Baen’s Universe, Vol 2 Num 6: April 2008

The Vol 2 Num 6 issue of Jim Baen’s Universe is arranged in the usual fashion of SF and fantasy stories, plus a classic story, and finally a couple of “Introducing” stories featuring authors who are not yet professionals in the genre.

Opening the SF section is Tobias Buckell’s “Manumission.” Pepper is indentured to ShinnCo, a company that has erased his past, made him into a living weapon, and uses him to track down and eliminate targets. But when he is ordered to go after Susan Stamm, an indentured woman trying to get off-planet, he must make hard choices.

This was a very believable portrait of what corporate indenture could look like in a near-future. Despite the fact that it’s in second person present tense—a presentation that usually makes it hard to keep a good flow—the story is well-paced and the characters sympathetic. Recommended.

“Virtually, A Cat” by Jody Lynn Nye features Ardway, a technician sent on a mission to retrieve information about an extra-solar planet. There’s only one problem: when Ardway signed on for the mission, he assumed he would be able to take his two cats with him—but he couldn’t. Now that they’re not with him, his infatuation with them is turning into an obsession—one that’s irritating the whole crew. Luckily, one of the other technicians has a good idea: making virtual cats.

Although I really enjoyed the details of the programming to make virtual cats and the realistic depiction of life on an isolated spaceship, I found this story hard going. Ardway’s unhealthy obsession for his cats makes it really hard to empathise with him, even more so when it becomes clear that he doesn’t care much about the other members of the flight crew. By the story’s climax came, I was too annoyed with him to really empathise with the ending.

In Jack McDevitt’s “Indomitable,” Harry and his father visit the Museum of Calgary, which commemorates the era when spaceships were still exploring the universe. Now, they have been discontinued, and humans have spread out on all the worlds they have discovered.

I liked the nostalgic mood and the feeling of loss that pervades this story, but I have to admit I found myself confused by the ending—which cuts off the narration abruptly at a point that doesn’t have enough resonance to carry the ending. Nevertheless, it’s a fine read.

“Honorable Enemies: a Jake Masters Mystery” by Mike Resnick features the titular character, a private detective who must look for the killer of his alien partner. All he knows is that his partner was tailing someone in what he thought was an easy case. Along the way, Jake Masters has to accept the help of George, an alien who may be motivated by more than purely altruism to help him.

Although this had plenty of action, I found it hard to become engaged by it. The characters were too thin to draw me in, the setting was not particularly innovative, and its linear intrigue failed to provide enough tension or suspense to compensate for the other problems with the story.

The Fantasy Section starts off with “Scraps of Fog” by Sarah A. Hoyt which features Sandra, a police officer in Portugal about to get married and leave the force. She is selling the family’s ancestral house, but as she empties it, she sees a ghostly man in the fog—and later, a young man shows up, pretending to be the long-dead King Sebastian…

I loved this story’s atmosphere, the way the weight of the past was made almost tangible by the author. I would have liked more information about King Sebastian, since the legends about him turned out to be critical to the ending. But, nevertheless, this was an affecting read.

In “The Witch of Waxahachie” by Lou Antonelli, the narrator is a journalist in the titular town who takes part in an illegal experiment involving string theory—and finds himself yanked into an alternate dimension where the Industrial Revolution has been replaced by the Magical Revolution.

I enjoyed the details of the alternate history world and the sense of dislocation the characters felt throughout. Overall, though, the general levity made it hard to be drawn in, and my interest started to falter well before the end.

“Knight of Coins” by Margaret Ronald features another private eye, Genevieve Scelan, who makes a living tracking down supernatural objects. Her new client wants him to locate three Tarot cards, all of them powerful spells being used against him.

Genevieve is a strong character, and her thoughts and actions drive the story as more and more supernatural elements pile up—and as the mystery of the Tarot cards is finally unveiled. I loved the reveal about the Knight of Coins, and the ending was very well done. Recommended.

The classic story is “Born of the Sun” by Jack Williamson. Foster Ross has been working on a motor-tube, an invention that will allow mankind to reach the stars. But so far, he has had no success. One evening, his long-lost uncle, Barron Kane, shows up on his doorstep, hunted by mysterious men and asking for help. It is imperative that Foster Ross finish the motor-tube in order to allow a human Exodus to the stars before the Earth tears itself apart. But a secret oriental sect, the Cult of the Great Egg, is there to make sure that the human race cannot be saved….

This was published in 1932 and, quite honestly, shows its age, both in terms of racial perception—the secret cult of Asians offering human sacrifices is, happily, a cliché that could not be published again today—and in terms of actual science—the explanation given for the breaking apart of the Earth feels more like horror than science fiction. The ending, though, was well done, with a particularly sharp sense of irony.

The “Introducing” section features two fantasy stories. The first of those is “Red Tape and Cold Iron, or A Proposal for the Reintroduction of the Faery Folk To the United Kingdom” by Lucy Bond . It features a folklorist who plans to reintroduce the Faery Folk to their natural environment—the world of man.

This is a very sharp satire on how to deal with politicians, both human ones and faeries, and on the consequences of having faeries loose in the mortal world—which, as anyone could tell you, are not quite all beneficial.

In “Extreme Reservations” by R. J. Ortega, Ken and Cathy O’Malley have received a very particular reservation for their riverboat restaurant: it was paid them in trading ducats—and the man who arrives on the due date is a pirate with a ship called The Flying Dutchman. But the party is only getting started…

I thought this was a hilarious take on what could go wrong at a restaurant, complete with obnoxious customers, party-crashers (well, of a peculiar kind), and sundry other misadventures. It had me grinning all the while. Definitely recommended.