Year’s Best SF 15 (56 page)
Authors: David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Maybe it wasn't all of the tomorrows that mattered, Chabane realized. Maybe what was truly important was preserving the past, and working for a better
today
. Perhaps
that
was the only real way to choose what kind of future we will inhabit.
But Taninna was right, Chabane knew, looking back to the silent man sitting in the cool glow of the prometheic light. The stranger
did
have Salla's eyes.
Ellen Datlow, Gardner R. Dozois, Jonathan Strahan, Nick Gevers, Pete Crowther, especially among the anthologists, gave us some real help as well as publishing some good stories, and Alice Krasnostein, Jed Hartman, Trevor Quachri, Brian Bienowski, and Gordon Van Gelder answered a lot of last-minute queries and send a lot of files quickly.
D
AVID
G. H
ARTWELL
is currently a senior editor at Tor/Forge Books. He is the proprietor of Dragon Press, publisher and bookseller, which publishes the
New York Review of Science Fiction
. He is the author of
Age of Wonders
and the editor of many anthologies, including
The Dark Descent, Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment, The World Treasury of Science Fiction, Northern Stars, The Ascent of Wonder
(co-edited with Kathryn Cramer), and a number of Christmas anthologies. In addition to editing fifteen annual paperback volumes of
Year's Best SF
, he has also co-edited five volumes of
Year's Best Fantasy
. He has won the Eaton Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the
Science Fiction Chronicle
Poll, has been nominated for the Hugo Award thirty-one times to date, and has won the Hugo for Best Editor.
K
ATHRYN
C
RAMER
is a writer, anthologist, and housewife. She has won a World Fantasy Award for best anthology for
The Architecture of Fear,
co-edited with Peter Pautz; she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her anthology
Walls of Fear
. She has co-edited several anthologies with David G. Hartwell and now does the annual
Year's Best SF
with him. She is on the editorial board of the
New York Review of Science Fiction
and has been nominated for the Hugo Award twelve times. Her dark fantasy hypertext,
In Small and Large Pieces
, was published by Eastgate Systems, Inc.
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for previous volumes
“An impressive roster of authors.”
Locus
“The finest modern science fiction writing.”
Pittsburgh Tribune
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SF 5
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& Kathryn Cramer
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SF 7
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SF 8
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SF 9
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SF 10
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SF 11
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SF 12
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SF 13
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SF 14
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SF 15
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This book is a collection of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors' imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“Infinities” by Vandana Singh, copyright © 2008 by Vandana Singh.
“This Peaceable Land; or, The Unbearable Vision of Harriet Beecher Stowe” by Robert Charles Wilson, copyright © 2009 by Robert Charles Wilson.
“The Unstrung Zither” by Yoon Ha Lee, copyright © 2009 by Yoon Ha Lee.
“Black Swan” by Bruce Sterling, copyright © 2009 by Bruce Sterling.
“Exegesis” by Nancy Kress, copyright © 2009 by Nancy Kress.
“Erosion” by Ian Creasey, copyright © 2009 by Ian Creasey.
“Collision” by Gwyneth Jones, copyright © 2009 by Gwyneth Jones. First published in
When It Changed
, ed. by Geoff Ryman, Comma Press, Manchester, UK.
“Donovan Sent Us” by Gene Wolfe, copyright © 2009 by Gene Wolfe; first appeared in
Other Earths
; reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.
“The Calculus Plague” by Marissa K. Lingen, copyright © 2009 by Marissa K. Lingen.
“The Island” by Peter Watts, copyright © 2009 by Peter Watts.
“One of Our Bastards Is Missing” by Paul Cornell, copyright © 2009 by Paul Cornell.
“Lady of the White-Spired City” by Sarah L. Edwards, copyright © 2009 by Sarah L. Edwards.
“The Highway Code” by Brian Stableford, copyright © 2009 by Brian Stableford.
“On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War-Machines
of the Merfolk” by Peter M. Ball, copyright © 2009 by Peter M. Ball.
“The Fixation” by Alastair Reynolds, copyright © 2009 by Alastair Reynolds.
“In Their Garden” by Brenda Cooper, copyright © 2009 by Brenda Cooper.
“Blocked” by Geoff Ryman, copyright © 2009 by Geoff Ryman.
“The Last Apostle” by Michael Cassutt, copyright © 2009 by St. Croix Productions, Inc.
“Another Life” by Charles Oberndorf, copyright © 2009 by Charles Oberndorf.
“The Consciousness Problem” by Mary Robinette Kowal, copyright © by Mary Robinette Kowal.
“Tempest 43” by Stephen Baxter, copyright © 2009 by Stephen Baxter.
“Bespoke” by Genevieve Valentine, copyright © 2009 by Genevieve Valentine.
“Attitude Adjustment” by Eric James Stone, copyright © 2009 by Eric James Stone. First published in
Analog Science Fiction & Fact
, September 2009.
“Edison's Frankenstein” by Chris Roberson, copyright 2009 by MonkeyBrain, Inc.
YEAR'S BEST SF 15
. Copyright © 2010 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Eos paperback printing: June 2010
EPub Edition © April 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199553-8
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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1
Line from a twentieth-century American novel,
Gone With the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell, now largely dismissed as both racist and romanticized. The male protagonist, Rhett Butler, speaks the line to the abrasive heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, as he leaves their marriage.
1
“Frankly” means that the speaker is talking without subterfuge or lies. Since only liars emphasize their truthfulnessâenlightened endolas, of course, represent truth with their very beingsâthe speaker is openly announcing that he is lying, signaling to the hearer that everything which follows is therefore
untrue. In fact, the speaker
does
give a damn. This sort of convoluted speech was often necessary in pre-Collapse societies, in which “governments” were so politically oppressive that truth could not be openly spoken.
2
“My dear” is an honorific, similar in construction to the equally archaic, hierarchical “my lord” or “your excellency.” This suggests that in the original, the speaker was addressing some sort of lord or commander.
3
“Damn.” Rigorous scholarship by Kral BlackG3 reveals that this was a curse. Its presence in a coded message to a high official is intriguing. For centuries the folk saying has been associated with an extinct “servant class” that included ditch diggers, butlers, and dentists. It may be that in ancient times, when humans compelled other humans rather than robots to provide services, a folk saying was the only acceptable way to “curse” or condemn the owner class, even as the speaker obediently transmits whatever coded information followed. Unfortunately, the sentences following “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn” in this political drama have been lost.
NOTE: The common variation, still occasionally seen even in scholarly forums, is scripted in the short-lived and silly “Reformed English”: “Franklee, my der, I dont giv a dam.”
1
Frank LeeâUnknown folk persona who seems to have represented “straight shooting,” either verbal or (as is to be expected in violent historical periods) the use of personal arms. See
Frank and Jesse James
.
2
endolasâreligious scholars of the pre-Catastrophe EuroPolar Coalition. They conflated some solid learning with much mysticism. Organized into “groves,” “forests,” and “amazons,” in the eco-heavy nomenclature of that era.
3
This explanation is typical of the confused and ignorant thinking that prevailed in the Endola Age.
4
Collapseâone name given to the economic and social upheavals, circa 2190-2210. Exact dates have, of course, disappeared with much other history in the EMP Catastrophe. Other names: Crash, Cave-in, the Big Oops (etymology unknown).
5
governmentsâvernacular name for ruling bodies, some consensual and some not. All pre-date Electronic Fair Facilitation and Enforcement.
6
“so politically oppressive that truth could not be openly spoken.” Unable to say whether this analysis is or is not correct.
