Asimov’s, June 2008

Opening the June, 2008, issue of Asimov’s is “Call Back Yesterday” by Nancy Kress. Caitlin, Seena, and Josh are patients in a special ward of those afflicted by Cathcart Syndrome, a condition which causes them to hallucinate visions of people at odd moments. And yet, it seems that there is much more going on in the hospital than the doctors will admit to—why are the doctors so interested in their visions? Why can’t any of the patients remember their former lives or even their names?

“Call Back Yesterday” has a beginning which hints at cliché—doctors withholding information from a group of patients, all afflicted with an odd disease. Kress promptly takes it into fresh territory, though, when the action moves out of the hospital and into the bewildering world outside. The ending, a paean both to humanity and to the resourcefulness of her characters, is very effective.

“Surprise Party” by James Patrick Kelly focuses on Mercedes, an ex-neuroactress who wakes up one morning to discover she has a “beamer” in her mind—someone who is connected to her senses and logs on to experience everything she lives through. But this day, of all days, is very special: it’s Mercedes’ birthday, and her friends have something special in store for her…

Though I liked the wry take on stardom in the future, as well as the numerous pokes at our appearance-obsessed culture, I have to admit I found it harder to get through the second half of this story. This was partly due to the ending, which I guessed long in advance, and partly due to Kelly’s universe, which wasn’t enough, by itself, to hold my attention. And finally, the characters weren’t strong enough for me to feel sufficiently invested in the plot.

In “Burgerdroid” by Felicity Shoulders, Elsa works in the eponymous fast food joint. The workers pretend to be robots—because research has shown that people are much more fascinated by automatons than they are by real, non-humanoid robots. I enjoyed the sharp satire of this—the depiction of Elsa’s daily life was chillingly well thought out, and the characters are smartly depicted. However, I found myself dissatisfied by the farce ending, which seemed both to come out of nowhere and to cut off the narration far too abruptly.

In “The Auctioneer and the Antiquarian, or, 1962,” Forrest Aguirre shows us the year 1962 seen through the eyes of Hayden White, a young boy suffering from cancer and growing up in a trailer park with the characters of the title: two old men who stand in for Hayden’s father. Hayden starts hearing voices in his head—aliens, who do not want men to explore the stars.

Aguirre successfully captures the flavour of a bygone era and weaves a touching tale of growing up in 1962. The ending is not a surprise, but it is both poignant and fitting.

“Beneath Sunlit Shallows” by Derek Künsken takes place on Indi’s Tear, a world where the only way to mitigate the effects of the crushing gravity is to go underwater. Vincent is the latest in a series of bioengineered humans—descendants of the colonists who crash-landed on Indi’s Tears, who keep genetically modifying each generation in the incubators to make them capable of living deeper and deeper underwater. But forcing evolution has its consequences, and Vincent, feeling increasingly out of place underwater, has to wonder whether what his people are doing has any use.

The author successfully extrapolates on the ethical consequences of genetic engineering: where does one draw the line between humanity and a new species? Do we have the right to modify our descendants, even if it is for their own good? Künsken successfully explores the moral abysses created by widespread genetic engineering. Recommended.

In “Gabe’s Globster” by Lawrence Person, Gabe, a retired banker-turned-artist in the Caribbean, sees an odd lump of jelly wash upon his beach—a lump which seems to have an unhealthy propensity for consuming living beings.

This short story tries to strike a balance between humour and horror—which I felt made it hard for it to be successful at either. There are some genuinely funny moments, as well as a growing sense of creepiness throughout, but, in the end, those two strands sat uneasily side by side each other, without quite melding into a satisfactory conclusion.

In “The Hob Carpet,” Ian R. MacLeod depicts a universe where humanity has withdrawn from almost all menial work. Manual tasks are left to hobs, small, human-like beings kept in droves as slaves, who make the least wish of their masters come true. The narrator tells of his childhood and of the growing ice which threatens to end the world he has always known.

I loved the depiction of this society and how MacLeod was willing to dwell on the sordid implications the existence of a menial under-race would have on it—both the most obvious, decadent ones, as well as the more chilling emotional consequences. But I was less convinced by the “revelation” of what the hobs were and of how this society could have come about. “The Hob Carpet” works better as a fantasy; connecting it to our own history raised issues of plausibility which undermine the effectiveness and cautionary power of such a tale. Nevertheless, it’s a strong story.