Asimov's Science Fiction: July 2005
Asimov's Science Fiction: July 2005
No, I don't have a stack of back issues of an Asimov's subscription. I've got two issues from 2005 that were freebies, but I never got around to reading them. And while I'm reading them now, I can't consider it a example of what the mag is like, because I know these issues were published in that fuzzy time when Shelia Williams took over as editor, but these might be stories that Gardner Dozois chose. So what I'm saying is that I may pick up a current issue or two to get a better feel for the mag.
Also, I'm not reviewing the poetry. Unless I come across something that just FLOORS me, I'm not going to have anything useful to say but one word responses. :)
"The Children of Time"
by Stephen Baxter
What started out as an interesting story gave me some real problems. It’s divided into five parts, but nothing in those five parts prepares you for the HUGE time jump between, and the problem with that is that it isn’t obvious between the first and second parts that the story jumps. Instead, I’m reading what I think are inconsistencies until the omniscient voice intervenes to explain what’s going on, and even then, I have to re-read that paragraph several times to make sure I’m getting it straight. Once I figured out the pattern of the story, I was okay.
The pattern: an eleven-year-old child experience a stage in the dying evolution of Earth. And the sad thing about this is that each vignette had the potential to develop into its own story, but instead, we’re whisked away to the future to see another child, another evolutionary development of the earth and its creatures, except for humans. Scientifically, I had a hard time swallowing this idea that humans would survive. Granted, no generation flourished and took hold-humanity indeed was dying out-but the idea that the human race itself didn’t evolve? And while I have no scientific facts to base my instinct, but that there’d be enough oxygen to last the remnants of the human race (living under ground) even to the point that our sun has turned red giant? While the cyclic ending of the story was nice, I just had a difficult time believing it, and I kept wishing for a more cohesive story. Character rather than setting, and really, the whole point of the story is to tackle the various stages of Earth-death. Not like that’s a flaw, because some readers are really into that. I’m not, so I found myself more disappointed than amazed.
"Clipper's Last Ride"
by Richard Mueller
The unfortunate side-effect of reading Allen Steele’s Coyote books is that anything else written by anybody else with the slightest resemblance feels unoriginal and boring. Hence, my reaction to this story: I think if the writer had sat down and really gave us a chance to sink into this world and its characters, especially Clipper, I could’ve enjoyed the developing but doomed romance more than I did, and I could’ve appreciated the little discoveries of Clipper. Instead, we’re slapped with a situation and characters we don’t understand save for the surface, and as writer gets deeper, it comes off as contrived rather than natural. And I say contrived because there’s a distinct lack of motivation in the character of Clipper. Not in her heroic deed (can I say I’m starting to hate titles that give away the END of the story?), but in her sudden interest in the narrator. And while I could buy she was one tough lady who cut hair and played guitar, her love for animals came as a surprise, but her talent for drawing came out of left field. Little things like this really threw me out of the story.
Story itself? The big frogs were cool, and the skulks interesting, though even they seemed to lack any motivation save for “primitive aliens tired of planet taken over by humans and want revenge”. Oh well. Like I said, the whole idea of a frontier planet gave me too many parallels to Steele’s work, and Steele’s work is so well done that this pales in comparison. Course, that just might be a personal problem. ;)
"Killing Time"
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Wow, this is an impressive little piece. My only complaint is the first two segments where I thought it was JP who was our narrator (a girl named JP? That kept throwing me), but after that, I was hooked. I love the premise, and I love even more the fact that Paula refuses to go along with this technological wonder of reliving memories and killing time until she simply dies. But what really hit me was when Paula was trying to remember a happy decade, but each decade she remembers is full of trials and daily life. The mundane. God, how many lives does that describe anyhow? And even more frightening, it makes you turn back and look at yourself, makes you wonder what you’ll be up as the years tick by.
So it’s a really good piece, really good. I love how it makes you think and makes you take the story and put yourself in the story’s shoes. Great work.
"RAW"
by Daniel Grotta
So I have to love the premise and idea driving this story: man tests a new digital camera, gets struck by lightning, and said camera becomes a portal for viewing parallel dimensions where the dead still live. Meaning, the narrator is dead in this parallel dimension, but his sister, who died in his dimension, is alive in that same parallel.
This could’ve been a wonderfully poignant, emotional, and heart-breaking story of two people trying to recapture what they’d lost and recreate their family. Instead, we get this sudden flip of a conspiracy/thriller where “the powers that be” KNOW of these parallel dimensions, somehow communicate with one another while disallowing normal people to have contact. End result that the narrator is trying to hide from THEM because THEY want to kill him for his discoveries, and they get rid of anyone else who knows about them too.
There are so many ways this story could’ve been amazing. Hell, the thriller aspect could’ve worked if the narrator WERE killed and the story ended with him continuing to live in his parallel dimension at the breaking point (there’s a theory that at moments of death, dimensions split so that the person who dies is still alive in another dimension. Whatever the pivotal moment is that triggered the death in one world doesn’t happen in the next), where the reader would’ve seen that not only the theory was true, but that the narrator will go through life never knowing of this amazing miracle which allows him to reconnect with his sister.
So aside from all the missed opportunities of the plot, the writing style drove me batty. Forget the fact that on some level, science fiction should explain the science and detail so that the reader gets how the story works (for the record, I wasn’t interested in said detail, which got mundane, but that’s me): this first person narrator talked AT me. Not TO me, but AT me.
Not only was the constant flow of detail boring (to me), but the prose was chock full of phrases like “the proverbial cat out of the bag” or “this was all standard, so I didn’t think twice” (I’m not directly quoting here, but paraphrasing; you get the idea). The prose was dry of any kind of emotion, and while I liked the fact that the sister had reason to accept the phenomena, I resented the fact that the reunion lacked any kind of heart. Couple all this with the whole frame of “the only evidence left is this picture and my memory so I’m writing this down so people will know the truth before THEY come and get me” is so overdone it sucks the tension right out of the story. Sorry, but I’ve been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. Thank you and have a nice day.
So I guess this is a case of one of those “great idea!” stories, but for me, it everything about it fell flat. I think the kind of story I would’ve wanted this to be would’ve had to have been handled by a writer with the same tastes as mine, which is to say nothing bad of Grotta. His writing style simply isn’t my cup of tea.
"Waking Chang-Er"
by Samantha Ling
Cute story. The opening definitely got my attention, and the narrative voice is fun. I’m still a little confused about the Monkey and how that played out, but what can you expect from characters known to be Tricksters? But if there’s a moral to this story it’s that life doesn’t always turn out the way we want, but there’s no reason not to make the best out of what you’ve got and be happy.
Yet, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something from this story. Maybe if I knew the original legend, I’m have a deeper insight, but since I don’t, I feel a little left out. Oh well. Cute story, nonetheless.
"The Real Deal"
Peter Friend
This is a good story. It took me a while to get through the first couple pages because they were dense, and the details kept throwing me. At first I thought Picasso was some kind of religion, but once I figured out they were an alien race, I was fine. Although, I did keep questioning if our narrator was truly a monkey for a while, at least until we met other humans.
I enjoyed the concept of the story, and I loved why Picassos used humans for Collecting. And the ending is lovely, even though the present tense tripped me up a bit.
"The Compass"
by Edd Vick
I really like the idea of this story, disturbing as it is, though the story itself is a little sterile for me. I had lots of questions, about why the fetus automatically oriented itself to Earth (I guess Earth becomes a parallel for the North Star), and why there wasn't more of an effort on the ship to impregnate women for emergencies. I liked the twist of the second pregnancy, though like I said, this story was too sterile. Little emotion, and Dorrie's perspective felt false somehow, unrealistic, and I wish we could've seen the scene where she volunteered her fetus, to see if she really volunteered or not.
"Girls and Boys, Come Out to Play"
by Michael Swanwick
Fun premise, but I wish I was more familiar with the two main characters, Darger and Surplus. It's one of those cases where this is a short written about two characters that have had other adventures, but unfortunately, I haven't read other adventures.
But the story's pretty much self-contained, so it's easy to focus on what's going on, which is about a group of African scientists creating gods, and much havoc results. The story's light-hearted, fun, and creative in its god-creating methods, though I kept thinking of a friend of mine who writes using mythological creatures as his cast and therefore kept having "moments" that says nothing about the story I'm reading.
So it's a cute piece, though I wish I were more familiar with the two MC's to really appreciate their characters.
So let's see...I liked 3/8 stories. Rusch's piece definitely outshines them all for me, but Friend's piece was really good too. Like I said, I'm not reviewing the poetry, because let's face it, one-worded reactions without any support are not much of a review.