Best Science Fiction of the Year 14

by Terry Carr (ed)

  Each holotank held two whorls of shifting colors, the outlines clearer and the textures more sharply delineated than any previous holographs in the history of science. Keith's and Devrie's perceptions of each other's presence. The whorls went on clarifying themselves, separating into distinct and mappable layers, as on the platform Keith and Devrie remained frozen, all their energies focused on the telepathic trance. Seconds passed, and then minutes. And still, despite the clarity of the holographs in the tank, a clarity that fifteen years earlier I would have given my right hand for, I sensed that Keith and Devrie were holding back, were deliberately confining their unimaginable perceptiveness to each other's radiant energy, in the same way that water is confined behind a dam to build power.

  But how could / be sensing that? From a subliminal "reading" of the mapped perceptions in the holotanks? Or from something else?

  More minutes passed. Keith and Devrie stayed frozen, facing each other, and over her skeletal body and his stronger one a flush began to spread, rosy and slow, like heat tide rising.

  "Jesus H. Christ," said one of the medical doctors, so low that only I, standing directly behind her, could have heard. It was not a curse, nor a prayer, but some third possibility, unnameable.

  Keith put one hand on Devrie's thigh. She shuddered. He drew her down to the cushions on the platform and they began to caress each other, not frenzied, not in the exploring way of lovers but with a deliberation I have never experienced outside a research lab, a slow care that implied that worlds of interpretation hung on each movement. Yet the effect was not of coldness nor detachment but of intense involvement, of tremendous energy joyously used, of creating each other's bodies right then, there under each other's hands. They were working, and oblivious to all but their work. But if it was a kind of creative work, it was also a kind of primal innocent eroticism, and, watching, I felt my own heat begin to rise. "Innocent"—but if innocence is unknowingness, there was nothing innocent about it at all. Keith and Devrie knew and controlled each heartbeat, and I felt the exact moment when they let their sexual energies, added to all the other neural energies, burst the dam and flood outward in wave after wave, expanding the scope of each brain's perceptions, inundating the artificially-walled world.

  A third whorl formed in each holotank.

  It formed suddenly: one second nothing, the next brightness. But then it wavered, faded a bit. After a few moments it brightened slightly, a diffused golden haze, before again fading. On the platform Keith gasped, and I guessed he was having to shift his attention between perceiving the third source of radiation and keeping up the erotic version of the twin trance. His biofeedback techniques were less experienced than Devrie's, and the male erection more fragile. But then he caught the rhythm, and the holograph brightened.

  It seemed to me that the room brightened as well, although no additional lights came on and the consoles glowed no brighter. Sweat poured off the researchers. Bohentin leaned forward, his neck muscle tautening toward the platform as if it were his will and not Keith/Devrie's that strained to perceive that third presence recorded in the tank. I thought, stupidly, of mythical intermediaries: Merlyn never made king, Moses never reaching the Promised Land. Intermediaries— and then it became impossible to think of anything at all.

  Devrie shuddered and cried out. Keith's orgasm came a moment later, and with it a final roil of neural activity so strong the two primary whorls in each holotank swelled to fill the tank and inundate the third. At the moment of breakthrough Keith screamed, and in memory it seems as if the scream was what tore through the last curtain—that is nonsense. How loud would microbes have to scream to attract the attention of giants? How loud does a knock on the door have to be to pull a sleeper from the alien world of dreams?

  The doctor beside me fell to her knees. The third presence— or some part of it—swirled all around us, racing along our own unprepared synapses and neurons, and what swirled and raced was astonishment. A golden, majestic astonishment. We had finally attracted Its attention, finally knocked with enough neural force to be just barely heard—and It was astonished that we could, or did, exist. The slow rise of that powerful astonishment within the shielded lab was like the slow swinging around of the head of a great beast to regard some butterfly it has barely glimpsed from the corner of one eye. But this was no beast. As Its attention swung toward us, pain exploded in my skull—the pain of sound too loud, lights too bright, charge too high. My brain was burning on overload. There came one more flash of insight—wordless, pattern without end—and the sound of screaming. Then, abruptly, the energy vanished.

  Bohentin, on all fours, crawled toward the holotanks. The doctor lay slumped on the floor; the other doctor had already reached the platform and its two crumpled figures. Someone was crying, someone else shouting. I rose, fell, dragged myself to the side of the platform and then could not climb it. I could not climb the platform. Hanging with two hands on the edge, hearing the voice crying as my own, I watched the doctor bend shakily to Keith, roll him off Devrie to bend over her, turn back to Keith.

  Bohentin cried, "The tapes are intact!"

  "Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God," someone moaned, until abruptly she stopped. I grasped the flesh-colored padding on top of the platform and pulled myself up onto it.

  Devrie lay unconscious, pulse erratic, face cast in perfect bliss. The doctor breathed into Keith's mouth—what strength could the doctor himself have left?—and pushed on the naked chest. Breathe, push, breathe, push. The whole length of Keith's body shuddered; the doctor rocked back on his heels; Keith breathed.

  "It's all on tape!" Bohentin cried. "It's all on tapeV

  "God damn you to hell," I whispered to Devrie's blissful face. "It didn't even know we were there!"

  Her eyes opened. I had to lean close to hear her answer.

  "But now… we know He… is there."

  She was too weak to smile. I looked away from her, away from that face, out into the tumultuous emptiness of the lab, anywhere.

  They will try again.

  Devrie has been asleep, fed by glucose solution through an IV, for fourteen hours. I sit near her bed, frowned at by the nurse, who can see my expression as I stare at my sister. Somewhere in another bed Keith is sleeping yet again. His rest is more fitful than Devrie's; she sinks into sleep as into warm water, but he cannot. Like me, he is afraid of drowning.

  An hour ago he came into Devrie's room and grasped my hand. "How could It—He—It not have been aware that we existed? Not even have knownT'

  I didn't answer him.

  "You felt it too, Seena, didn't you? The others say they could, so you must have too. It… created us in some way. No, that's wrong. How could It create us and not knowT'

  I said wearily, "Do we always know what we've created?" and Keith glanced at me sharply. But I had not been referring to my father's work in cloning.

  "Keith. What's a Thysania Africana?"

  "A what?"

  "Think of us," I said, "as just one more biological side-effect. One type of being acts, and another type of being comes into existence. Man stages something like the African Horror, and in doing so he creates whole new species of moths and doesn't even discover they exist until long afterward. If man can do it, why not God? And why should He be any more aware of it than we are?"

  Keith didn't like that. He scowled at me, and then looked at Devrie's sleeping face: Devrie's sleeping bliss.

  "Because she is a fool," I said savagely, "and so are you. You won't leave it alone, will you? Having been noticed by It once, you'll try to be noticed by It again. Even though she promised me otherwise, and even if it kills you both."

  Keith looked at me a long time, seeing clearly—finally— the nature of the abyss between us, and its dimensions. But I already knew neither of us could cross. When at last he spoke, his voice held so much compassion that I hated him. "Seena. Seena, love. There's no more doubt now, don't you see? Now rational belief is no harder than rational doubt. Why are you so afraid
to even believe?"

  I left the room. In the corridor I leaned against the wail, palms spread flat against the tile, and closed my eyes. It seemed to me that I could hear wings, pale and fragile, beating against glass.

  They will try again. For the sake of sure knowledge that the universe is not empty, Keith and Devrie and all the others like their type of being will go on pushing their human brains beyond what the human brain has evolved to do, go on fluttering their wings against that biological window. For the sake of sure knowledge: belief founded on experiment and not on faith. And the Other: being/alien/God? It, too, may choose to initiate contact, if It can and now that It knows we are here. Perhaps It will seek to know us, and even beyond the laboratory Devrie and Keith may find any moment of heightened arousal subtly invaded by a shadowy Third. Will they sense It, hovering just beyond consciousness, if they argue fiercely or race a sailboat in rough water or make love? How much arousal will it take, now, for them to sense those huge wings beating on the other side of the window?

  And windows can be broken.

  Tomorrow I will fly back to New York. To my museum, to my exhibits, to my moths under permaplex, to my empty apartment, where I will keep the heavy drapes drawn tightly across the glass.

  For—oh God—all the rest of my life.

  * * *

  1984, THE SF YEAR IN REVIEW

  Charles N. Brown

  Well, we got through 1984. and although Big Brother didn't quite take over, he tried. The year began with Orwell's thirty-five-year-old novel near the top of the bestseller lists. There were conferences on Orwell, on 1984 the book, a new facsimile edition, a new movie, and lots of people congratulating themselves that Orwell was wrong. Was he, or was he just a bit too early? Did the book itself help prevent the more outward signs of control? The pity is that 1984, a politically if not literarily influential work, will quickly be forgotten when we need a new version for the 1990s.

  1984 ended just like 1983 and 1982: with science fiction dominating the bestseller lists and the movie screens. Dune, the novel, first published twenty years ago, was number one on The New York Times bestseller list, with 2010 by Clarke, The Robots of Dawn by Asimov, and the newest Piers Anthony "Xanth" novel not far behind. Also like last year, Stephen King was number one on the hardcover list and had been number one in paperback until supplanted by Dune. How about that?

  The most popular movies, in terms of financial success, were again sf or fantasy. Ghostbusters was the surprise top attraction of the year with a gross of $221 million, followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom ($176 million) and Gremlins ($148 million), both of which were attacked by critics for their excessive violence. Star Trek 111 did very well at $75 million. Two lower-budget sf movies. Terminator and Starman, were surprisingly well received.

  The two Christmas biggies were Dune and 2010. Neither got good reviews, and Dune sank fairly quickly after being described by one reviewer as "full of sand and fury, signifying nothing." 2070 was called boring, but survived and has had good audience response. Both movies did well by the book field. Not only Dune and 2010 made it back onto the bestseller lists; Dune Messiah and 2007 also came along. A 1.4 million-copy movie edition of Dune secured its position as the most read sf novel of all time.

  It was a year of expansion in sf. There were more books, more new publishers, and higher advances.

  The number of sf/fantasy books published in 1984 was 1176—up 8% from the 1983 figure of 1085 but still below the 1979 record figure of 1288. 613 or 52% of the books were new, with sf novels (198) still outnumbering fantasy novels (172), but not by much. There were more reference books (63) and collections (54) and about the same number of anthologies (57) as last year.

  The Berkley Publishing Group, which produces Ace Books, Charter Books, Tempo Books, and Jove Books, as well as Berkley Books, is the largest publisher of sf in the world. They did 255 titles in 1984—nearly a quarter of all the titles published. Del Rey and a redesigned DAW Books were the runners-up, with an expanding Bantam line moving up to fourth place. Bantam has announced a new sf imprint—Bantam Spectra—and will be expanding again in 1985. Warner Books has announced a new sf line, Questar, via its Popular Library imprint for 1985. Pocket Books sank its critically acclaimed Timescape line and took over distribution of Baen Books, the newest sf publisher. Bluejay Books, which specializes in trade paperbacks, had a good first year. Tor Books expanded its paperback line and added a hardcover line. The editorial merry-go-round continued: former Timescape editor David G. Hartwell joined Tor as a consultant. He also became the science fiction consultant for Arbor House when Robert Silverberg moved to Donald I. Fine Publishing. Ginjer Buchanan joined Ace, replacing Beth Meacham who moved to Tor.

  The biggest selling hardcover book of 1984 was The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. In order to release the copies all at once, Viking had a half million in General Electric warehouses around the country. There are now nearly a million copies in print. There was no book club sale, and the book became the most discounted volume of 1984.

  Waldenbooks pushed science fiction vigorously with its "Otherworlds Club," which now has over 150,000 members.

  The chain was sold to K-Mart, which will start a discount bookstore chain in 1985.

  Arthur C. Clarke took a ten-cent advance for his next book, The Songs of Distant Earth, and a dollar for 20,001: the Final Odyssey, from Del Rey Books. "Arthur really only wanted a penny," his agent, Scott Meredith, said, "but couldn't figure out how to pay his agent ten percent, so he settled for ten cents." When and if the books get written, the actual advance will be $1.6 million, but Clarke didn't want to be saddled with either a deadline or a high advance. "There is no truth to the rumor I'm planning 20 Billion and One: the Final Iliad," said Clarke.

  Robert Silverberg joined the big-advance crowd by getting somewhere between a half and one million dollars, depending on escalators, for his next two books, Tom O'Bedlam and The King of the Gypsies. His new publishers are Donald I. Fine in hardcover and Warner Books in paperback.

  Isaac Asimov turned down a $1 million advance offered by New American Library for the novelization of Fantastic Voyage II. He felt morally obligated to write sf only for Doubleday.

  Frank Herbert celebrated "The Year of Dune" by shaving off his beard and wandering unrecognized around the American Booksellers Association meeting in Washington. His naked face became even more famous when he appeared in a long futuristic Superbowl commercial. Stephen King's face also achieved fame when he appeared in sartorial splendor in an American Express commercial.

  Harlan Ellison still hasn't finished the most famous unpublished book in science fiction, The Last Dangerous Visions, but came out of a massive, decade-long writer's block and turned in several other collections and anthologies.

  L. Ron Hubbard did not appear in public and did not publish his ten-volume new novel, but his sponsorship of a quarterly new writers' contest with large cash prizes helped the field. He is also connected with a newly announced sf magazine, To the Stars, which is scheduled to appear in 1985. The thirty-foot inflated villain from Battlefield Earth was the biggest convention attendee of 1984, appearing nationwide to promote the book.

  Robert A. Heinlein celebrated his 77th birthday by finishing a new novel, as yet untitled, and sailing through the Northwest Passage.

  1984 was the year of the first novel, with a larger than usual number of high-quality books appearing. The revived Ace Specials, edited by Terry Carr, gave us two excellent ones: Neuromancer by William Gibson and The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson, plus two good ones—Green Eyes by Lucius Shepard and Them Bones by Howard Waldrop. Other fine first novels included Divine Endurance by Gwyneth Jones (Allen & Unwin), Procurator by Kirk Mitchell (Ace), Emergence by David R. Palmer (Bantam), Frontera by Lewis Shiner (Baen), Winter's Daughter by Charles Whitmore (Timescape), and The Game Beyond by Melissa Scott (Baen).

  My favorite sf novel of the year was Across the Sea of Suns by Gregory Benford (Timescape), followed by
Demon by John Varley (Berkley). Other outstanding sf novels included The Integral Trees by Larry Niven (Del Rey) and Heechee Rendezvous by Frederik Pohl (Del Rey). Star Rebel by F.M. Busby (Bantam) is an excellent space opera.

  It was a good year for books about science fiction. Editor David Hartwell gave us his personal view of sf in Age of Wonders (Walker) and Jack Williamson did a marvelous autobiography, Wonder's Child: My Life in Science Fiction (Bluejay). The Faces of Science Fiction by Patti Perret (Bluejay) is a collection of photographs of sf authors in their native habitats. Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections (1977-1983) by William Contento (G.K. Hall) is the second volume in an extremely important ongoing reference work. The newest edition of A History of the Hugo, Nebula & International Fantasy Awards, the most used reference work in sf, is available from Howard DeVore, 4705 Weddel St., Dearborn, MI 48125 for $6.00 postpaid. It lists winners and nominees for all the major awards. It's impossible to play sf trivia without it.

  The Years of the City (Timescape) by Frederik Pohl, a series of stories about a future New York, is somewhere between a short story collection and a novel. It's a fine piece of work in any case. Pohl, one of our best writers, also had another collection, Pohlstars (Del Rey). Other recommended science fiction collections are One Winter in Eden by Michael Bishop (Arkham), The Songbirds of Pain by Garry Kil worth (Gollancz), Extraordinary) People by Joanna Russ (St. Martin's), Utopia Hunters by Somtow Sucharitkul (Bantam), and Rhialto the Marvellous by Jack Vance (Brandywyne).

  Light Years and Dark, edited by Michael Bishop, was the outstanding anthology of the year.

  The sf magazines survived again, but things don't look too good. There were five professional fiction magazines which produced fifty issues. Both figures are the same as last year and among the lowest figures in forty years. Newsstand circulation has eroded to the point where it's probably a money-losing proposition for all, only of use to bring in a flow of new subscriptions and as advertising. There's no way of dropping it, though. Even though two out of three magazines are thrown away, it's still one of the cheapest forms of advertising. A digest costs about 17 cents to print. Direct advertising through the mail costs $10 or more per new subscriber. Advertising in other magazines is cheaper, but only brings in a small number of responses per ad.