California Burning

Novelette by Michael Blumlein

A man is having his father cremated, but for some reason the bones won't burn. In the allegorical background, California has a bunch of wildfires and gets all smoky.

This is an emotional story about the unnamed first person protagonist learning to cope with not knowing some things about his father, with an implied SF explanation. Handles the whole grief thing remarkably well while you almost don't notice the otherworldly aspect; I could imagine this happening with one of my dead relatives easily. The thing that stands out most about the writing is that the "action" of the scenes is moved along entirely with dialogue. For a slow, sad story, boredom is avoided remarkably well, and I am prone to boredom in a story like this. An impressive feat, at least to me. If you want an example in excellent dialog writing, this would be a good one.

Despite all that, I'm not really moved to emotion, and nothing really happens. Masterfully written, but not interesting enough, 4 out of 5.

Wife-Stealing Time

Novelette by R. Garcia y Robertson

Sequel to SinBad the Sand Sailor and after this I'll be looking forward to more SinBad stories in the future.

Wife-Stealing time is when the Crow of Mars allow their men to kidnap away from their husbands any married women they've slept with over the past year. Pretty Bottom doesn't want to be stolen, but has had quite enough of her husband, so of course she ends up with SinBad. Then they have to save a vegan lion-hunting party.

Trades some of the first story's manic energy for more comedy and a bit more sex, but this one still moves fast. An adventure story much more to my taste, staying more in one place instead of always in transit. The ending was a little out-of-nowhere, but that isn't a problem in this story. Despite liking it better, I'm still only giving this one a 3.5 out of 5.

SinBad the Sand Sailor

Novelette by R. Garcia y Robertson

SinBad smuggles antibiotics on the planet Barsoom, which has very little law enforcement besides a strict prohibition on advanced weaponry; swords and crossbows must suffice, despite GPS, solar powered wings, and a space elevator. He finds a prostitute on a dune, apparently fallen from an airship, and pulpy adventures ensue.

Fun, exciting adventure story, with a little implied comedy (SinBad is guilty of such horrendous crimes as "cohabiting with known lesbians"), but not much to it beyond that. There are some good twists, and the whole thing moves along remarkably fast. The main appeal to the story is nostalgia for older readers, and the concept itself of updating pulp adventure for plausibility in a modern SF frame, rather than the surreal crap paying homage. It succeeds at this, but I'd have liked to see a bit more... depth. 3.5 out of 5.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's December 2009

The Anti-World by Andrew Gudgel

Six Anti-stanzas of words beginning with anti-, anti-strung together into anti-sentences making anti-sense. The last stanza tries to tie it all together with some actual meaning, but falls flat. I anti-love this anti-poem, because I find it anti-anti-annoying.

The World's Ending Again in 2012 by Darrell Schweitzer

Not the most poetic piece, but still a fun look at end-of-the-world prophecies. James Randi should factor into more poetry.

Shiner by G.O. Clark

An okay poetic pun.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's October/November 2009

The top 5 poems of the year are split between this issue, and August's.

Derivative Work by Elissa Malcohn

Frankenstein's Monster has legal troubles: fun concept, mediocre poem.

For Ye, of Very Little Faith by W. Gregory Stewart

As physics puns go, this one's electroweak.

Monsters by Geoffrey A. Landis

Commercial Halloween makes monsters unscary, this could be a mistake. Like spending too much time on this poem. And I like Werewolves of London.

Unghost Stories by Greg Beatty

A haunting poem about how one does not need ghosts to feel haunted. Excellent.

The Hedge Witch's Upgrade by Sandra Lindow

Fantastic gardening inspired by the world record for World's Longest Herbaceous Border. Magical description of the mundane is always fun.

Edgar Allan Poe by Bryan D. Dietrich

I like his poem, but I'm not letting Mr. Dietrich run my Dead Writers Action Figure business.

In the final evaluation, this was an excellent issue for poetry: I rate Unghost Stories as my favorite poem of the year, with Edgar Allan Poe and The Hedge Witch's Upgrade as fourth and fifth place, respectively.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's September 2009

Speculative Tai Chi by Kendall Evans

Strong first half, weak second half.

smiling for half of them,

but last few parts seemed half-assed.

Nearly Ready For Occupation by Danny Adams

Newsflash: humanity has more baggage than moving to a new planet will fix. Shrug.

The Last Alchemist by Bruce Boston

This poem is in a pretty sweet-looking box, also, it's well written. But the sentiment bugs the hell out of me. I'm with Feynman.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's August 2009

The top 5 poems of the year are split between this issue, and October/November's.

Chicken From Minsk by Karin L. Frank

Poor little chickens aren't dinosaurs anymore.

Kind of funny, awkward wording in places, actually rhymes. Not bad.

Osteometry by Erin Hoffman

Another poem in remembrance of dinosaurs.

Spacing is a bit distracting, interesting thoughts on extinction, but ultimately forgettable, like our civilization is implied to be.

Doing Splits by Ruth Berman

Pithy variations on "split"-containing idioms.

A bit disjointed, but I like it.

And My Sinuses Are Killing Me by Tina Connolly

Not everyone wants to turn our cities back into forests.

Good flow, good idea, unique sentiment, best of issue.

The editor really screwed up here, DC (as in the city) is distractingly typo'd as KC.

Human Resources by F.J. Bergmann

Well done surreal imagery, funny yet meaningful ending. Second best.

After reading everything, and rereading, I think And My Sinuses Are Killing Me & Human Resources are the second and third best poems of the year.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's July 2009

For Sale: One Moonbase, Never Used by Esther M. Friesner

Would be interesting to see in the Classifieds, in Asimov's not so much. Generic.

Exobiology II by F.J. Bergmann

Just a bunch of sentences with

semi-random line breaks.

Seriously I'm not getting any sense of rhythm

here. And the title is just as irrelevant as

the very similar one on story immediately following.

Makes you think, because it doesn't tell a story

that makes a whole lot of sense.

Earth II

Novella by Stephen Baxter

Nothing to do with the tv show, for better or for worse; nothing to do with comic books, for the better.

I am not a fan of names so very generic, especially when it seems only there for lack of a better title. But the generic title doesn't ruin the rather good story.

Xaia Windru is a warrior queen sailing around Earth II and exploring things, her husband is a stay-at-home-king involved with the politics of building a super-library. The exploration of Earth II is exciting, and there are some good ideas here, but the top library lobbyist strikes me as a Hari Seldon wannabe. The discoveries Xaia makes on her expedition are surprisingly relevant, but are always revealed back home by one scholar or another at the same time. This gets a bit annoying.

Regardless, this is a strong adventure story with some really interesting concepts, particularly the organism known as The Purple. And, following up the return of our heroic/dangerously impulsive warrior queen is a conclusion that really surprises. I don't agree with the end at all, and if I lived in Zeeland I'd probably commit some sort of treason, but it is perfectly in character and makes logical sense, I just hate it. And that is what makes it, I can't stand the ending, but I have no problem believing it, and get angry enough that I might as well be there. So well done Stephen Baxter, 4 out of 5.

Act One

Novella by Nancy Kress

This has now been nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo. I went back to see why I didn't like it, because I couldn't remember anything besides there being a dwarf and some genetic terrorists. On second thought, that is reason enough for it not to win awards.

This one is going to join Gunfight on Farside as a good story that I liked, but not nearly as much as internet/reviewer/best-of-collection-editor consensus indicates I should. 3 out of 5.

The strange thing is I can't really identify why. The protagonist, Barry, is an excellent, well drawn character. Imagine Toby Zeigler washing out of politics and deciding to become an actress's manager. Also he's a dwarf and has to think about genetic modifications and free will.

I love this sort of character, I love genetics, the ethical issues brought up by the story are important, every character is excellent, the plot is plausible yet surprising. The only complaint I can come up with is that the ending is maybe wrapped up a bit too fast, but I see no good way to make it longer, and it does make you think. There is really nothing wrong here, but I didn't love it, I only liked it. Kress is an excellent writer, and you can certainly see that in this story, yet it lacks the punch it ought to have for me.

Broken Windchimes

Novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

The Pané are a species of aliens with extremely picky musical taste. Picky to the point I can see it being selective pressure against the continued existence of their society, but everything works so well I can get past it. One of the top musicians on the planet, a castrato male soprano, misses a single note during a performance, and his career is over. So rather than sit around being a has-been he catches the first cargo ship to the musical capital of human space. There he spends a bit too much time agonizing over the specifics of musical theory behind the blues, before getting to an extremely poignant conclusion. This one brought a tear to my eye, and proves that Ms. Rusch does actually know how to write a brilliant ending when she tries. 4.5 out of 5 orphans can sing the blues, but they don't all have perfect pitch.

The Sea of Dreams

Novella by William Barton

A jumbled mess, with a couple good ideas tossed in at the end; 1 out of 5.

At 38 pages, I found exactly one page of this novella good, with maybe another ten worth reading to get to that one. And that leaves a good deal of fluff. You could safely amputate the first 25 pages without losing much of anything (the mark of great literature!) The Sea of Dreams should have been a short story, and even then I can't see myself giving it more than maybe a 2.5 out of 5 with extreme editing.

There are many instances of entirely irrelevant sex in this story. And for all the time wasted talking about sex, it is neither graphic nor erotic, so you can't justify it as erotic fiction either, (if you consider that a justification). The central scientific dilemma, while admittedly not the point (although I'm not sure what the point was) is complete rubbish. The problem the characters have to solve would have resolved the same with a comatose protagonist being wheeled around between scenes, although I guess his boring chatter ended up making things worse for some parallel universes we don't care about.

A brief plot summary (spoiler-light, although I anti-recommend wasting your time on this) :
7 pages of almost entirely irrelevant introduction. 12 more of dealing with a civilization that exists purely as an homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs, with some Red Orm references sprinkled in. Neither of these have any bearing on anything. I quit reading 6 times during this part. It took me a week.

Finally, we get to the good bit: 9 pages of moving between some other irrelevant locations, with about a page worth of disjointed, barely comprehensible useful background, delivered with lots of made-up terms that never matter. Then our pointless heroes get sent to the past for 4 pages of standard-issue paradox avoidance, before being sent to the distant future for 5 pages of wandering around aimlessly with a little bit of pseudo-physics thrown in.

And finally the quest to return home is completed with a very literal bit of deus ex machina and we get exactly 1 page of fairly thought provoking denouement, although it ends with an out-of-nowhere speculation about which option to choose of what seems to me a false dichotomy about an issue I'd gotten the impression the protagonist should have moved past long ago. Why the hell semi-ruin the universe to get back a lost love after spending the whole novella falling for your cloned sex slave. Not that the reader can actually care about our central lizardman anyway. 38 pages and all the character development of 5. The saving grace to the ending was that it wasn't either terrible thing I expected: it was neither all a dream nor The Number of the Beast for dummies. Small victories.

Pelago

Novella by Judith Berman

Ari's parents have been killed by space pirates in a very creative future setting.  She joins their crew hoping for revenge, but first has to prove herself useful.  An ancient space station that responds to her commands gives her some interesting options here, if only she can pull herself together psychologically enough to survive.  Space-Opera/Horror/Coming-of-Age.

This novella is actually an excerpt from Berman's novel-in-progress Invisible House.  But don't let that put you off.  It had me worried a bit too, and it did take a little while to piece together all the background information, but everything you need is there.  And more importantly, there is an excellent ending to this excerpt.  A lot of novel excerpts end on a "to be continued... buy my book!", but this concludes very nicely.  Only the immediate situation is resolved, and there is clearly more story in store for our heroine, but I feel confidently optimistic about her future.  Ari develops impressively over the course of this segment and the ending surprised me by being better than my at-the-time ideal way to end the story disregarding continuing it as a novel.  

Additionally, this story evokes some real fear and manages to paint the pirates both as terrible monsters, and as realistic, round characters.  At novel length I can imagine myself cheering for the captain who had one of his crew turned into a still living, sentient chair.    Ari is a great protagonist with much more depth than usual to the revenge motive, and heck, I'd even read a story about the poor repairman who was stranded on the station before this excerpt starts.  I'll definitely be reading the book when it comes out whatever direction it takes, my only worry is that I might like this segment better than the novel considered as a whole.  5 out of 5.

P.S. The pirates speak in a grammatically bizarre creole dialect that some people find really annoying.  I was a bit frustrated at first, but you can learn to parse it fine after a while, and it is definitely worth the effort.  Much like Juliette Wade's Cold Words, the non-standard speech is justified by the story, and, although it may be frustrating to the reader, doesn't provide that much of an obstacle, and succeeds in enhancing one's enjoyment of the story.  Don't let early frustration prevent you from continuing on.

The Great Armada

Novella by Brian Stableford

Francis Bacon and a bunch of other Sixteenth Century personages save the world from an armada of ether-ships sent by the insect civilization of the moon. This is apparently the conclusion to a series of 3 other stories, none of which I've read. I get the impression this was the weakest of them. It took me 15 of the 40 pages to engage with the story at all, the Preface summarizing the first 3 stories was probably necessary, but between that and all the allusions to prior events, there was a large hurdle to get over before having a clue what was going on.

When I finally did get into the story, it was very interesting, although Bacon seemed just along for the ride up until the last 1/4 of the story. And besides the heavy amount of background required, I guess that is my major complaint: none of the main characters had much to do with the events or resolution of the story. Technically Bacon did, but the ending he brought about, although satisfying, smelled a bit of deus ex machina. And still, I absolutely loved it. A bit of meta-humor certainly helps.

"It was a comedy," Francis said. "For which we should all be truly thankful. Had it been a tragedy, as it might so easily have become, it would not be a suitable subject for drama for at least five hundred years."

The technology, descriptions, and religious overtones really made this feel like this came from the Sixteenth Century, and that pays off big for me. Much of it was a simple adventure ride, proceeding along the tracks from scene to scene regardless of the efforts of the protagonist, but still enjoyable. Although I can only give this a 2.5 out of 5, I suspect the others in the series would fare better, and I'll be tracking them down sooner or later.

The Spires of Denon

Novella by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

We follow the exploration of the caves beneath the titular Big Dumb Object from the points of view of supremely competent security chief Meklos, frustratingly secretive (and to my mind, incompetent) archaeologist Gabrielle, and mysterious hidden agenda lady Navi. One cannot help but like Meklos, and it must be tough resisting the urge to punch Gabrielle. So the characters, although perhaps more flat than one might like, are certainly well drawn. The setting is neat and the archaeological mystery is pretty good and there is an excellent tension throughout the whole story. But, again, the whole thing falls apart in the last couple pages. The action builds up to a critical point, a major twist is revealed, although it was subtly foreshadowed, but then said twist fizzles out the entire climax rather than satisfactorily resolving it. And the two things I was most curious about were either not explained, or implied to be non-mysteries in the end. An exciting tale of archeology and danger that has a crap ending and comes across as half finished despite being the longest novella in Asimov's this year; 3 out of 5.