Aligned with the Nebula Awards, if that’s
your thing (4/5)
It’s a little odd that I’ve been
reading science fiction for eight years now yet I’ve never opened an anthology
by Terry Carr. I’ve read one of Carr’s short stories (“The Dance of the Changer
and the Three” [1] [2]) but wasn’t too impressed by it. Once the editor of the Universe
anthology series (1971-1987), Carr compiled his favorite nine stories from the
series in 1984. The Best from Universe would ideally be a cross-section
of all the stories published, but rather than being back by Carr’s subjective
tastes, the anthology feels aligned with Nebula Award nominations (Ellison,
Leiber, and Varley) and Nebula Award winners (Silverberg, Wolfe, and Waldrop).
For the most part, the stories are
quite good—the notable exception of Ellison’s story “On the Downhill Side”,
which I didn’t care for the least bit. Aside from Ellison’s fantasy tale of
unicorns and death, Carr includes the bizarre—courtesy of Lafferty and
Silverberg—, the steamy and intellectual—courtesy of Leiber—, and the literary—thanks
to Wolfe.
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Silverberg, Robert: Good News
from the Vatican (shortstory, 1971) – 4/5 – The narrator, along with a bishop,
a rabbi and a couple, wait at a café just outside of the Vatican for word of
the election of the new Pope. It’s widely rumored that the new Pope will be a
robot in order to appease the population of the automata. The rabbi, himself,
has seen the mirrored figure as a keynote speaker one time and he had his charms.
From the chimney rises the white smoke of decision—one of oppressive mirrors or
one of impressive smoke? 9 pages
Lafferty, R.A.: Nor Limestone
Islands (shortstory, 1971) – 4/5 – Of the millions of clouds floating above our
land, it’s rumored that thirty of so of them are actually lands of granite and
marble. How they stay aloft, no one knows for sure but there are instances
where their existence is ponderable. First the man who said his marble quarry
was only three miles away who also had the reputation of flinging stones; then,
there’s the photographer considered batty for the shots of the clouds; and
lastly, someone please explain the 400-meter tall pagoda. 13 pages
Ellison, Harlan: On the Downhill
Side (shortstory, 1972) – 2/5 – Disembodied as a ghost haunting the Quarters of
New Orleans, Paul Ordahl and his trusty unicorn steed innocuously roam the
streets of the day’s twilight. Lizette, too, strolls the street where the
unicorn allows her to stroke its muzzle—a sure sign the young lass is a virgin.
Her stories date her more than a hundred years old while Paul is a more recent
death, his prior life haunted by foiled marriages. As dawn approaches, so too
do their fates. 14 pages
Le Guin, Ursala K.:
Schrödinger’s Cat (shortstory, 1974) – 3/5 – Both notable for their speed,
earthworms will crawl or speed about under feet while birds will swoop of break
the sound barrier above head. As one man’s house, a postman or perhaps a dog
knocks at the door and marvels at the coincidence of having Schrödinger’s box
and seeing Schrödinger’s cat in the house. The man is initially leery of
performing the experiment, but the cat jumps into the box and experiment
begins, but where and when does the experiment cease? 8 pages
Wolfe, Gene: The Death of
Doctor Island (novella, 1973) – 5/5 – Orbiting Jupiter, an island of spherical
glass houses an ocean and its own sandy island. On this island tread the
fractured minds of once isolated individuals: Diane with her occasional yet
incurable catatonia; Ignacio with his homicidal tendencies, anti-social yet
thriving; and Nicolas with his general lassitude toward social conformity and a
penchant for fire. The convalescence sphere oversees their recuperation but not
their safety in the space-warping bucolic hospital. 53 pages
Pangborn,
Edgar: The Night Wind (novelette, 1974) – 3/5 – Having committed a taboo in his
community, Benvenuto flees the once secure village in favor of isolation and
personal safety. Though brought up to read and write by the bishop, all of the
sudden, after his so-called heinous act, Benvenuto is labeled a monster but
still clings to the vanity of once being called beautiful. He reflects on his
past history with his lover Andreas and his filial affection for the chandler’s
wife—Mam Miriam. 17 pages
Leiber, Fritz: A Rite of Spring
(novelette, 1977) – 5/5 – Cooped up in the top of a cube in the desert
dedicated to theoretical and applied sciences, Matthew is pleasantly disrupted
by the cherubic grace of young Severeign Saxon. Initially awkward, the chance
encounter in his room takes a playful turn as the two play the Numbers
Game—naming all things grouped by seven. After a brief round and a brief kiss,
Matthew relishes her return and her mysterious origin. Playfulness becomes
foreplay, innocence becomes guilt. 35 pages
Varley, John: Options
(novelette, 1979) – 3/5 – When cheap and easy sex changes were first
introduced, it was outside the norm of society and catered to a specific
demographic. Now twenty years later, people of all ages and all walks of life
are cloning their reverse-sexed bodies to live as it for some time. Cleo, a
wife and mother of six, though mutually agreed to non-monogamy, takes an interest
in becoming Leo. With the change in full, Leo experiences life as a man married
to a reluctant man. 28 pages
Waldrop,
Howard: The Ugly Chickens (novelette, 1980) - 4/5 – Paul Lindberl is working on
his master’s in ornithology and is a biology assistant at the University of
Texas. While on a bus thumbing through his book on extinct and rare birds, one
woman comments on how she used to see those ugly chickens—the dodo—all the time
when she was young. Paul follows the lead to a country shack where he gathers
the old bits of shells and bones, but he needs to take it one step further: How
did the dodos end up in America
and where is the photographic proof? 23 pages
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