Year's Best Science Fiction 01 # 1984 Read online

  The reprint anthology market was even weaker this year than last year. The best reprint anthologies of 1983 probably were: The Fantasy Hall of Fame (Arbor House) and The Arbor House Treasury of Science Fiction (Arbor House), both edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg; The SF Weight-Loss Book (Crown), edited by Greenberg, Isaac Asimov, and George R.R. Martin; Nebula Award Stories Seventeen (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), edited by Joe Haldeman; Nebula Award Stories Eighteen (Arbor House), edited by Robert Silverberg; and Magic For Sale (Ace), edited by Avram Davidson.

  The SF-oriented nonfiction/SF reference book field was also weak in 1983. The best were: Dreammakers II (Berkley), by Charles Platt, not quite as good overall as Dreammakers I, but still containing a pretty high percentage of intelligently conducted, often provocative, and sometimes outrageous interviews; Dark Valley Destiny (Bluejay Books), by L. Sprague and Catherine Crook De Camp and Jane Griffin, likely to remain the definitive Robert E. Howard biography; and The SF Book of Lists (Berkley), by Maxim Jakubowski and Malcolm Edwards, a “reference” book totally without redeeming social value, but a sly and witty one that is a lot of fun to read.

  The SF movies of 1983 were generally lackluster at best. Return of the Jedi brought the famous Star Wars saga to a disappointing end. Jedi is ineptly directed, poorly paced and edited, filled with energyless wooden performances (Harrison Ford in particular stumbling through the film like one of the living dead), and marred by an impactless anticlimax which simply rehashes the big Death Star scene from Star Wars. At the end, the Good Ghosts all go to a party and sing campfire songs with the teddy bears, and everyone looks relieved that it’s over. Many of the rest of 1983’s SF films lost money at the box office (Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Twilight Zone Movie), and the ones that didn’t (Blue Thunder, War Games) usually weren’t terribly exciting either. The best movie of the lot was also the most associational: The Right Stuff, an entertaining (although somewhat inaccurate) historical film about the Mercury space shots. In the subgenre of movies made from Stephen King books, there was a decent version of The Dead Zone, a version of Cujo which played through town fast, and, at year’s end, a version of Christine which I haven’t had time to see yet.

  The 41st World Science Fiction Convention, ConStellation, was held in Baltimore, Maryland, over the Labor Day weekend, and drew an estimated attendance of 6,400 people. The convention was enjoyable and well-run logistically, but poor budget management, overly-optimistic preplanning (the committee had planned for at least a thousand more attendees than actually showed up), and several large unexpected last-minute expenses caused ConStellation to end up over $44,000 in debt, making it the only Worldcon in recent memory to lose money. The 1983 Hugo Awards, presented at ConStellation, were: Best Novel, Foundation’s Edge, by Isaac Asimov; Best Novella, “Souls,” by Joanna Russ; Best Novelette, “Fire Watch,” by Connie Willis; Best Short Story, “Melancholy Elephants,” by Spider Robinson; Best Non-Fiction, Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction, by James Gunn; Best Editor, Edward Ferman; Best Professional Artist, Michael Whelan; Best Dramatic Presentation, Bladerunner; Best Fanzine, Locus; Best Fan Writer, Richard E. Geis; Best Fan Artist, Alexis Gilliland; plus the John W. Campbell, Jr. Award to Paul O. Williams.

  The 1982 Nebula Awards, presented at a banquet in New York City on April 23rd, 1983, were: Best Novel, No Enemy But Time, by Michael Bishop; Best Novella, “Another Orphan,” by John Kessel; Best Novelette, “Fire Watch,” by Connie Willis; Best Short Story, “A Letter from the Clearys,” by Connie Willis.

  The 1983 World Fantasy Awards, presented at the Ninth World Fantasy Convention in Chicago over the Halloween weekend, were: Best Novel, Nifft the Lean, by Michael Shea; Best Novella (tie), “Beyond All Measure,” by Karl Edward Wagner and “Confess the Seasons,” by Charles L. Grant; Best Short Fiction, “The Gorgon,” by Tanith Lee; Best Anthology/Collection, Nightmare Seasons, by Charles L. Grant; Best Artist, Michael Whelan; Special Award (Professional), Donald M. Grant; Special Award (Non-Professional), Stuart David Schiff; Special Convention Award, Arkham House; plus a Life Achievement Award to Roald Dahl.

  The 1982 John W. Campbell Memorial Award winner was Helliconia Spring, by Brian W. Aldiss.

  The 1983 American Book Award in the Best Original Paperback category was won by Lisa Goldstein’s fantasy novel The Red Magician.

  The first Philip K. Dick Memorial Award was given to Software, by Rudy Rucker.

  Dead in 1983 were: MACK REYNOLDS, 65, an SF writer who specialized in economic and sociological speculation, author of Black Man’s Burden, Looking Backward from the Year 2000, Tomorrow Might Be Different, and many other books; ZENNA HENDERSON, best known for her “People” series about gentle aliens in hiding among us, author of Pilgrimage: The Book of the People and The People: No Different Flesh; MARY RENAULT, 78, internationally-known historical novelist whose The King Must Die and The Bull from the Sea function almost as borderline fantasies, and whose work influenced later fantasy writers such as Marion Zimmer Bradley, Thomas Burnett Swann, and Evangaline Walton; JOAN HUNTER HOLLY, SF writer; DAPHNE CASTELL, 53, SF writer; JAMES WADE, 53, fantasy writer and composer; MAX EHRLICH, 73, SF writer, author of The Big Eye; LEONARD WIBBERLEY, 68, author of the associational The Mouse that Roared and three other “Grand Fenwick” novels; ROY G. KRENKEL, well-known illustrator, winner of the 1963 Hugo for Best Professional Artist; BUSTER CRABBE, 75, an actor best known for his film portrayals of Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers; SIR RALPH RICHARDSON, actor, whose SF-associated roles included parts in Things To Come and the recent Time Bandits; RAYMOND MASSEY, 86, actor, best known to SF fans for his role in Things To Come; LOUIS C. GOLDSTONE III, 63, SF artist; RAOUL VEZINA, 35, SF and underground comics artist; IVAN TORS, producer of SF movies such as The Magnetic Monster and associational TV series such as Flipper; MAEVE GILMORE PEAKE, well-known artist, widow of writer Mervyn Peake; WILLIAM C. BOYD, 79, SF writer; ARTHUR KOESTLER, 77, well-known writer perhaps most famous for his political novel Darkness at Noon, which was an influence on George Orwell’s 1984; BOB PAVLAT, 58, longtime SF fan, one of the founders of the Washington Science Fiction Association; LARRY PROPP, 38, longtime SF fan, co-chairman of Chicon IV, the 1982 Worldcon; MIKE WOOD, 35, long active in Minneapolis fandom; and VIVIAN SMITH, 38, longtime member of the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and active in Philadelphia SF circles, a personal friend.

  BRUCE STERLING

  Cicada Queen

  Significant new talent seems to enter the SF world in waves, discrete generational groupings, usually at five-to-ten year intervals. One such influx of new talent came along in the early middle ’60s, when new writers like Samuel Delany, Roger Zelazny, Thomas M. Disch, Norman Spinrad, R.A. Lafferty, and others ushered in SF’s “New Wave” years. A few years later in the early seventies, another wave of talent arrived—made up of writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Gene Wolfe, Barry Malzberg, and James Tiptree, Jr.—and a few years after that, in the middle seventies, everyone was suddenly talking about writers such as Joe Haldeman, John Varley, Gregory Benford, Jack Dann, George R.R. Martin, Michael Bishop, Phyllis Eisenstein, and Edward Bryant.

  Now, at the beginning of the ’80s, we are clearly in the process of assimilating yet another generational wave of hot new writers, and in the years to come you will be hearing a whole lot more about writers like Michael Swanwick, William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Kim Stanley Robinson, Leigh Kennedy, John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, Greg Bear, Connie Willis, Pat Murphy, Lewis Shiner … and Bruce Sterling, who even in this august company must be considered one of the really major talents to enter SF in recent years. As is more than amply demonstrated by the powerful story of intrigue and confrontation that follows, set in a bizarre far-future world where Shapers and Mechanists struggle to control the shape of human destiny …

  Born in Brownsville, Texas, Bruce Sterling sold his first SF story in 1976, and has since sold stories to Universe, Omni, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and The Last Dangerous Visions. His
acclaimed story “Swarm” was both a Hugo and a Nebula Award finalist last year. His short story, “Spider Rose,” was also a Hugo finalist. His novels include Involution Ocean and The Artificial Kid. Upcoming is a new novel, set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe, from Arbor House. Sterling lives in Austin, Texas.

  It began the night the Queen called off her dogs. I’d been under the dogs for two years, ever since my defection.

  My initiation, and my freedom from the dogs, were celebrated at the home of Arvin Kulagin. Kulagin, a wealthy Mechanist, had a large domestic-industrial complex on the outer perimeter of a midsized cylindrical suburb.

  Kulagin met me at his door and handed me a gold inhaler spiked with beta-phenethylamine. The party was already roaring. The Polycarbon Clique always turned out in force for an initiation.

  As usual, my entrance was marked by a subtle freezing up. It was the dogs’ fault. Voices were raised to a certain histrionic pitch, people handled their inhalers and drinks with a slightly more studied elegance, and every smile turned my way was bright enough for a team of security experts.

  Kulagin smiled glassily. “Landau, it’s a pleasure. Welcome. I see you’ve brought the Queen’s Percentage.” He looked pointedly at the box on my hip.

  “Yes,” I said. A man under the dogs had no secrets. I had been working off and on for two years on the Queen’s gift and the dogs had taped everything. They were still taping everything. Czarina-Kluster Security had designed them for that. For two years they’d taped every moment of my life and everything and everyone around me.

  “Perhaps the Clique can have a look,” Kulagin said. “Once we’ve whipped these dogs.” He winked into the armored camera face of the watchdog, then looked at his timepiece. “Just an hour till you’re out from under. Then we’ll have some fun.” He waved me on into the room. “If you need anything, use the servos.”

  Kulagin’s place was spacious and elegant, decorated classically and scented by gigantic suspended marigolds. Kulagin’s suburb was called the Froth and was the Clique’s favorite neighborhood. Kulagin, living at the suburb’s perimeter, profited by the Froth’s lazy spin and had a simulated tenth of a gravity. His walls were striped to provide a vertical referent, and he had enough space to affect such luxuries as “floors,” “tables,” “chairs,” and other forms of gravity-oriented furniture. The ceiling was studded with hooks, from which were suspended a dozen of his favorite marigolds, huge round explosions of reeking greenery with blossoms the size of my head.

  I walked into the room and stood behind a couch, which partially hid the two offensive dogs. I signaled one of Kulagin’s spidery servos and took a squeezebulb of liquor to cut the speedy intensity of the phenethylamine.

  I watched the party, which had split into loose subeliques. Kulagin was near the door with his closest sympathizers, Mechanist officers from Czarina-Kluster banks and quiet Security types. Nearby, faculty from the Kosmosity-Metasystem campus talked shop with a pair of orbital engineers. On the ceiling, Shaper designers talked fashion, clinging to hooks in the feeble gravity. Below them a manic group of C-K folk, “Cicadas,” spun like clockwork through gravity dance steps.

  At the back of the room, Wellspring was holding forth amid a herd of spindly legged chairs. I leaped gently over the couch and glided toward him. The dogs sprang after me with a whir of propulsive fans.

  Wellspring was my closest friend in C-K. He had encouraged my defection when he was in the Ring Council, buying ice for the Martian terraforming project. The dogs never bothered Wellspring. His ancient friendship with the Queen was well known. In C-K, Wellspring was a legend.

  Tonight he was dressed for an audience with the Queen. A coronet of gold and platinum circled his dark, matted hair. He wore a loose blouse of metallic brocade with slashed sleeves that showed a black underblouse shot through with flickering pinpoints of light. This was complemented by an Investor-style jeweled skirt and knee-high scaled boots. The jeweled cables of the skirt showed Wellspring’s massive legs, trained to the heavy gravity favored by the reptilian Queen. He was a powerful man, and his weaknesses, if he had any, were hidden within his past.

  Wellspring was talking philosophy. His audience, mathematicians and biologists from the faculty of C-K K-M, made room for me with strained smiles. “You asked me to define my terms,” he said urbanely. “By the term we, I don’t mean merely you Cicadas. Nor do I mean the mass of so-called humanity. After all, you Shapers are constructed of genes patented by Reshaped genetics firms. You might be properly defined as industrial artifacts.”

  His audience groaned. Wellspring smiled. “And conversely, the Mechanists are slowly abandoning human flesh in favor of cybernetic modes of existence. So. It follows that my term, we, can be attributed to any cognitive metasystem on the Fourth Prigoginic Level of complexity.”

  A Shaper professor touched his inhaler to the painted line of his nostril and said, “I have to take issue with that, Wellspring. This occult nonsense about levels of complexity is ruining C-K’s ability to do decent science.”

  “That’s a linear causative statement,” Wellspring riposted. “You conservatives are always looking for certainties outside the level of the cognitive metasystem. Clearly every intelligent being is separated from every lower level by a Prigoginic event horizon. It’s time we learned to stop looking for solid ground to stand on. Let’s place ourselves at the center of things. If we need something to stand on, we’ll have it orbit us.”

  He was applauded. He said, “Admit it, Yevgeny. C-K is blooming in a new moral and intellectual climate. It’s unquantifiable and unpredictable, and, as a scientist, that frightens you. Posthumanism offers fluidity and freedom, and a metaphysic daring enough to think a whole world into life. It enables us to take up economically absurd projects such as the terraforming of Mars, which your pseudopragmatic attitude could never dare to attempt. And yet think of the gain involved.”

  “Semantic tricks,” sniffed the professor. I had never seen him before. I suspected that Wellspring had brought him along for the express purpose of baiting him.

  I myself had once doubted some aspects of C-K’s Posthumanism. But its open abandonment of the search for moral certainties had liberated us. When I looked at the eager, painted faces of Wellspring’s audience, and compared them to the bleak strain and veiled craftiness that had once surrounded me, I felt as if I would burst. After twenty-four years of paranoid discipline under the Ring Council, and then two more years under the dogs, tonight I would be explosively released from pressure.

  I sniffed at the phenethylamine, the body’s own “natural” amphetamine. I felt suddenly dizzy, as if the space inside my head were full of the red-hot Ur-space of the primordial deSitter cosmos, ready at any moment to make the Prigoginic leap into the “normal” space-time continuum, the Second Prigoginic Level of complexity … . Posthumanism schooled us to think in terms of fits and starts, of structures accreting along unspoken patterns, following the lines first suggested by the ancient Terran philosopher Ilya Prigogine. I directly understood this, since my own mild attraction to the dazzling Valery Korstad had coalesced into a knotted desire that suppressants could numb but not destroy.

  She was dancing across the room, the jeweled strings of her Investor skirt twisting like snakes. She had the anonymous beauty of the Reshaped, overlaid with the ingenious, enticing paint of C-K. I had never seen anything I wanted more, and from our brief and strained flirtations I knew that only the dogs stood between us.

  Wellspring took me by the arm. His audience had dissolved as I stood rapt, lusting after Valery. “How much longer, son?”

  Startled, I looked at the watch display on my forearm. “Only twenty minutes, Wellspring.”

  “That’s fine, son.” Wellspring was famous for his use of archaic terms like son. “Once the dogs are gone, it’ll be your party, Hans. I won’t stay here to eclipse you. Besides, the Queen awaits me. You have the Queen’s Percentage?”

  “Yes, just as you said.” I unpeeled the box from the s
tick-tight patch on my hip and handed it over.

  Wellspring lifted its lid with his powerful fingers and looked inside. Then he laughed aloud. “Jesus! It’s beautiful!”

  Suddenly he pulled the open box away and the Queen’s gift hung in midair, glittering above our heads. It was an artificial gem the size of a child’s fist, its chiseled planes glittering with the green and gold of endolithic lichen. As it spun it threw tiny glints of fractured light across our faces.

  As it fell, Kulagin appeared and caught it on the points of four extended fingertips. His left eye, an artificial implant, glistened darkly as he examined it.

  “Eisho Zaibatsu?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “They handled the synthesizing work; the lichen is a special variety of my own.” I saw that a curious circle was gathering and said aloud, “Our host is a connoisseur.”

  “Only of finance,” Kulagin said quietly, but with equal emphasis. “I understand now why you patented the process in your own name. It’s a dazzling accomplishment. How could any Investor resist the lure of a