The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  There was a big influx of new science fiction shows at the beginning of 1993—most of them will probably kill each other off, although it’s probably too early to predict which of them will kill which. It’s probably a fairly safe prediction that “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” will survive—it is the best of the new lot of SF shows, and has the massive carry-over momentum generated by “Star Trek: The Next Generation” going for it; if it can regularly pull a sizable proportion of the “Star Trek: TNG” viewing audience, that alone ought to ensure its survival for a while. Having said that it’s the best of the new SF shows, I must also add that I find it somewhat disappointing overall—it is, so far, anyway, not as good as “Star Trek: TNG” has become (although it should be remembered that it took that show several seasons to really gather steam, and that the earlier episodes were actually rather weak), is on occasion slow almost to the point of being dull, and often somewhat flat. Part of the problem is that the cast does not feature anyone with the acting ability, or at least the theatrical presence, of the best actors from the “Star Trek: TNG” cast—the performances are often rather wooden, the most accomplished actor in the cast is given relatively little to do, and the most potentially interesting character is being portrayed by an actress who so far has yet to demonstrate her ability to act her way out of a paper Space Bag. So far only the actor who plays the Good Bad Guy (or Bad Good Guy, if you’d rather), Quark, is showing any sort of real flair or panache in his performance—something that “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” could use a lot more of to divert you from the thought that, after all, it’s just a show about a, like, you know, space shopping mall. Gee. Still, as I say, this one is likely to be around for a couple of seasons at the least—I’m not sure I’m as sanguine about the other new SF shows. I was predisposed to like “Babylon 5” because the genre people I know who work in Hollywood were sympathetic to it, and because of the widespread allegations that its scenario was ripped off by another production company (and, indeed, its back-story and setting are similar enough to those of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” that there are probably lawyers somewhere girding their loins right now to sue somebody, one way or the other), but, when push came to shove, I found that I didn’t like it very much afterall. The acting is even more wooden, if possible, than that in “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” and the much-hyped computer-generated special effects are actually rather cheesy-looking, not nearly as good as the effects and production values on either “Star Trek: TNG” or “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” (although probably a good deal cheaper to produce, which may count for something). I think that “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” will probaby sink “Babylon 5,” though—people certainly aren’t going to watch two such similar shows, and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” is the slicker product, and comes with a built-in audience. I was even less impressed by “Space Rangers,” which mostly wastes the wonderfully talented Linda Hunt, and which strikes me as “The A-Team” with spaceships—to be fair, I do know people who like this one, though. “Time Trax” is even worse, so bad, in fact, that I am hard pressed to find an adequate comparison for it—it’s like “Knight Rider” with time-travelers, perhaps, although even that’s not quite bad enough. By late February of 1993, it was being rumored that “Space Rangers” had already died, and I suspect that “Time Trax” will quickly follow it into oblivion, but don’t worry, there are lots more SF shows coming up in the near future, including “Sea Quest,” a “Cyberpunk” show called “Wild Palms,” and perhaps, as a mid-season replacement, “Doors.”

  So, if any of these shows become wildly popular, will that then, as is sometimes claimed, generate vast new audiences for print science fiction? My answer is, Probably Not. Oh, there will be some viewers who will be inspired by these shows to begin reading print science fiction, just as there were some who were inspired to do so by “Star Trek,” Star Wars, and “Star Trek: The Next Generation”—but there won’t be any significant numbers of them, if history is any guide. For the most part, viewers of those shows are only interested in reading print science fiction if it’s about the shows that they like, i.e., a Star Trek novel; no significant spillover into the rest of the SF print genre has ever been demonstrated. What is likely to have a significant impact on the print SF genre is the flood of new TV-related tie-in books that will spill on to the newsstands if one of these shows becomes widely popular—already there’s a multitude of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels being prepared, to join the armies of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation novels already on the racks, and if the other series are successful, we could conceivably see Babylon 5 or Time Trax novels there in the near future, too. I don’t begrudge viewers who enjoy these shows the right to read a novel based on one of them—what does make me grumpy occasionally, though, is that these kind of books tend to gobble up rack display space, something already in short supply, and therefore make it even harder for non-series, non-television/ movie-related SF novels to get displayed. And that makes it even harder for a writer to sell an adult SF novel of quality, especially one that is “literary,” or not part of a series or a “trilogy” or a sharecropper franchise. Why should publishers bother to buy such a risky item, or booksellers bother to display it, when the next Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel is almost certainly going to sell considerably better? This is no one’s fault, I guess, and I don’t know what can be done about it … but it does cause me to cast a cynical eye on the claim that these TV shows, if successful, will be the salvation of the print SF genre. Yes, I think that a few of the viewers attracted by these shows will go on to reading Robert Heinlein or Connie Willis or William Gibson or Pat Cadigan—but that there will be enough of them to make up for the negative effects … I don’t know. I’d like to think so, but, really, I doubt it.

  * * *

  The 50th World Science Fiction Convention, MagiCon, was held in Orlando, Florida, from September 2 to September 7, 1992, and drew an estimated attendance of 5900. The 1992 Hugo Awards, presented at MagiCon, were: Best Novel, Barrayar, by Lois McMaster Bujold; Best Novella, “Beggars in Spain,” by Nancy Kress; Best Novelette, “Gold,” by Isaac Asimov; Best Short Story, “A Walk in the Sun,” by Geoffrey A. Landis; Best Non-Fiction, The World of Charles Addams, by Charles Addams; Best Professional Editor, Gardner Dozois; Best Professional Artist, Michael Whelan; Best Original Artwork, Michael Whelan for the cover for The Summer Queen; Best Dramatic Presentation, Terminator 2; Best Semiprozine, Locus; Best Fanzine, Mimosa, edited by Dick and Nicki Lynch; Best Fan Writer, David Langford; Best Fan Artist, Brad W. Foster; plus the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer to Ted Chiang.

  The 1991 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet at the Colony Square Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 25, 1992, were: Best Novel, Stations of the Tide, by Michael Swanwick; Best Novella, “Beggars in Spain,” by Nancy Kress; Best Novelette, “Guide Dog,” by Mike Conner; Best Short Story, “Ma Qui,” by Alan Brennert; plus a special Bradbury Award to Terminator 2.

  The World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Eighteenth Annual World Fantasy Convention in Pine Mountain, Georgia, on November 1, 1992, were: Best Novel, Boy’s Life, by Robert R. McCammon; Best Novella, “The Ragthorn,” by Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth; Best Short Story, “The Somewhere Doors,” by Fred Chappell; Best Collection, The Ends of the Earth, by Lucius Shepard; Best Anthology, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourth Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; Best Artist, Tim Hildebrandt; Special Award (Professional), George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer for Weird Tales; Special Award (Non-Professional), W. Paul Ganley for Weirdbook, and a Life Achievement Award to Edd Cartier.

  The 1992 Bram Stoker Awards, presented at the Parker Meridien Hotel in New York City by the Horror Writers of America, were: Best Novel, Boy’s Life, by Robert R. McCammon; Best First Novel (tie), The Cipher, by Kathe Koja and Prodigal, by Melanie Tern; Best Collection, Prayers to Broken Stones, by Dan Simmons; Best Novella/Novelette, “The Beautiful Uncut Hair of Graves,” by David Morrell; Best Shor
t Story, “Lady Madonna,” by Nancy Holder; Best Non-Fiction, Clive Barker’s Shadows in Eden, edited by Stephen Jones; plus a Life Achievement Award to Gahan Wilson.

  The 1991 John W. Campbell Memorial Award–winner was Buddy Holly Is Alive and Well on Ganymede, by Bradley Denton.

  The 1991 Theodore Sturgeon Award was won by “Buffalo,” by John Kessel.

  The 1991 Philip K. Dick Memorial Award–winner was King of Morning, Queen of Day, by Ian McDonald.

  The James Tiptree, Jr. Award was created in 1991 and the first award was given to White Queen, by Gwyneth Jones and to A Woman of the Iron People, by Eleanor Arnason. The 1992 James Tiptree, Jr. Award was given to China Mountain Zhang, by Maureen F. McHugh.

  The 1991 Arthur C. Clarke award was won by Synners, by Pat Cadigan.

  * * *

  Death took a heavy toll from the science fiction field in 1992 and early 1993, claiming several of its most famous and beloved figures. Among the dead were: Isaac Asimov, 72, one of the original giants of science fiction’s Golden Age, perhaps the most famous SF writer of the last half of the twentieth century, and certainly the most tireless and indefatigable science popularizer, author of the famous Foundation trilogy as well as I, Robot, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and literally hundreds of other books; Fritz Leiber, 81, another Golden Age giant and a seminal figure whose career spanned the entire development of the modern fields of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, all of which he influenced deeply, a multiple award winner, author of Conjure Wife, The Wanderer, Our Lady of the Darkness, and The Big Time (in my opinion, one of the ten best SF novels ever written); Reginald Bretnor, 80, the creator of the “Feghoot” and the “Papa Schimmelhorn” stories, as well as a respected academic who produced such works as The Craft of Science Fiction; Keith Laumer, 67, popular author of the long-running “Retief” series, as well as such novels as Worlds of the Imperium, A Plague of Demons, and the underrated A Trace of Memory; Alan E. Nourse, 63, veteran SF writer, author of Trouble on Titan and Star Surgeon, among many others; Dwight V. Swain, 76, longtime SF and fantasy writer; Robert Sampson, 65, a pulp-era author who in recent years had revitalized his career as a short-story writer with sales to many of the top markets; Angela Carter, 51, respected literary writer whose work was sometimes listed as a sort of “Magic Realism,” author of The War of Dreams, Nights at the Circus, and many others; Mary Norton, 88, author of the renowned series of children’s fantasy novels about the adventures of “The Borrowers,” a miniature race that lives in hiding behind the scenes of our normal human world; Gustav Hasford, 45, author of The Short-Timers, The Phantom Blooper, and others; Rosemary Sutcliff, 71, historical novelist, author of the classic Arthurian novel Sword at Sunset; Jack Sharkey, 61, veteran SF author who was a popular writer for Galaxy in the fifties; Daniel Da Cruz, 69, author of The Ayes of Texas and other SF novels; Kobo Abe, 68, Japanese literary novelist who occasionally published some SF, such as Inter Ice Age 4; Desmond W. Hall, 82, former assistant editor of Astounding; Joe Shuster, 78, the co-creator of Superman; George MacBeth, 60, British poet, producer, and well-known figure in the British SF scene; Millea Kenin, 49, small-press publisher and writer; William M. Gaines, 70, publisher of Mad magazine; Samuel S. Walker, 65, founder and president of Walker Publishing; Gerard K. O’Neill, 69, physicist and highly influential advocate of space colonization, author of The High Frontier; Gerald Feinberg, 58, well-known physicist and longtime SF enthusiast; Scott Meredith, 69, founder and longtime head of one of the most successful literary agencies in the world; Sidney Meredith, 73, brother of Scott Meredith and co-founder of the Meredith Agency; Gerry De La Ree, well-known collector and publisher; Vincent Miranda, 46, longtime SF fan and academic, husband of SF writer Sarah Clemens, a friend; Margo Skinner, poet, wife of SF writer Fritz Leiber; Horst Grimm, 64, husband of SF writer Cherry Wilder; Helen Silverberg, 81, mother of SF writer Robert Silverberg; and Mary Potter Bias, 78, mother of SF figure Gay Haldeman.

  GRIFFIN’S EGG

  Michael Swanwick

  Michael Swanwick made his debut in 1980, and has become one of the most popular and respected of all that decade’s new writers. He has several times been a finalist for the Nebula Award, as well as for the World Fantasy Award and for the John W. Campbell Award, and has won the Theodore Sturgeon Award and the Asimov’s Reader’s Award poll. Last year, his critically acclaimed novel, Stations of the Tide, won him a Nebula Award as well. His other books include his first novel, In the Drift, which was published in 1985, and 1987s popular Vacuum Flowers. Aside from Stations of the Tide, his most recent books are a collection of his collaborative short work with other writers, Slow Dancing Through Time, and a collection of his solo short fiction, Gravity’s Angels. Coming up is a new novel, tentatively entitled The Iron Dragon’s Daughter. He’s had stories in our Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Seventh Annual Collections. Swanwick lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Marianne Porter, and their young son, Sean.

  In the complex and powerful novella that follows, Swanwick takes us to the Moon, which, in Swanwick’s hands, is a surprising place: a vast industrial park of bewildering scale and complexity, home to many top-secret, high-tech experimental projects, and home also to an intricate Lunar society with lifeways and customs of its own; a society that soon finds itself confronted with a bizarre and unsuspected menace, which could spell not only its own doom, but could inalterably change the whole human race … or wipe it out forever.

  The moon? It is a griffin’s egg,

  Hatching to-morrow night.

  And how the little boys will watch

  With shouting and delight

  To see him break the shell and stretch

  And creep across the sky.

  The boys will laugh, The little girls,

  I fear, may hide and cry …

  —Vachel Lindsay

  The sun cleared the mountains. Gunther Weil raised a hand in salute, then winced as the glare hit his eyes in the instant it took his helmet to polarize.

  He was hauling fuel rods to Chatterjee Crater industrial park. The Chatterjee B reactor had gone critical forty hours before dawn, taking fifteen remotes and a microwave relay with it, and putting out a power surge that caused collateral damage to every factory in the park. Fortunately, the occasional meltdown was designed into the system. By the time the sun rose over the Rhaeticus highlands, a new reactor had been built and was ready to go online.

  Gunther drove automatically, gauging his distance from Bootstrap by the amount of trash lining the Mare Vaporum road. Close by the city, discarded construction machinery and damaged assemblers sat in open-vacuum storage, awaiting possible salvage. Ten kilometers out, a pressurized van had exploded, scattering machine parts and giant worms of insulating foam across the landscape. At twenty-five kilometers, a poorly graded stretch of road had claimed any number of cargo skids and shattered running lights from passing traffic.

  Forty kilometers out, though, the road was clear, a straight, clean gash in the dirt. Ignoring the voices at the back of his skull, the traffic chatter and automated safety messages that the truck routinely fed into his transceiver chip, he scrolled up the topographicals on the dash.

  Right about here.

  Gunther turned off the Mare Vaporum road and began laying tracks over virgin soil. “You’ve left your prescheduled route,” the truck said. “Deviations from schedule may only be made with the recorded permission of your dispatcher.”

  “Yeah, well.” Gunther’s voice seemed loud in his helmet, the only physical sound in a babel of ghosts. He’d left the cabin unpressurized, and the insulated layers of his suit stilled even the conduction rumbling from the treads. “You and I both know that so long as I don’t fall too far behind schedule, Beth Hamilton isn’t going to care if I stray a little in between.”

  “You have exceeded this unit’s linguistic capabilities.”

  “That’s okay, don’t let it bother you.” Deftly he tied down the send switch on the truck radio with a twist of wire. The voices in h
is head abruptly died. He was completely isolated now.

  “You said you wouldn’t do that again.” The words, broadcast directly to his trance chip, sounded as deep and resonant as the voice of God. “Generation Five policy expressly requires that all drivers maintain constant radio—”

  “Don’t whine. It’s unattractive.”

  “You have exceeded this unit’s linguistic—”

  “Oh, shut up.” Gunther ran a finger over the topographical maps, tracing the course he’d plotted the night before: Thirty kilometers over cherry soil, terrain no human or machine had ever crossed before, and then north on Murchison road. With luck he might even manage to be at Chatterjee early.

  He drove into the lunar plain. Rocks sailed by to either side. Ahead, the mountains grew imperceptibly. Save for the treadmarks dwindling behind him, there was nothing from horizon to horizon to show that humanity had ever existed. The silence was perfect.

  Gunther lived for moments like this. Entering that clean, desolate emptiness, he experienced a vast expansion of being, as if everything he saw, stars, plain, craters and all, were encompassed within himself. Bootstrap City was only a fading dream, a distant island on the gently rolling surface of a stone sea. Nobody will ever be first here again, he thought. Only me.

  A memory floated up from his childhood. It was Christmas Eve and he was in his parents’ car, on the way to midnight Mass. Snow was falling, thickly and windlessly, rendering all the familiar roads of Düsseldorf clean and pure under sheets of white. His father drove, and he himself leaned over the front seat to stare ahead in fascination into this peaceful, transformed world. The silence was perfect.