The increasing field of good short SF

kw: book reviews, science fiction, collections, short stories

For a longish generation that I call the "trash years," a great deal of science fiction/speculative fiction/semi-hard fantasy was published by authors who were feeling their oats after the restrictions against overt sexual content were lifted in the wake of what we now quaintly call the sexual revolution. A wet dream fantasy in a sci-fi setting is still a wet dream fantasy.

Now writers who were mostly born after The Pill hit the market, and after Gender was uprooted from biological sex, are filling the market with books and short stories based on good ideas, well presented…and I mean "good" in both a conceptual sense and an ethical sense. Being an old-fashioned, conservative, spiritually active fuddy-duddy, I keep my distance from roughly half the social trends out there, but I am also aware that, in the context of the various subcultures that now make up Western society and American society in particular, most characters in these stories are presented as "doing good" (or trying to) according to the environment in which they find themselves.

Thus, the new collection The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman, gathers twenty stories of Novelette length and shorter by writers that may not be household names yet, but most of them have the potential. Seventeen of the stories were new to me; three are also found in other collections I read in recent months. I do have a quibble with the word "The" in the title. Too exclusive. These are "Some" of a large number of new voices, and as a series title (which I suspect is where this is heading), I'd like it better if "The" were removed.

I'll limn a few stories that I find worth special mention. "Openness" by Alexander Weinstein explores the results of over-sharing, aided by technology that permits near-telepathic contact. It is probably where some folks would like FaceBook/Instagram et al to take us. The concept of "bubbles" of privacy has been around for a long time. In an office, awaiting an appointment, if you sit far from the receptionist, you'll be ignored. Sit closer than about ten feet, and the receptionist will almost certainly talk to you, or ask if there's anything you need. That's one bubble. Then the arm's length bubble is for close friends and intimates only, at least for most of us. Various cultures have these bubbles, usually just the two, but the sizes can differ, as can what is permitted and what is discouraged within each. This is reflected in the "layers" of sharing that the technology of "Openness" assumes. We don't need technology to realize that most relationships need boundaries, and "TMI" can drive people away. The story's technology just facilitates it happening even faster.

I noted in the author description that Nino Cipri uses "they" pronouns and has a gender description rather longer than average. While I don't care for such things, I read their story "The Shape of My Name," kind of like trying Brussels Sprouts for the first time (Hey, I can't stand how Sprouts smell, so why should I expect them to taste good?). Stripped of the time travel elements, which are interesting in themselves, it is a story of a young female-born coming out as a male, and having access to future medical tech that makes a complete bodily conversion possible. The crux of the story is the series of reactions of the protagonist's mother, who finally self-exiles to a future year beyond which the family time machine cannot reach. So this is also a tale of abandonment, a very real fear of many young people today, as they explore levels and directions within themselves that are either meaningless or repugnant to the prior generation. Author Cipri is a good enough writer to elicit my sympathy for the protagonist, for which I appreciate them.

"The Secret Life of Bots" by Suzanne Palmer is a triumph-of-the-unexpected tale. The "bots" are not traditional robots by any means. They are mostly about the size of June beetles, and are probably modeled on them. But a few kajillion of them, the maintenance crew of a starship, pull a very big chestnut out of the fire on behalf of the hapless humans who don't realize that yon "bug/bot" has at least as good a brain, and that instantaneous communications can overcome a heck of an obstacle. Think of a crowd of cooperating Neanderthals taking on a Woolly Mammoth, raised to the nth power.

I could mention a couple of other treatments of time travel, but instead I'll touch on the last story, "A Study in Oils" by Kelly Robson. A conscience-wracked athlete/artist is in hiding after semi-accidentally killing an opposing teammate, in a sport that one must sign a big-time disclaimer and waiver just to play. Sort of like 1930's-era boxing was, but this is moon hockey, and it's easy to think of the implications of a sometimes deadly sport moved into 1/6th-G! The fellow paints to work through his anguish, which actually helps his legal case. To say more would be too much of a spoiler.

These and other "new voices" are sure to strengthen the whole SF field in years to come.