Going Deep

Short Story by James Patrick Kelly

Available in many forms on his website

Note: Asimov's originally had this as a novelette, but my word count and, less importantly, the Nebula Awards classify it is a short story.

Mariska is a typical bitchy, angsty teenager. Her Mom/clone went off to explore space and left Mariska to be raised by a hired father and an AI bedroom. This is the story of her rebelling against every aspect of her life being decided for her: career, boyfriend, and now being taken away from her home before she is ready.

The setting is interesting, and Kelly captures the teenage girl perfectly. But the warm, parent-friendly ending seems off for the still-predestined spacer destiny. And I obviously read the climax as a much darker, more dangerous thing that the author did, given the ending. Not bad, not Nebula worthy.

3 heroic fossils out of 5.

Poetry Roundup: Asimov's June 2009

And Drunk the Milk of Paradise by Robert Frazier

Oblique, poetic bit about a revolution on Mars, doesn't say anything much but not awful.

Within Your Shoes by Mark Rich

When everyone is extraordinary, the normal guy is the only unique one. This one was great on the first reading, but somehow diminished on the second one. Not to say I didn't like it, but although it is a real poem, has rhythm and depth and something to say, and tells a story on top of that, it ends up being almost too trivial? That review is almost ironic, considering the content.

Split Decisions by Kendall Evans & David C. Kopaska-Merkel

Navajo spirituality meets quantum physics. Lots of toying with wave-particle duality wave-form collapse, has a nice lyrical quality, but not as original as it thinks it is. Good, not great.

Controlled Experiment

Novelette by Tom Purdom

A prisoner is experimentally fitted with a rage inhibiting device and released into a community. But someone seems to be trying to sabotage the program and end the idea of partially paroling life-sentence prisoners who due to medical advancement are now spending hundreds of years in prison. Since the police refuse to actually do anything, the elderly couple into whose care he has been released investigate for themselves.

Pretty good, kept exciting by the interspersing bits of diary from the hacker hired to carry out part of the attacks. Both the logical evolution of hacker culture and the budgetary and moral implications behind life sentences with expanding life expectancy will keep me thinking about this for a long time, but the ideas and the detective story aren't quite developed enough for me to love this. 3.5 out of 5.