The Brains of Rats - Michael Blumlein

This is a review of the short story that originally appeared in Interzone in 1986, the same title was later used for a collection, which came out in 1990. The story is included in the enormous anthology The Big Book of Science Fiction (2016), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, which is where I read it. The story is available to read online at Lightspeed, which published in in the March 2015 issue. It is one of those stories that are hard to categorize. It was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for instance, but some people also think of it as horror. Perhaps that last label is most fitting. The Brains of Rats is a very unsettling tale.

The main character is a doctor and researcher who has the means to influence the gender of unborn children. He could, should he want to, make sure all newborns are male or female. As he thinks over the possibilities this creates, his thoughts touch on genetics, human sexuality, cultural practices and a number of patients he has seen over the course of his career. None of which brings him closer to the answer of how to proceed.

Society has told us for many centuries that gender is binary. You are considered male or female, and raised within a set of rules your culture finds acceptable for your gender. For many people this approximation is comfortable enough, but it has been known for a long time that reality is more complex. In this story Blumlein describes how the genes that make us male or female have not changed much over the course of many million years of evolution, and that they are in fact nearly identical to those of species removed from us by millions of years of evolution. What has changed, so Blumlein tells us, is our brain. Many layers of cognitive development overlay the primitive core that determines sexuality.

The main character feels this rapid evolution of our brain muddies the waters. In his mind, what we think and what society tells us about sexuality and gender is at odds with how the brain functions. The main character sees the divide in our brain reflected in various forms of violence. Ranging from spousal abuse, to  gender equality and the treatment of gender queer people, the story contains countless examples how poorly people treat each other. At one point I felt the main character undercut himself a bit by referring to the myth of the 9th century female pope. Although it has been discredited by modern historians, the story was widely accepted as historical for many centuries, so maybe he has a point there too.

There are two elements of the story that make it somewhat creepy. The first is the way the main character brings up his four year old daughter and compares her innocence to what he sees in the world around him. He reflects on how, even at that age, society is already beginning to excerpt its influence. The other is the detached, analytic tone the main character employs. It is a first person narrative, but very little emotion, apart from a vague sense of confusion, seeps through. He is analysing most of the time, looking for the correct diagnosis, both for himself and the species as a whole, without quite finding one that fits completely. Although the main character is essentially passive throughout the story, his thoughts are most unsettling. The Brains of Rats will definitely make you reconsider your own convictions about  gender and sexuality.

Story Details
Title: The Brains of Rats
Author: Michael Blumlein
Language: English
Originally published: Interzone, #16 Summer 1986
Read in: The Big Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (2016)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 6,500 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: The Long Chase - Geoffrey A. Landis

For the final story in Short Fiction Month, I picked The Long Chase by Geoffrey A. Landis. His work is primarily short fiction of which I have read exactly nothing. This particular story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2002 and was later reprinted in Lightspeed, September 2010. In a way, this story brings us back to the start of the month. It is a far future science fiction, in which post-human characters are in the spotlight.

A war rages in the solar system. When it is over, one miner out in the Oort cloud wishes to retain her independence. To stay out of the hands of the enemy there is only one option: leave the solar system. It takes several centuries to get a gravity assist from the Sun and swing out of the system. Soon, she realizes her attempt has been noticed. A centuries long chase through interstellar space ensues.

The story is written in the form of a series of log entries. Sometimes there are centuries between them, which nicely emphasizes the scale of the story. There is plenty of detail about the mechanics of moving through space, how fuel is necessary for braking as well as accelerating, and how missing a target can mean not seeing it ever again. Landis plays with scale by making the main character a machine the size of a grain of sand. The contrast almost couldn't be greater.

What I also found interesting about the story is that in order to escape, and that impulse goes very far back for the main character, she keeps shedding layers of humanity. Her body to begin with, and later more and more emotions and feelings. This stripped down intelligence pulls essentially the same trick to escape from the long chase. How much does there have to be left to make independence worthwhile?

The Long Chase is a very well written tale. I liked the style and non-linear way the story unfolds in particular. There is something strange about a story dealing with deeply human desires, expressed by a sentient machine in the hostile environment of interstellar space. It leads the reader to wonder how human the main character is, and what makes her human or machine. A good story to end the month with. Landis is on the to read list too.

Story Details
Title: The Long Chase
Author: Geoffrey A. Landis
Language: English
Originally published: Asimov's Science Fiction, February 2002
Read in: Lightspeed Year One, edited by John Joseph Adams (2011)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 4,400 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: Elliot Wrote - Nancy Kress

I have read quite a few pieces of short fiction by Nancy Kress. She seems most comfortable writing novella length pieces (to the point where many of her novels are three novellas put together) but there are quite a few short stories and novelettes as well. She regularly ends up on award shortlists with her shot work. This particular story did not get nominated and I can see why. It did not have the same impact some of her stronger stories had on me.

Eliot's father is a mathematician. A man of numbers, of reason, and of science. One day, he has a religious experience after seeing the image of Zeus on a strawberry toaster pastry. It upsets him to such a degree that he is admitted to a mental hospital. They offer him a treatment that will remove the memory from his brain. Elliot wants him to have this treatment, but since he is still under age, he cannot give permission. The only person who can is his aunt, who in many ways is the opposite of his father. Rationality plays no part in her decision, and this frustrates Elliot greatly.

What Kress does in many of her stories is explore the impact of some piece of science, biological, genetic, or in this case neurological, on an individual. In this case it is a procedure to remove memories. I have no idea if it is based on some real or proposed procedure. The description is so vague that I suspect it isn't. The human mind is still very poorly understood, and it will not come as a surprise to the reader that it has side effects. Elliot, who believes in numbers and evidence, has trouble accepting that people base decision on feelings or statistically insignificant occurrences. Elliot is pretty extreme in this, and that makes him a somewhat unlikely character.

What I did like about the story, is the way in which he keeps looking for the right metaphor for the human brain. It is a nice illustration of him grappling with something that is not understood, something that perhaps can't be understood. Where his father tries to capture god with numbers, Elliot tries to capture the brain with words. Where it drives one to give up, the other realizes the importance of the attempt.

There is a lot of potential in the story but for some reason the elements don't really fall into place. Where in Kress' best work, the consequences of a scientific discovery for the main character, or the society they live in, is central to the story, here it seems to be the nudge for the main character to gain insight in the way people perceive the world. The father who is actually undergoing the procedure and the change that comes with it, is of lesser importance to the story. His situation is probably just as interesting as that of the son however. Although I am having difficulty pinpointing it, the story leaves me with the feeling that Kress missed an opportunity somewhere along the way.

Story Details
Title: Elliot Wrote
Author: Nancy Kress
Language: English
Originally published: Lightspeed, May 2011
Read in: Lightspeed Year One, edited by John Joseph Adams (2011)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 4,700 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: Walking Awake - N. K. Jemisin

Walking Awake is one of the original stories in Lightspeed's special edition Women Destroy Science Fiction. Jemisin is very successful with her novels at the moment, picking up a Hugo and a whole lot of nominations for other awards for her novel The Fifth Season last year. She is one of the voices calling for more diversity in the genre, something that has brought her in open conflict with Vox Day, one of the people behind the Rabid Puppies campaigns to influence the outcome of the Hugo Awards in recent yeas. As far as I am concerned she deserved a Hugo just for that.

The story is set in an establishment which caters to the Masters. These long lived individuals are capable of taking over human bodies, and as long as they change before the human host dies, they can live for centuries. The bodies they wear, are the product of a careful breeding program. The honour of serving the masters that way is only reserved for the finest specimens. Sadie is flawed. She has taken on the role of caregiver, taking care of the next generation of hosts for the Masters. Slowly she is beginning to realize that serving the Masters may not be the honour she was taught to believe in.

The main theme of the story is oppression. The Masters are obviously not quite what they appear to be, and serving them most certainly is not an honour. They are vain, wasteful and view humans as a resource. The Masters are powerful however, and Sadie is not. The story goes on to detail how Sadie finds out the true nature of the Masters, and how a powerless, flawed and scared person such as herself can challenge them anyway.

Another point this story makes, is that oppression is of our own making. The Masters did not create their slaves, humans created the masters and in doing so enslaved their offspring. Oppression cannot just be fought, it can be prevented from occurring (or reoccurring, the story is set in the future) if one is avoids dehumanizing even one's enemies. "All the monsters" one of the characters says, "were right here."

Walking Awake is a story with a powerful message. One that isn't delivered with any great subtlety. That was definitely something the anthology could use. It is, after all, among other things, a statement against sexism in publishing and the science fiction fandom. People who do not appreciate so much politics in their fiction will probably not like this story. I'm pretty sure it will draw very mixed responses from readers. I liked the story and I think the message needs to be heard. Given the ongoing Hugo mess and other events in the genre, a bit more directness might be just what the progressives of science fiction need.

Story Details
Title: Walking Awake
Author: N. K. Jemisin
Language: English
Originally published: Lightspeed Special Issue Women Destroy Science Fiction! (June 2014)
Read in: Lightspeed Special Issue Women Destroy Science Fiction! (June 2014)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 6,000 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: In-Fall - Ted Kosmatka

Ted Kosmatka is not a prolific short story writer. Only fifteen or so short stories appeared in the last decade, along with three novels. After The N-Word and The Divining Light, In-Fall is the third one I read. It originally appeared in Lightspeed in December 2010. The story is a brief tale that explores both the implications of Einstein's theory of general relativity, as well as those of absolute religious beliefs. The way Kosmatka presents them, they are not radically opposed views.

A boy and an old man face each other on a ship falling towards a black hole. The man wants information the boy is unwilling to provide. When rough questioning has failed, another strategy is called for to convince a true fanatic.

Kosmatka makes some interesting observations about the ease in which ever more densely populated areas can be attacked with relatively easy means, and yet result in a huge number of casualties. He takes it a few steps into the future, but recent terrorist tactics have shown exactly what he means.

That is not the main idea behind the story though. A real fanatic, so Kosmatka reasons, is hard to defeat because death will see them to paradise. What if, by using time dilation effects, you could deny them whatever afterlife they were hoping for? The story ignores this question, but does not lead to the conclusion one might expect.

In-Fall is a brief tale but, under a rather brutal plot, does include a lot of food for thought. It is one of those stories where a science fiction concept allows the author to explore a human topic from a different angle. It is very effective. Given the subject, it might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I thought it was very well done.

Story Details
Title: In-Fall
Author: Ted Kosmatka
Language: English
Originally published: Lightspeed, December 2010
Read in: Lightspeed Year One, edited by John Joseph Adams (2011)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 3,500 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: All That Touches the Air - An Owomoyela

An Owomoyela is another name new to me. I know absolutely nothing about Owomoyela, other than that se is from the US and prefers it if we use nonstandard pronouns. This is harder than it seems but I will try not to slip. Owomoyela's output to date comprises only short fiction. All That Touches the Air was first published in Lightspeed in 2011. It is a science fiction tale and is still available online. It's an interesting story. I have rolled the dice a few times in Short Fiction Month. This is one of those stories I'm glad I found.

Humanity has spread through the galaxy and colonized numerous planets. Not all attempts are equally successful. On one planet, they encounter a sentient and very dangerous species. An understanding is reached with them. The humans are allowed to stay in their closed habitats. The ones that touch the open air can be taken by the local species. A fate worse than death, or so some feel.

Structurally, it is a very well thought out piece. The tale opens with a scene where a member of the colony is deliberately exposed. The cruelty of the act and the impact it has on the main character who witnesses it, are not entirely clear to the reader right away. Owomoyela takes the time to explain the full impact of that event. By the end of the story, the leap the main character takes is clear. In a way we are back where we started, but looked at from another angle, the roles are reversed. It's very clever really.

The story is told in the first person, from the point of view of a character with some pretty severe mental issues. It reminded me of Emma Newman's novel Planetfall (2015). The character's fear of being exposed to air leads to some pretty strange behaviour. Fear of the alien species permeates the narrative. The author uses that to make the climax of the story an overwhelming experience.

The alien species in All That Touches the Air is suitably alien. They don't think in legal terms like we do. The understanding they reached with the human colony implies the threat that they could change their mind at any time and take them out. The relationship with the aliens is very much about power. They do not feel it necessary to demonstrate that power though. Once the main character overcomes their fear of them, the dynamic of power changes. The aliens realize this before the main character does. Power, not law or ethics, is the key to their behaviour.

I liked the way the story deals with fear and the power that can be derived from overcoming it. There is a darker side to the story as well though. Power is to be feared, a struggle to take over power from the aliens is considered the only way for the colony to survive. The main character doesn't think about it in those terms but both the colony government and the aliens take an almost Darwinistic perspective to the interaction between their species. They can't both occupy the niche of dominant species. Liberation of one, goes at the expense of the other. It is a well executed science fiction story indeed. I am impressed by Owomoyela's work.

Story Details
Title: All That Touches the Air
Author: An Owomoyela
Language: English
Originally published: Lightspeed Magazine, April 2011
Read in: Lightspeed Year One, edited by John Joseph Adams (2011)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 7,100 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: The Silence of the Asonu - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Silence of the Asonu is probably not one of the best known stories by Le Guin. It wasn't nominated for any awards I'm aware of and has not been reprinted much outside Le Guin collections. The story originally appeared in Orion in 1998 under the title The Wisdom of The Asonu. All subsequent publications exchange wisdom for silence. In 2010 it was reprinted in Lightspeed where it can still be read for free.

The story describes an alien people who, as adults, are almost entirely silent. While younger Asonu talk quite a lot, older members of the species can go years without uttering a single word. This silence is fascinating to many people and the Asonu soon become the objects of intense study.

There is a lot of humour in the story, especially at the expense of people reading all sorts of things into the Asonu silence. Some see them as good listeners for instance.

Others follow their Asonu guides or hosts about, talking to them  continually, confiding their whole life stories to them, in rapture at  having at last found a listener who won’t interrupt or comment or  mention that his cousin had an even larger tumor than that. As such  people usually know little Asonu and speak mostly or entirely in their  own language, they evidently aren’t worried by the question that vexes  some visitors: Since the Asonu don’t talk, do they, in fact, listen?

Their silence makes them appear wise to some. People approach them with a religious reverence and their every word is considered a pearl of wisdom. Some go to extremes not to miss the few words that are being spoken. Under all that mocking are a couple of very serious messages though.

The human tendency to fill in the blanks if someone does not speak for themselves is one of them. Le Guin takes it one step further by mentioning an incident in which the silence of the Asonu is considered a justification for a horrible crime. Le Guin in effect points out that not having a voice, leads those that do to not take your needs, desires or feelings into account. Replace Asonu with the name of any random marginalized group and you'll see her point. Another point the story makes is just as sad really. Apparently it is very hard to accept that not everybody has the same desires. To not speak is seen as concealment, a snub, an insult, something to be cured. If we cannot accept difference within our own species this really does not bode well for any alien that might cross our path.

The Silence of the Asonu is a little gem. Both a humorous tale and a call for more empathy, it packs a lot into a short text. It must have flown under the radar the years it was first published. This is easily as good as some of Le Guin's award nominated short fiction. As far as I am concerned, this is recommended reading.

Story Details
Title: The Silence of the Asonu
Author: Ursula K. Le Guin
Language: English
Originally published: Orion (1998)
Read in: Lightspeed Year One, edited by John Joseph Adams (2011)
Story length: Short Story, approximately 2,500 words
Awards: None
Available online: Lightspeed

Short Fiction Month: The Day the World Turned Upside Down - Thomas Olde Heuvelt

Thomas Olde Heuvelt is the first Dutch writer to ever win a Hugo. It is a dubious distinction as he most likely owes his award in a large part to the antics of the Sad Puppies. In a category where he was the only nominee not on the Puppy slates, voters ranked his story alone above No Award. I very much doubt it is how he had hoped to win a Hugo, but given the snub it implied to the Puppies, it probably was satisfying nonetheless.

This story appeared as a booklet under the Dutch title De Vis in de Fles (literally: The Fish in the Bottle) in 2013. The first English publication of the story originally appeared in Lightspeed and was translated by Lia Belt. Belt is the translator of various big names in fantasy (Feist, Rothfuss) into Dutch. I read it both in English and Dutch for this review. The English version is slightly edited and omits a few bits and pieces from the Dutch original. The English word count being higher is probably caused by the widespread use of compound words in the Dutch language. Personally I didn't feel the edits improved the story. They are minor, but if you can, read the Dutch edition.

One day, gravity fails and the world turns upside down. Toby is a man suffering through a breakup with his girlfriend Sophie when it happens. While recovering from his landing on the ceiling, he sees she texted him. She left her goldfish Bubble at his place and will swing by later to pick him up. Considering it a sign she is still alive, Toby rescues Bubble and sets out to find her.

The story is essentially a metaphore. In his short fiction, Olde Heuvelt likes to play with images that are physically impossible. To literally portray a figure of speech or a metaphor. He did this in his other Hugo Award nominated story, The Boy Who Cast no Shadow (2013) as well.  Tobi's breakup turns his world upside down (Dutch: zet zijn wereld op z'n kop) and the world reflects his state of mind.

Olde Heuvelt has stated he wrote the story after a breakup so there is probably a bit more of the author in Toby. It is not exactly a flattering portrayal. Toby is hurt and it turns him into a selfish bastard really. While this may not be an unusual reaction there were a few things about Toby that bothered me. We see things entirely from his point of view but at the end of the story, I still had no idea why he loved her. How she hurt him yes, but what the basis for his attraction is, beyond the physical, remains unclear. It is entirely filled with negative emotions, to the point where he completely disregards the life and feelings of others as well.

I suppose one way to interpret it, is to draw the parallel between Sophie and Bubbles. Sophie is caught in Toby's fantasy of their romance like Bubbles is caught in the bottle. Sophie however, has the means to break free. In the end, Toby lets go, again both literally and figuratively, I was again struck by the difference it implied for the fate of Bubbles and Sophie. Toby doesn't consider this. He is entirely too self-centred to do so.

The one aspect I did like about the story is Dawnie (Fiep in the Dutch version), the young girl Toby meets along the way. Olde Heuvelt perfectly captures the way children can ask the most obvious questions an adult might overlook. She is more precious than Toby appreciates.

So is it a good story? Some would say it is. It is well written at some levels. Did I like it? Not one bit to be honest. Olde Heuvelt is right in that letting go is an important part of ending a relationship and moving on. The way Toby goes about it though, is problematic in so many ways that I didn't really enjoy reading it. Olde Heuvelt's novels are generally more to my liking.

Story Details
Title: The Day the World Turned Upside Down
Author: Ian McDonald
Language: English, Dutch
Translation: Lia Belt
Originally published: English: Lightspeed Magazine, April 2014, Dutch: De Vis in de Fles, 2013
Read in: Lightspeed, Hebban
Story length: Novelette, English wordcount 10367, Dutch wordcount approximately 9900
Awards: Hugo Award winner
Available online: English: Lightspeed, Dutch: Hebban

Short Fiction Month: Scales - Alastair Reynolds

A new year starts with an Alastair Reynolds review on Random Comments. The man has written dozens of short stories so there is plenty to choose from. For a more detailed look at his short fiction check out the reviews of the collections Galactic North (2006) and Zima Blue and Other Stories (2006). Scales has been published online in two places and has been included in two anthologies. It has yet to appear in one of his collections, which is one of the reasons why I picked it.

Scales is one of those stories that only works in the short length. Reynolds writes it in a circle so to speak ending where he started, and uses that to deliver a very unsettling tale. It opens with the main character waiting in line to sign up for the military and gain citizenship (a distinct echo of Starship Troopers here). As a tangible reminder of why this is necessary, a captured soldier of the enemy, a reptilian looking alien whose species has attacked the Earth unprovoked, is held in a cage nearby to be tortured by the people waiting in line. Soon after signing up, the main character finds out the war is not quite what it seemed.

Reynolds takes us from the very physical confrontation with the captured alien to ever increasing levels of abstract reality. The war is fought on planes of existence, for lack of a better word, that most people never imagined existed. It distances the character ever more from to brutal reality of what is going on in the universe as we perceive it. He does so without ever questioning or stepping back to gain a wider perspective of the situation. In a way, he is the perfect soldier, single-minded in his purpose to kill the enemy, flawlessly carrying out orders. He finds enemies behind enemies, and eventually sheds everything that makes him human.

There are echoes of Heinlein in this story but also a bit of The Matrix. The way the main character leaves his body behind and progresses onwards very much reminds me of that movie. Beyond the choice to sign up there is no going back though. There is no red pill or blue pill, the main character is not presented with a view of what awaits him. The way that what happens to him appears inevitable makes this story very disturbing. The combination of a main character who is both blind and powerless to shape his future, and willing to go along with whatever is presented to him, is very troubling indeed.

Dark futures are not uncommon in Reynolds' work but in this story he takes it very far even by his standards. It is a well written tale. I appreciated the structure of the story, how it progresses and then comes full circle. It is too brief to really do much with the main character though. He is a pawn and that is all there is to it. As such, it may not satisfy all readers.

Story Details
Title: Scales
Author: Alastair Reynolds
Language: English
Originally published: The Guardian website, June 23rd, 2009 (audio)
Read in: Lightspeed Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams
Story length: short story, 1931 words
Awards: none
Available online: The Guardian (audio), Lightspeed

Lightspeed Short Fiction

A few weeks ago I received the anthology Lightspeed Year One, edited by John Joseph Adams, as a reward for supporting one of their Kickstarter projects. It is a volume that collects the stories published in 2010, the first year of the magazine's existence. The magazine is still around but this is the only anthology to be published in what was intended to be an annual anthology. The book itself is a 575 page monster, containing 48 pieces of short fiction. It's a mix of reprints and originals. I have read quite a few in other publications already so I don't intend to read the whole thing any time soon. I have been reading a few stories new to me over the past couple of weeks though. Those I am going to review this week.

" . . . For a Single Yesterday" - George R. R. Martin

Last year I wrote a twenty-five thousand word piece on George R. R. Martin's massive collection Dreamsongs (in Dutch). Between that collection and various other collections and anthologies I must have read most of Martin's short stories by now. This one has escaped me until so far however. It was originally published in a 1975 anthology and has only appeared in long out of print Marin collections until Lightspeed dug it up. It is fairly typical 1970s Martin stuff really so I'm not surprised it didn't attract much attention. He has written better stories in that period.

The plot deals with the aftermath of a nuclear war. Central government has collapsed and groups of people are trying to form something resembling a stable society again. The main character is a semi-official leader in one such community. Tension in the group rises with a new arrival. He is a military man and his ideas and background clash with the liberal attitude of the community up to that point.

Martin, who had been a few years out of college when he wrote this, is clearly influenced by the early 1970s counter culture. Drug use is accepted, music plays a very important part in the story. Martin would reach back to that music in his novel The Armageddon Rag later. The drug is the most science fictional element of the story. It allows the user to relive the past more vividly than ordinary memory allows. A serious temptation for those who have lost loved ones. But would it not be better to use the drug to regain lost knowledge?

The characterization is the strongest element of this story. Although it is a fairly short piece he manages to develop three characters enough to make the drama that unfolds work. As a science fiction story it is a bit thin. As usual Martin is interested in his characters, all the other elements are in service of that.

The story can be read for free here.

Amaryllis - Carrie Vaughn

This story is a Lightspeed original. It was also the first one to be nominated for the Hugo Awards in 2011. The award would eventually go to Mary Robinette Kowal's story For Want of a Nail. The story also has a post-apocalyptic feel to it, but more in line with 21st century science fiction, the collapse is an ecological crisis rather than a nuclear one. It's been reprinted a number of times in various best of and post-apocalyptic anthologies.

The main character is the captain of a fishing boat, run by a small group of people she considers family. Their catch is very strictly regulated to prevent overfishing and having children requires permission to prevent unsustainable population growth. She gets into trouble when one of the officials fixes his scales to repeatedly put her over the limit.

I'm not entirely sure why this story has gotten as much attention as it has. The background is good, although regulating catch is much harder than the story makes it out to be  - ask anyone fishing in the North Sea these days - but the plot is just weak. The main character struggles with the selfishness of her mother, who conceived her without permission and ruined her family in the process. She doesn't really dare take action. 

The resolution of the conflict relies on one of her crew members doing the obvious. The motivation of this character to do so is not entirely clear, one could say she just can't stand the unfairness of it, but the cynic would say it is because she really wants to have a baby. All of this is followed by a happy ending. I liked Vaughn's vision of the future but the story itself is just mediocre and the main character passive. Not the best story in this batch for sure.

The story can be read for free here.

More Than the Sum of His Parts - Joe Haldeman

This one is another reprint. The story originally appeared in Playboy in May 1985. It was nominated for a Nebula Award. I have never read anything by Haldeman before, but from what I have read a lot of his fiction is influenced by his experiences during the Vietnam War. This influence is not all that obvious in this particular story however. At least not to me. Maybe someone who has read more of his work will see it differently.

The story is set in a far future when humanity has colonized the moon. The main character is very seriously burnt in an industrial accident. His skills are valuable however, so much so that his employer decides to pay for very far reaching treatment. He is in effect turned into a cyborg.

This story is very creepy. You can tell right away the character is completely unhinged. He talks about his accident and the changes made to his body in a mechanical way. There doesn't appear to be any feeling left in him. Apparently tossing some artificial limbs and organs together with bits and pieces of organic matter does not make a human. The question the reader is left with is whether or not the main character was a psychopath to begin with and the accident made it more prominent, or if it was the alterations to his body that turned him into one. Probably the strongest story in the batch.

The story can be read for free here.

Hwang's Billion Brilliant Daughters - Alice Sola Kim

I know absolutely nothing about Alice Sola Kim other than that she has about half a dozen short stories to her name. This one is a Lightspeed original and deals with time travel. Each time the main character wakes anything from a few days to many decades have passed. The only consistent factor in his life is the fact that he keeps running into his descendants in the female line.

This is a story that is more about style and form than about plot. The main character remains distant to the reader, in fact he becomes even more so the further he travels into the future. The author jumps back and forth in time to show us the motivation of the main character to start his time travels, giving us very brief glimpses of what a particular future would be like. They are shown to the reader in very brief paragraphs that seem to contain enough hints for an entire story.

The non-chronological, stop-start style of the writing may not appeal to all readers but personally I thought it is a beautiful bit of writing. It is one of those stories that would never work in the novel format. Probably the most love-it-or-hate-it story of the bunch but it fell the right way for me.

The story can be read for free here.

Four stories of the first year of Lightspeed. As I mentioned in the introduction, there are plenty more in the anthology. I may come back to it later in the year.