Year’s Best SF 18 Read online

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  To Williams College, for the David G. Hartwell ’63 Science Fiction Symposium

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Introduction

  “Old Paint” * Megan Lindholm

  “The Ghosts of Christmas” * Paul Cornell

  “Prayer” * Robert Reed

  “The Battle of Candle Arc” * Yoon Ha Lee

  “Dormanna” * Gene Wolfe

  “Holmes Sherlock: A Hwarhath Mystery” * Eleanor Arnason

  “Electrica” * Sean McMullen

  “Perfect Day” * C. S. Friedman

  “Swift as a Dream and Fleeting as a Sigh” * John Barnes

  “Liberty’s Daughter” * Naomi Kritzer

  “Weep for Day” * Indrapramit Das

  “In Plain Sight” * Pat Cadigan

  “Application” * Lewis Shiner

  “A Love Supreme” * Kathleen Ann Goonan

  “Close Encounters” * Andy Duncan

  “Two Sisters in Exile” * Aliette de Bodard

  “Waves” * Ken Liu

  “The North Revena Ladies Literary Society” * Catherine H. Shaffer

  “Antarctica Starts Here” * Paul McAuley

  “Bricks, Sticks, Straw” * Gwyneth Jones

  “The Sigma Structure Symphony” * Gregory Benford

  “Glass Future” * Deborah Walker

  “If Only…” * Tony Ballantyne

  “The Woman Who Shook the World Tree” * Michael Swanwick

  “Nahiku West” * Linda Nagata

  “Houseflies” * Joe Pitkin

  “Branches on My Back, Sparrows in My Ear” * Nikki J. North

  “The Peak of Eternal Light” * Bruce Sterling

  Tor Books by David G. Hartwell

  About the Editor

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  THIS IS A book about what’s going on now in science fiction. We are moving through decades of change, and as SF—often called the literature of change—represents that, we have to change in our daily lives as well, and that is not always comfortable. But science fiction remains vigorous and challenging and eminently worth reading.

  This is a book full of science fiction—every story in the book is clearly that and not something else. It is my opinion that it is a good thing to have genre boundaries. After all, as I said in the first volumes of this series, without them, ambitious writers would have nothing to transgress. I try in each volume of this series to represent the varieties of tones, and voices, and attitudes that keep the genre entertaining, surprising, and responsive to the changing realities out of which it emerges, in science and daily life. It is supposed to be fun to read, a special kind of fun you cannot find elsewhere.

  This volume is intended to represent the variety of fine stories published in the year of focus. But bear with me for a few paragraphs as I first give some characterization of the year in SF. The year 2012 was one of recovery for the publishing industry, and of adjustments to new publishing realities. Growth of e-book sales slowed, but still they grew. Tor Books became the first of the major publishers to go DRM free on its books, and found, as they had hoped, that it did not increase piracy or lower sales in any measurable way. Others are still hesitant to follow, though many of the smaller publishers—Baen Books, for instance, in SF—do not have DRM. The sky did not fall, and the world economy continued its fragile recovery.

  As I observed last year, physical books are still where the money is. For seventeen years, this annual has appeared as a mass market paperback, a publication format that is less and less viable as a publishing medium nowadays, with diminished expectations. And so it was time to try to move the series to hardcover and trade paperback, and continue it in e-book formats as well. I hope readers will approve. In the e-book industry, the real profit is in the sale of devices, which are replaced by newer devices, rather than in the sale of books. And it appears that e-book readers are giving way to multipurpose devices that are also readers: tablets and phones.

  Certainly SF continued to appear in Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Asimov’s, in Fantasy & Science Fiction and in Interzone, and in a lot of original anthologies. The longest tenured magazine editor in the modern history of SF, Stan Schmidt of Analog, retired, but the magazine continues in fine form under the editorship of Trevor Quachri. Analog is the last bastion of the science-based fiction that used to characterize the whole genre, and it will be very interesting to see how it evolves with a new editor.

  Straightforward genre stories continued to be a bit scarcer. A lot more fiction graded off into fantasy or mixed genres (and away from science), while fantasy fiction (not in any way Science Fiction) quite obviously proliferated. One entertaining feature of 2012 was the resurgence of Heroic Fantasy, the old Sword & Sorcery subgenre founded by Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories, and repopularized by the success of George R. R Martin’s Game of Thrones series.

  Short fiction venues remained about the same in 2012, and a pale shadow of what they were a decade or more ago. But that they remain in any form is a kind of triumph for the field. Science fiction magazines once again lost some circulation. Online venues, which might pay contributors but make little money, grew or failed again this year. Nonprofit sites such as Strange Horizons and Tor.com appeared the most stable of the online bunch. Clarkesworld and Lightspeed did distinguished work again. Small publishers of anthologies, especially the Bay Area cluster of Night Shade and Tachyon and Michigan-based Subterranean, were vigorous—it was a kind of final fireworks display, a blaze of glory for Night Shade, which has now been sold to another publisher.

  And as usual, a large amount of the best short fiction originated in the year’s new crop of anthologies. Among the best of these were: Solaris 1.5, edited by Ian Whates; Eclipse Online, edited by Jonathan Strahan; Edge of Infinity, edited by Jonathan Strahan; and The Future Is Japanese, edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington.

  What struck me most this year was the unremitting pressure of new writers seeking a place in the field. In spite of everything, a really talented new crop of writers has emerged online and in fringe markets in recent years, as well as in the major magazines and unusual venues such as Nature. Some of them are in this book.

  And so to the book: The stories that follow show, and the story notes point out, the strengths of the evolving genre in the year 2012. I make a lot of additional comments about the writers and the stories, and what’s happening in SF, in the individual introductions accompanying the stories in this book. Welcome to Year’s Best SF 18.

  David G. Hartwell

  Pleasantville and Westport, NY

  OLD PAINT

  Megan Lindholm

  Megan Lindholm was born in 1952 in California, raised in Alaska, and currently resides in Tacoma, Washington. She began selling short stories for children when she was eighteen, but quickly moved on to attempting to write fantasy and science fiction. Harpy’s Flight was her first fantasy novel, which she sold in 1982. She wrote a number of novels as Megan Lindholm, of which the best known is Wizard of the Pigeons. She continues to write short stories
as Megan Lindholm, and is a Hugo and Nebula finalist under that name. Her most recent Lindholm stories include “Blue Boots” and “Neighbors.” She also writes as Robin Hobb. Her first published work as Robin Hobb was the Farseer Trilogy (Assassin’s Apprentice, Royal Assassin, and Assassin’s Quest) and the most recent Hobb novels are the Rain Wilds Chronicles (Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, and Blood of Dragons).

  “Old Paint” was published in Asimov’s. The future setting is subtle and convincing, and the family dynamics portrayed are evoked and displayed with masterful precision and emotional impact. It reminds me of the work of Connie Willis at her best. I chose this story to begin this collection because I think it will be read, and enjoyed, and admired long into the future.

  I WAS ONLY nine when it happened, so I may not have the details absolutely right. But I know the heart of my story, and the heart is always what matters in a tale like mine.

  My family didn’t have much when I was growing up. A lot of lean years happened in that first half of the century. I don’t say I had it as tough as my mom did, but the 2030’s weren’t a piece of cake for anyone. My brother, my mom, and I lived in subsidized housing in the part of T-town they call New Tacoma. It sure wasn’t new when I was a kid. Tacoma’s always been a tough town, and my mom said that her grandpa kept her on a short leash and she survived it, and so her kids would, too. Everyone knew we had the strictest mom in our apartments and pitied us for it.

  We weren’t like a lot of folks in the subsidized housing. Mom was ashamed to be there. It was the only thing she took from the government, and I think if she had been alone, she would have lived on the streets. We got by on what she made working at an old folks’ home, so we budgeted hard. She cooked our meals from scratch and we carried our lunches to school in the same battered lunch boxes and stained backpacks, year after year. She mended our clothes and we shopped at the Goodwill. Our cellphones were clunky and we all shared one computer. And we didn’t have a car.

  Then my great grandpa died. Mom had hardly seen him in years, and we kids didn’t know him at all, but she was in his will. She got what was left in his checking account, which wasn’t much, and the old furniture in his apartment, which was mostly particle board crap. The old rocking chair was good, and the ceramic canisters shaped like mushrooms were cool. Mom said they were really old and she remembered them from when she was little. But the one big thing he did have was a car, parked in his parking slot where it had been gathering dust for the last twelve years since they’d taken his license away.

  The car was vintage, and not in a good way. Back in the 2020’s, there was this rage for making new energy-efficient cars that looked sort of like the old classic gas guzzlers. People wanted rumble and roomy to go with their solar and alternative fuels. I guess my great grandpa had been a surfer back in the day, because what he chose was something that was supposed to look like a station wagon. The first time we went down to the parking garage and looked at it, Ben, my older brother, groaned and asked, “What is that crap on the sides? Is it supposed to look like wood or something?”

  “Or something,” my mom said absently. She pushed the button on the key, but the battery for it was long dead. So she opened the car the old-fashioned way, putting the key in a hole in the door handle. I was fascinated and proud of my mom for knowing you could do that.

  The outside of the car was covered in fine dust, but inside it was immaculate. She sat in the seat for a little while with her hands on the wheel, acting like she could see out the windshield. She was smiling a little bit. Then she said, “The smart thing to do is sell him. If the interior is this good, I bet he kept the engine cherry, too.” She reached down and pulled a little handle, and Ben and I jumped when the hood of the car popped up.

  “Mom, I think you broke it,” Ben said. “Maybe we shouldn’t touch anything until we can have a mechanic look at it.” Ben was fourteen then, and for some reason, he now believed that if he didn’t know something, Mom didn’t know it either. She just snorted and got out of the car and went around to open the hood the rest of the way.

  “My goodness,” she said softly. “You did take care of him, Pops.”

  I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I do remember that the inside of that engine compartment was spotless. She shut the hood, unplugged the car from the supplemental charger, and retracted the coil. She had a license and knew how to drive, because that was part of her job at the old people’s home. I was still surprised when she slid in behind the wheel and put the key in a slot-thing and turned it. The vehicle had an anti-theft box on the steering column. She hesitated, and then put her forefinger on the sensor. “Hello, Suzanne,” the car said in a rich, brown voice. “How are you today?”

  “Just fine,” she said quietly. “Just fine.”

  Ben was freaked. Mom noticed that and grinned. She patted the steering column. “My grandpa’s voice. A little customization he did on the systems.” She tossed her head at the back seat. Ben opened the door and we both got in. There were shoulder strap seat belts.

  “No airbags?” Ben asked in disbelief.

  “They’re there. But when he was new, cars had both. It’s safe. I wouldn’t put you in a car if I thought it wasn’t safe.” She closed her eyes for a minute and tightened up her mouth as if she’d suddenly wanted to cry. Then she opened her eyes and shifted her grip on the wheel. “Let’s blast,” she said loud and clear, and the engine started. It was a lot louder than any other car I’d ever heard. Mom had to raise her voice to talk over it. “And when he was new, cars were electric and internal combustion. And much noisier than they are now.”

  Ben was horrified. “This car is running on gasoline, right now?”

  Mom shook her head. “Sound effects. And loudest inside the car. My grandpa had a sense of humor.” She stroked the car’s dash. “All those years, and he never took me off the security system.”

  “How smart is this car?” Ben demanded.

  “Smart enough,” she said. “He can take himself to a fueling station. Knows when his tires are low on air, and can schedule his own oil change. He used to talk to the dealership; I wonder if it’s even in business still. He’s second generation simulated intelligence. Sure fooled me, most of the time. He has a lot of personality customization in his software. My grandpa put in a bunch of educational stuff, too. He can speak French. He used to drill me on my vocabulary on the way to school. And he knew all my favorite radio stations.” She shook her head. “Back then, people wanted their cars to be their friends. He sure was mine.”

  “That’s wack,” Ben said solemnly.

  “No, it was great. I loved it. I loved him.”

  “Love you too, Suzanne,” the car said. His voice was a rich baritone.

  “You should sell this thing, Mom,” Ben advised her wisely.

  “Maybe I should,” Mom said, but the way she said it, I knew that we had a car now.

  Ben had begun to think he was the man of the house, so he tried to start an argument with Mom about selling the car and using that money and her inheritance money to buy a real car. She just looked at him and said, “Seems to me it’s my inheritance, not yours. And I’m keeping him.”

  And so that was that.

  She opened a little panel on his dash and punched in our address. She moved a handle on the steering column, and the car began to ease backward. I held my breath, thinking we were going to hit something, but we didn’t. She stopped the car, moved the handle again, and we slid forward, smooth as a slide, up and out of the parking garage and into the daylight.

  On the way home, she kept pushing buttons and chatting with the car. It didn’t have instant-net, but it had a screen that folded down from the ceiling. “What good is that? You have to sit in the back seat to see it,” Ben complained. Mom reached under the seat and opened a drawer. Inside was a bunch of old style DVD’s in flat plastic cases.

  “They’re movies,” she said. “Supposed to entertain the kids in the back seat. The screen is bac
k there so the driver won’t be distracted.” She picked up the stack and began to sort through them. She had a wistful half-smile on her face. “I remember all of these,” she said quietly. “Some were my favorites.”

  “So the driver’s supposed to just sit up front by himself and be bored?” Ben demanded.

  She set the movies down with a sigh and turned to him. “The driver is supposed to drive.” She turned back and put her hands on the wheel and looked out over the hood. “When this fellow was built, cars were only allowed to go a short distance without a licensed driver in the driver’s seat. Less than a mile, I think it was. The auto-brains were really limited back then. Legally limited more than technically limited. People didn’t really trust cars to drive themselves. They had emergency services locators, of course, so they could take you to the hospital if you passed out, and sensors to help you park, but when he was built, drivers still did most of the driving.”

  “Why do you keep calling the car ‘he’ and ‘him’?” Ben demanded.

  “Old habit,” my mom said, but she said it in a way that ended the conversation.

  We had a parking spot at our building that we’d never used before. The first time we pulled up in the car, every kid hanging around outside came to see what the noise was. They watched as the car plugged in to charge. Our car was about twice as long as any other car in the lot.

  “Look at the size of those solars,” one boy whispered, and Ben’s ears went red.

  “Old piece of junk,” said another knowingly. “Surprised it still runs at all.”

  Mom did the one thing that Ben hated the most. I didn’t much like it either. All the other moms in the building would have just ignored the wanna-be gangers hanging around the parking lot. Mom always looked straight at them and talked to them as if they were smart, even when they were so drugged out they could barely stand.

  “He’s old, but he runs like a clock. He’ll probably outlast most of the Tupperware crates here. They still used a lot of steel when this guy was built.” Mom set the alarm, and the tattle-tale light began to circle the car.