The Year's Best Science Fiction: Sixteenth Annual Collection, page 1
The Year’s Best
Science Fiction
Sixteenth Annual Collection
Edited by Gardner Dozois
St. Martin’s Griffin
New York
ALSO BY GARDNER DOZOIS
A N T H O L O G I E S
A DAY IN THE LIFE
ANOTHER WORLD
BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES OF THE YEAR #6-10
THE BEST OF ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE
TIME-TRAVELLERS FROM ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE
TRANSCENDENTAL TALES FROM ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE
ISAAC ASIMOV’S ALIENS
ISAAC ASIMOV’S MARS
ISAAC ASIMOV’S SF LITE
ISAAC ASIMOV’S WAR
ISAAC ASIMOV’S PLANET EARTH (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S ROBOTS (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S CYBERDREAMS (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S VALENTINES (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S SKIN DEEP (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S GHOSTS (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S DETECTIVES (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S VAMPIRES (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S MOONS (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S CHRISTMAS (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ISAAC ASIMOV’S CAMELOT (WITH SHEILA WILLIAMS)
ROADS NOT TAKEN (WITH STANLEY SCHMIDT)
THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION, #1-15
FUTURE EARTHS: UNDER AFRICAN SKIES (WITH MIKE RESNICK)
FUTURE EARTHS: UNDER SOUTH AMERICAN SKIES (WITH MIKE RESNICK)
FUTURE POWER (WITH JACK DANN)
ALIENS! (WITH JACK DANN)
UNICORNS! (WITH JACK DANN)
MAGICATS! (WITH JACK DANN)
MAGICATS 2 (WITH JACK DANN)
BESTIARY! (WITH JACK DANN)
MERMAIDS! (WITH JACK DANN)
SORCERERS! (WITH JACK DANN)
DEMONS! (WITH JACK DANN)
DOGTALES! (WITH JACK DANN)
RIPPER! (WITH SUSAN CASPER)
SEASERPENTS! (WITH JACK DANN)
DINOSAURS! (WITH JACK DANN)
LITTLE PEOPLE! (WITH JACK DANN)
DRAGONS! (WITH JACK DANN)
HORSES! (WITH JACK DANN)
UNICORNS 2 (WITH JACK DANN)
INVADERS! (WITH JACK DANN)
ANGELS! (WITH JACK DANN)
DINOSAURS II (WITH JACK DANN)
HACKERS (WITH JACK DANN)
TIMEGATES (WITH JACK DANN)
CLONES (WITH JACK DANN)
NANOTECH (WITH JACK DANN)
IMMORTALS (WITH JACK DANN)
MODERN CLASSICS OF SCIENCE FICTION
MODERN CLASSIC SHORT NOVELS OF SCIENCE FICTION
MODERN CLASSICS OF FANTASY
KILLING ME SOFTLY
DYING FOR IT
THE GOOD OLD STUFF
THE GOOD NEW STUFF
F I C T I O N
STRANGERS
THE VISIBLE MAN (COLLECTION)
NIGHTMARE BLUE (WITH GEORGE ALEC EFFINGER)
SLOW DANCING THROUGH TIME (WITH JACK DANN, MICHAEL SWANWICK, SUSAN CASPER, AND JACK C. HALDEMAN II)
THE PEACEMAKER
GEODESIC DREAMS (COLLECTION)
N O N F I C T I O N
THE FICTION OF JAMES TIPTREE, JR.
For the Gibsons:
Shari, Jimmy, Jared,
Steven, and Melissa.
THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION: SIXTEENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION. Copyright © 1999 by Gardner Dozois. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
ISBN 0-312-26474-7
Electronic format made
available by arrangement with
St. Martin’s Griffin
peanutpress.com, Inc.
www.peanutpress.com
acknowledgment is made for permission to print the following material:
“Oceanic,” by Greg Egan. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Approaching Perimelasma,” by Geoffrey A. Landis. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Craphound,” by Cory Doctorow. Copyright © 1998 by Cory Doctorow. First published in Science Fiction Age, March 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Jedella Ghost,” by Tanith Lee. Copyright © 1998 by Interzone. First published in Interzone, September 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Taklamakan,” by Bruce Sterling. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Island of the Immortals,” by Ursula K. Le Guin. Copyright © 1998 by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. First published in Amazing Stories, Fall 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency.
“Sea Change, with Monsters,” by Paul J. McAuley. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Divided by Infinity,” by Robert Charles Wilson. Copyright © 1998 byRobert Charles Wilson. First published in Starlight 2 (Tor). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“US,” by Howard Waldrop. Copyright © 1998 by Howard Waldrop. First published electronically online on Event Horizon (www.eventhorizon.com), October 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Days of Solomon Gursky,” by Ian McDonald. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, June 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Cuckoo’s Boys,” by Robert Reed. Copyright © 1998 by Robert Reed. First published in Science Fiction Age, September 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness,” by William Browning Spencer. Copyright © 1998 by William Browning Spencer. First published in Lord of the Fantastic (Avon Eos). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Very Pulse of the Machine,” by Michael Swanwick. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Story of Your Life,” by Ted Chiang. Copyright © 1998 by Ted Chiang. First published in Starlight 2 (Tor). Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency.
“Voivodoi,” by Liz Williams. Copyright © 1998 by Terra Incognita. First published in Terra Incognita, Summer 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Saddlepoint: Roughneck” by Stephen Baxter. Copyright © 1998 by Stephen Baxter. First published in Science Fiction Age, May 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, the Maggie Noach Agency.
“This Side of Independence,” by Rob Chilson. Copyright © 1998 by Mercury Press, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Unborn Again,” by Chris Lawson. Copyright © 1998 by Chris Lawson. First published in Dreaming Down-Under (HarperCollins Australia). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Grist,” by Tony Daniel. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“La Cenerentola,” by Gwyneth Jones. Copyright © 1998 by Interzone. First published in Interzone, October 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Down in the Dark,” by William Barton. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, December 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Free in Asveroth,” by Jim Grimsley. Copyright © 1998 by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel. First published in Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction (The Overlook Press). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Dancing Floor,” by Cherry Wilder. Copyright © 1998 by Cherry Wilder. First published in Dreaming Down-Under (HarperCollins Australia). Reprinted bypermission of the author and the author’s agent, James Frenkel and Associates.
“The Summer Isles,” by Ian R. MacLeod. Copyright © 1998 by Dell Magazines. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, October/November 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Susan Ann Protter.
acknowledgments
The editor would like to thank the following people for their help and support: first and foremost, Susan Casper, for doing much of the thankless scut work involved in producing this anthology; Michael Swanwick, Ellen Datlow, Virginia Kidd, Jim Allen, Vaughne Lee Hansen, Sheila Williams, David Pringle, Charles C. Ryan, David G. Hartwell, Jack Dann, Janeen Webb, Warren Lapine, Jan Berriends, Ed McFadden, Tom Piccirilli, Nicola Griffith, Lawrence Person, Dwight Brown, Darrell Schweitzer, Corin See, and special thanks to my own editor, Gordon Van Gelder.
Thanks are also due to Charles N. Brown, whose magazine Locus (Locus Publications, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661, $43 for a one-year subscription [twelve issues] via second class; credit card orders [510] 339-9198) was used as a reference source throughout the Summation, and to Andrew Porter, whose magazine Science Fiction Chronicle (Science Fiction Chronicle, P.O. Box 022730, Brooklyn, NY 11202-0056, $35 for a one-year subscription [twelve issues]; $42 first class) was also used as a reference source throughout.
summation: 1998
On the surface, 1998 was a relatively quiet year, although just below that surface, major changes swum like monstrous fish, changes that could affect the entire publishing world and make it a radically different place in 2008 than it is today.
It was in general a prosperous year, with the major chain bookstores reporting record earnings, and the relatively new area of online bookselling proving itself to be a serious money-maker, with online services such as Amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com bringing in serious bucks, and a great potential for growth still ahead in those areas. A good solid percentage of the money earned this year was earned by science fiction books, which I think pretty much serves to dismiss fears, discussed here last year, that the Death of Science Fiction as a publishing category is imminent. At this point, momentum and inertia alone would carry SF publishing into the next century, even if not another SF book ever sold a copy again— and, indeed, schedules into the first and second year of the new century have already been announced.
But all indications are that SF (even solid core SF, leaving the much dreaded media novels out of the equation altogether) is selling better than ever here at the brink of the new millennium. The big, dramatic, catastrophic recession/bust/slump that genre insiders have been predicting for more than a decade now did not happen in 1998; in fact, the overall totals for books published seemed to be on the rise again, after a couple of years of mild decline (although the ways in which SF books get published continue to change and evolve, with mass-market titles declining and the number of books that are published instead as hardcovers or trade paperbacks on the rise). There were some fairly hefty cutbacks in 1997, and some failing or faltering lines, but they were more than made up for this year in numbers of books released by the founding of major and ambitious new science fiction lines by Avon Eos and Simon & Schuster UK.
The field seems to be in good shape artistically and creatively, too; yes, the majority of the stuff available on the bookstore shelves at any given time is crap, but this has always been true, whatever decade you’re talking about, whether it’s the ‘50s, the ‘60s, the ‘70s, the ‘80s, or the ‘90s. Look beyond the crap, and you’ll find an enormous and enormously varied number of top authors (from several different generations, stretching all the way from Golden Age giants of the ‘30s and ‘40s to the kid who made his first sale yesterday) producing an amazingly varied spectrum of first-rate work, from High Fantasy to the hardest of Hard Science Fiction— including a lot of material that could not have been published at all twenty years ago. There are still people around, some of them quite vocal, who will complain at length about how nobody’s writing anything good anymore in the field, not like they did in the old days, but look closely and you’ll find that most of those same people don’t read any new science fiction, and haven’t for years. Those of us who do read lots of new science fiction know better. When people are looking back nostalgically to the Golden Age twenty years from now, this, the present, this period we’re in right now, is what they’ll be looking at.
Like last year, there was little activity in the traditional game of Editorial Musical Chairs in 1998, with the only really significant change being that Shelley Shapiro was named Editorial Director of Del Rey Books, moving up from her former position as Executive Editor. Most of the other changes this year took place a lot farther up the food-chain, in the rarified corporate realms where the very top suits dwell. The giant German publishing conglomerate Bertelsmann, owner of Bantam Doubleday Dell, bought Random House, which includes under its corporate umbrella houses such as Del Rey, Ballantine, Knopf, and dozens of other imprints. Later in the year, Bertelsmann bought a 50 percent stake in barnesandnoble.com, the online arm of Barnes & Noble and direct head-to-head competitor with Amazon.com for the increasingly profitable online bookselling market. Viacom sold off all but the consumer division of Simon & Schuster to Pearson, the owner of Penguin and Putnam. In England, the Orion Publishing Group bought Cassell, which resulted in the merger of SF lines Gollancz and Millennium, with future SF books being published as Gollancz hardcovers and Millennium paperbacks; Jo Fletcher of Gollancz and Simon Spanton of Millennium will be the acquiring editors (with Caroline Oakley, in charge of Orion paperbacks, continuing to edit some authors)— they will report directly to Malcolm Edwards, himself a former SF editor (as is Anthony Cheetham, the head of Orion). And, late in the year, Barnes & Noble, the largest of the chain bookstores, bought Ingram, the largest book distributor. Since Ingram had been the major distributor for Amazon.com as well as for the remaining independent bookstores, news of the purchase sent shockwaves through the entire publishing industry, with the executive director of the Author’s Guild, Paul Aiken, saying (as quoted in Locus), “The Godzilla of publishing is wedding the King Kong of distribution … If I were an independent bookseller, I would be scared to death by this.” Other experts downplayed this implication, suggesting that business would carry on more or less as always despite the sale.
It may take a while for the effects of these changes to surface, but some of them— especially those things concerned with the online bookselling market— may be affecting the industry well into the next century.
And there are other potential changes just down the road, things that could radically alter the nature of the publishing world as we know it. The field of electronic books, e-books, is just now taking its first faltering baby steps, with Tor announcing this year that they plan to offer about 100 books as e-text for the Rocket eBook via direct downloading from barnesandnoble.com; Tor has already licensed electronic versions of new and reprint titles to digital publisher Peanut Press for the 3Com PalmPilot, which are downloadable from the net (Peanut Press has a Web store at www.peanutpress.com that offers versions of books from a number of publishers that can be downloaded into the 3Com PalmPilot). Other “electronic book” systems are in development, including Millennium Reader, EveryBook, and SoftBook. I have a feeling that this market may turn out to be very significant indeed before we’re too many years into the new century— taken to an extreme, it could change the face of publishing itself.
Another development that could change the face of publishing forever is print-on-demand technology. Working models of such a system were demonstrated at this year’s ABA. If it works as well as it’s said to work, you may soon be able to walk into a bookstore that has such a system installed, and ask for, say, a copy of The Sun Also Rises, or any other book the system has on file, and it will print one out for you on the spot, indistinguishable from a regular trade product. The implications of such a system are staggering— only one such implication is that it would solve at a stroke the problem of the vanishing backlist that has plagued SF publishing throughout the last several decades, since the old mail-order backlist system more or less disappeared at the end of the ‘70s: if you decide that you like Poul Anderson, and you want to read some of his old stuff, like The High Crusade or The Enemy Stars, instead of waiting years for a reissue or haunting used bookstores trying to find those titles, you just go to the print-on-demand machine and have it whomp up some copies of them for you on the spot. (Other implications, already beginning to occur to some writers and agents, affect current understanding of out-of-print and rights reversions issues; if your book is always available on a print-on-demand system, how can it ever be said to have gone out of print? And how can you ever get the rights to that book reverted to you in order to be sold again? A supposed one-time sale of a book could become a de facto to the end of time sale, unless contractual limitations are applied to the situation somehow.) Print-on-demand, if it works as well as its promoters claim it will, would also change the face of publishing by eliminating the need for huge warehouses to store large numbers of physical copies of books, eliminate the need for fleets of trucks to ship the physical copies around, and, perhaps most significant, eliminate at another stroke a great deal of the waste and inefficiency built into today’s system (including the returns system that has been a crushing Old-Man-of-the-Sea on the back of the publishing industry for most of the second half of the twentieth century), saving immense amounts in paper and production costs; you would print exactly as many copies of a book as customers wanted to buy, with no need to produce five copies to sell one. Postulate a print-on-demand system able to print books downloaded directly from the Internet, and the need for many of the world’s bookstores disappears as well (I think there will always be some bookstores, places for people to browse and schmooze, although there probably wouldn’t need to be as many of them in any given location).
