Voices from all directions

kw: book reviews, science fiction, space fiction, short stories, anthologies

Good collections of science fiction short stories are hard to find these days. I cut my SF-reading teeth on anthologies, much more than novels, in the 1960's. I don't know whether a lot fewer short stories are being written—it does seem that there are fewer SF periodicals than before—or that there are just fewer collections being published. Thus, I glommed onto a new collection of stories by Jack McDevitt instantly.

A Voice in the Night, which closes with a story of that title, contains 24 stories, mostly written during the past decade, but a few dating back as far as 1986. A few of the stories take us into alternatives to the Conan Doyle world of Sherlock Holmes, a few are straight Campbellian problem-solving romps, and many are various sorts of space opera with the author's particular twist. Or two.

The general milieu of a McDevitt space opera is a universe in which humans are the only spacefaring species, or even in which no other planet found in the past 10 millennia has even had bacterial life. But there are a few that are closer to a Star Trek universe, crammed with aliens, though in those stories, I note that nobody has FTL, and the only contact is via radio. Interspecies conversations take decades to unfold, and tend to be rather local!

McDevitt's stories have new ideas aplenty, and a couple have a different take on the viewpoint God might have. But I realize, in every case, to discuss the idea would be a spoiler, and I'd prefer for anyone reading this to have the joy/shock of getting into these stories for yourself. So that's it, folks. I loved the stories, I read them all-too-quickly, and I hope I find other collections, by this author and others, that are as compelling.