Matthias to meddle. And it would seem that getting involved has never turned out well for anyone and just disappoints Matthias. To find out what happens to the girl, you will have to read the story.

One of the interesting things about “The House Beyond Your Sky” is that I get the impression that Matthias is just a user of an existing program. Oh, he is a hacker working on network performance and always looking to upgrade, but still an end-user of an existing platform. It brings to mind the many types of SIM-universes that are at our disposal. As end-users we can create and manipulate small words of digital people. We can give those people lives, we can take them away. Is morality involved at all?

Anyway, this is a bizarre find, a good read, a hard read, a mind stretching read, a good story that bring the word art to mind.

Rosenbaum, Benjamin. “The House Beyond Your Sky.” Science Fiction: The Best of the Year 2007. Ed. Rich Horton. New York: Cosmos, 2007. p. 367 - 383

SPEAK, GEEK by Eileen Gunn

Got a second! Read this story. Love dogs read this story. Like gene splicing read this story.

I’m not a big fan of personified animals. I think that it is creepy to know that your pet is judging you or has needs beyond food and affection.

In this story a gene-spiked dog is narrating. Through the dog’s narration the reader finds out that he is working in some kind of lab where other animals are being spiked, or well, the gene cocktail is being mixed to upgrade humanity and animals alike.

What I think is funny is the way that he looks at non-spiked female dogs. He is not attracted to them because they are just dogs; no true rational thinking going on there, just base loyalty and love for their human masters.

The writing is engaging and a good story is spun in just under three pages. If this wasn’t a dog story, I’d be jealous.

Gunn, Eileen. “Speak, Geek.” Year’s Best SF 12. Ed. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. New York: EOS, 2007. p. 210 - 213

TAKING GOOD CARE OF MYSELF by Ian R. MacLeod

What will hospice care look like in the future? Well, you will travel back in time and live out your final days with an earlier version yourself. To prepare us for what this might look like and feel like, Macleod gives a snapshot.

This story, at least for this reader, asks the age old question, a time loop question, of which came first, the hospice care of your dying self or the life that leads up to it?

The main character had a life. He had a job. He had a wife. Then enter the future dying version that he must care for. He loses his job. He loses his wife. He now knows the exact moment of his death.

So which came first in the time loop? Or really, does it matter? Just beware and plan. You never know when your future self will be delivered to you.

MacLeod, Ian R. “Taking Good Care of Myself.” Year’s Best SF 12. Ed. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. New York: EOS, 2007. p. 421-424

THE BOOKSELLER OF BASSET by John G. Hemry

To my surprise the main character, a bookstore owner (my dream job), and I share Aaron as our first name. So, naturally, I love the story.

When I pick up a new anthology or short fiction magazine, I always gravitate towards the shortest short first. I like to see just how short the editors are willing to go.

What I like about this short story is that it takes our present battle with fascism and relocates it to a different world in a different galaxy in the far future. In this future, Aaron owns a frontier-like bookstore where a bookstore probably has no business of being. The people question its existence and sales are low. However, Aaron sees it as his mission to bring literature and history to those who need the wisdom of the past to see and correct the problems their settlement struggles with.

The ending is a sad one. I won’t ruin it for you, but the fearful, ignorant, and faistis with a painful victory. However, there is a gleam of hope that Aaron’s dream will be carried on by others.

Find it! Read it!

Hemry, John G. “The Bookseller of Basset.” Analog March 2008, Vol. CXXVIII, No. 3. P. 78 - 81

SEARCH ENGINE by Mary Rosenblum

“Search Engine” is a Big Brother story. The government, if it can be called a government, is storing data of the movement of every person through an company called Search Engine, Inc. However, there is so much data that it is nearly impossible to interpret it to fond anyone.

Enter the noir-styled private eye who has a hacker’s skill for compiling and interpreting information and no one can hide, no one is truly off the grid. Our dick, Aman, has been hired to find a Gaiiest, a member of a new organization that tries to hide from Big Brother by buying unprocessed food and items that they believe are untagged and untraceable.

For Aman, finding this Gaiiest is child’s play. There is only one person that could hide from Aman, his son. His son is also a Gaiiest and has chosen to live without the traceable conveniences of the modern world.

Like most noir, the dick is a nice guy and like a cat over curious about the subject he is pursuing. Rosenblum has me tricked with the twists and turns in her story. I did not catch on to Aman’s real intent in taking this case from the government agent until it was spelled out at the end. I won’t ruin it for you. You will just have to find the story and read it.

This will be my last review of a story included in Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology for this issue. Check back next month for more. If you can’t already tell, I absolutely love this anthology.

Rosenblum, Mary. “Search Engine.” Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. Ed. James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2007. p. 369 – 388

WHEN SYSADMINS RULED THE EARTH by Cory Doctorow

It has been said that in the event of an all out nuclear war that the soul surviving species would be cockroaches. However, in this post-apocalyptic story humans survive.

See, in the advent of an attack, sysadmins from all over the world, connected to their mainframes and servers with alert protocols would be signaled, called back to their clean rooms with electromagnetic shields and filtered air. They would survive by chance because their wired-child’s cries would bring them running to see what is wrong, an upgrade needed, a hard shutdown and reboot, or a viral threat is about to invade the root.

What is the world like after? What will the world look like when the only humans left are those that would rather talk to a machine than another person? What kind of government would emerge? How will things ever get back to normal when the most important thing on a sysadmin’s mind is runtime and connectivity?

These questions and more are answered in this crazy story about a man who left his wife and child behind to nurture a machine.

This is an amazing story of human will and the urge to stay connected. You have to read it. So, here are three ways to find it:

Doctorow, Cory. “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.” Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. Ed. James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2007. p. 389 – 424

Or

Doctorow, Cory. “When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth.” Overclocked. New York: Thunder Mouth Press, 2007. p. 5 – 56

Or

If you would rather listen to this story, Cory Doctorow has read it aloud as a podcast, When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

THIRTEEN VIEWS OF A CARDBOARD CITY by William Gibson

If you are a writer and struggle with descriptive language, this is a story that you need to read. It is full of bare-bones language that paints the setting of this story.

It is a story. It might feel, at the beginning, like just a setting in a script, completely objective with references to where and how the camera is placed, but the end composite is more than just a cold look at a cardboard city in Japan.

Sometimes, the world forgets that as it progresses down the shiny techno-laden road on the way to see the wizard, that the gap between classes grows winder. If you have the skills, you will succeed. However, if you do not have the skills needed to shuffle information and organize it into meaning, you run the risk of losing it all.

There is no shame in living in a cardboard community. We all fall on bad times, bad luck. It is what comes next that really matters. What we do to survive in a world that has no use for some and a use for others.

Is this just Social Darwinism at work?

Gibson, William. “Thirteen Views of a Cardboard City.” Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology. Ed. James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel. San Francisco: Tachyon Publications, 2007. p 119 - 128