Asimov’s, December 2007

The December, 2007, issue of Asimov’s features four SF stories and one fantasy one.

In “All Seated on The Ground” by Connie Willis, aliens have arrived in Denver. The Altari, as they’ve been dubbed (though no one really knows where they’re coming from), seem to be unable to communicate, other than through glares of reprobation—an expression that reminds Meg Yates, the narrator, of her dreaded Aunt Judith, whose visits were the bane of her family’s Sunday afternoons. Meg has joined a team who tries to communicate with the aliens, in vain—until the aliens go to a mall and hear Christmas carols…

This is the longest story of the issue—but it’s a delight from start to finish. Willis maintains a comical, wisecracking voice throughout, starting with a sharp picture of the Altairi’s “alien” invasion: “F-16’s roared overhead, snapping pictures of their spaceship and trying to determine whether A) it had a force field, or B) weaponry, and C) they could blow it up (they couldn’t).” The plot, fuelled by the mystery of what it will take to make the aliens communicate, takes the reader along and never lets go until its hilarious conclusion (and yes, as you might have guessed, Aunt Judith does features heavily in the story).

Thoroughly recommended.

“The Lonesome Planet Travelers’ Advisory” by Tim McDaniel has a similar theme (aliens visiting Earth) but a widely different point of view. In its three short pages, it purports to be a guide à la Lonely Planet, giving the dos and don’ts of Earth sightseeing for alien tourists.

Obviously, there isn’t much of a plot, but at this length, it doesn’t matter much. McDaniel takes a pretty sharp and funny romp through all the alien and UFO clichés. For instance, the entry under “Monoliths” reads: “construction of pranks such as Stonehenge, black transforming monoliths (…) are now tightly regulated.” Hilarious.

In “Strangers on a Bus” by Jack Skillingstead, Freya Hoepner is a schoolteacher down on her luck. Thrown out of her flat by her manipulative boyfriend, she finds herself on a Greyhound, hoping for some solitude through the long journey. When a young man named Neil boards the Greyhound, though, she’s drawn into his world. Neil is strangely knowledgeable about her; he says he makes up stories about people, and that once he’s said the words, the stories come true.

Freya is a strong character whose sense of hopelessness comes through loud and clear; and so are Neil’s bleak moods. Though the story is well-written and the sense of place strong, I did not care much for the ambiguous conclusion. It’s probably just a matter of personal taste; you certainly want to check the story out.

“The Rules” by Nancy Kress takes a look at climate change and global poverty. When a pirate transmission interrupts all TV broadcasts within the U.S., replacing news with images of starving orphans in the Third World, Carmody knows it can only have one source: Tartell, his old opponent. Carmody works for StarCorps, an organisation whose goals are nebulous but involve worldwide manipulation and destabilisation of economies. Tartell is old and dying, and Carmody tries to work out why he’s pirating broadcasts, and what the larger stakes are.

The story hops between Carmody’s point of view, that of an average American family, and that of a nun working in Africa. It’s very much idea-driven, which isn’t to say it’s not enjoyable—in fact, it’s probably just the right length for its content. I liked Kress’s willingness to tackle the consequences of climate change in poor countries and to focus in a believable way on what it would take to make a change in the world—as well as the inevitable consequences of that change. I was slightly less convinced by the conclusion in Carmody’s point of view. It was thematically sound, but I felt more ground could have been laid for it earlier on.

In “do[this]” by Stephen Graham Jones, Leo tackles the problem of designing a language from the machine code on his computer. He wants to prove that code is indeed a language, and so he write a routine that mimics speech. But the results are unexpected…

I found this hard-going, mainly because it was replete with technical jargon and abstract considerations on semiotics. The ending was definitely powerful, but I felt the story beforehand could have been shorter and slightly more accessible.