Stories from Asimov's have won 44 Hugos and 24 Nebula Awards, and the magazine's March issue continues the high standard.
Nancy Kress
The lead novella this month is 'Act One' by Nancy Kress. In the near future, the Anti-Genetic Modification Act has proscribed uncontrolled genetic experimentation. Barry Tenler is manager for actress Jane Snow, a fading Norma Desmond preparing for one last comeback. To research the role Snow --accompanied by Tenler-- meets with The Group, a quasi-terrorist organization committed to gene-modification in defiance of the Act.
The emotional twist to the story is given by Tenler's undeclared love for Snow, and her repugnance toward his every touch; Tenler is a four foot tall dwarf with a broken marriage and his own feelings toward the Act, and who lives in constant pain.
Kress is far better at novella than at shorter length, and given that she already has four such trophies, it's no stretch to visualize 'Act One' as an early contender for the 2009 Nebula Award. It's an outstanding story, and even when Kress hints fairly broadly through Tenler that there will be sequels, it doesn't mar its quality.
Short Stories
R. Neube's 'Intelligence' is the first of two short stories that take very different looks at consciousness; Bob is one of several concurrent AIs learning how to be human, while his handler provides the physical presence when required for things like dating. The reader will quickly guess that 'Intelligence' is a comedy, and a good one at that.
Shorter --barely a thousand words-- and drier, but every bit as funny is Benjamin Crowell's 'Whatness,' a very unusual post-apocalyptic story about the last man on Earth and his dog. Recommended.
Separating them is Sara Genge's 'Slow Stampede.' On an alien planet, Raj and his tribe eke out a marginal existence in a vast swamp also inhabited by cannibal merpeople, through which pass regular caravans of swamp-elephants ripe for the picking. Newcomer Genge skillfully depicts an exotic world peopled by ambitious youngsters, doddering elders and indulgent mothers. Recommended.
One of two novelettes in the issue, Holly Phillip's 'The Long, Cold Goodbye' feels at first like fantasy, but with airships, steamers and an Arctic that's gradually re-freezing, it is SF with a pellucid tone and one word names reminiscent of 1970s Le Guin. Berd is in love with Sele but when she is late meeting him she at first fears that he has thrown himself from the esplanade onto the ice below. For Sele doesn't return her love -as far as he is concerned, they are just friends. The letters that pepper the text cast a different light on their relationship from Sele's perspective, although Sele insists that they are fictional, merely supporting evidence for Berd's application to travel. Highly recommended.
Harry Turtledove
Harry Turtledove's "Getting Real" is perhaps the one less than entirely satisfying story in the issue. In the mid-22nd century America is now only a ghost of a superpower, many of its assets sold off to pay the national debt. China now owns Catalina and the Channel Islands, and the two countries' relationship is a mirror image of that between Britain and China when the former ruled half the globe.
There is no issue with the world that Turtledove draws, which echoes much of what James Howard Kunstler has written in his non-fiction. Nor is there any argument with the downbeat, depressing future for the USA, which sadly seems all too likely unless the new President can reverse the country's fortunes.
What grates instead are the clumsiness of the prose itself, the parodic stupidity of the American politicians, and the deeply unsatisfying final image, reinforcing a Fu Manchu-esque stereotype.
It's an unfortunate end to an otherwise outstanding issue.
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