Asimov's SF December 2008 Reviewed
Volume 32 issue 12, Whole Number 395 from Dell Magazines
Nov 6, 2008
Asimovs continues to dominate the short-SF scene in 2008, providing two Nebula, and two of the Hugo winners in the three short-fiction categories.
In terms of plot, little happens in Tim Sullivan's "Way Down East," but that is good, since it focuses on characterization, and an over-complex plot might prove to be distracting. An alien visiting the earth and his Secret Service bodyguards are taken on a boat by two fishermen, one of them lonely and alienated from his son. The alien proves to be the catalyst for the fisherman to re-evaluate his life. Highly recommended.
Jack McDevitt
"Welcome to Valhalla" by Kathryn Lance and Nebula-winner Jack McDevitt is a brief fantasy about Richard Wagner and whether an artist should compromise their beliefs if they learn of how their work may be perverted. Wagner --unsurprisingly-- given the intensity with which he viewed music decides to 'hold his ground.' (p34)
Steven Utley
Only a little longer, but more complex by a magnitude is Steven Utley's "Perfect Everything," in which an interstellar expedition is returning to their colony-world home. The protagonist spends much of time dreaming --via a crystal 'dreamball'-- of his love left behind on the colony, but all is not as it seems, and the expedition returns home empty-handed, but to a world transformed. The two strands never quite gel, and Utley's method of overcoming implausibility is to point it out.
"In Concert" by Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem may be the most convincing evocation of how it really, really feels to grow old and watch the world slipping away since Ursula Le Guin's classic "The Day Before the Revolution." But there is more purpose in this story of an old woman who throughout her life has been able to intermittently hear the thoughts of others than in the Le Guin, and it deserves a wider audience.
Geoffrey A. Landis
Geoffrey A. Landis' "Still on the Road" is a montage of classic space opera images and astronomy with the narrative of Jack Kerouac's classic novel On the Road, allowing Landis the luxury of evoking a Sense of Wonder in a tiny vignette.
Returning to a sub-theme -- music in SF, the last and longest story in the issue is David Ira Cleary's "The Flowers of Nicosia." It's a wry look --that darkens considerably toward the end-- at a near-future aging rock band who survive an assassination attempt by Muslim fundamentalists. Bombed out of their minds as they are on Xanax and Zen Buddhism, they decide that their survival is a Sign. The early jokes about the would-be manager's malaproprisms and the group's name provide a neat tie-in in to the Landis, which must have seemed like a gift to editor Sheila Williams.
Her own nostalgic editorial is titled New Dimensions, which of course was a 1970s anthology series edited by Robert Silverberg, whose own 'Reflections' takes a look at the sadly-neglected Murray Leinster. Together with Peter Heck's Book Reviews, and the SF Conventional Calendar from Erwin Strauss, and a stunning J.K. Potter cover, it's a solid end to a solid year from Asimovs.
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