The Ross 248 Projectedited by
Les Johnson and Ken Roy
(Baen, May 2023, pb, 400 pp.)
“Garden of Serpents” by Patrick Chiles
“And a Child Shall Lead Them” by Stephanie Osborn
“Somebody’s World” by Laura Montgomery
“Kraken Rising” by Daniel M. Hoyt and E. Marshall Hoyt
“Dim Carcosa” by D. J. Butler
“Echoes of a Beating Heart” by Robert E. Hampson
“1-of-Antonia” by Monalisa Foster
“MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure)” by J. L. Curtis
“A Field of Play” by K. S. Daniels
“Not Too Tired” by Les Johnson and Ken Roy
Reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf
The common background for this anthology of new science fiction stories is a time, many centuries from now, when ordinary humans, genetically enhanced humans, and artificial intelligences journey to the star system mentioned in the title.
In addition to fiction, the book contains articles about terraforming and the possibility of creating a Space Patrol. (The latter is written from the point of view of a person in the future, but is otherwise pure nonfiction.) There is also an appendix containing a timeline of future events, a brief description of the star (which actually exists) and its fictional planets, and a discussion of the speculative technology used to power the starships that appear in the stories.
“Garden of Serpents” by Patrick Chiles takes place soon after the Space Patrol arrives at an Earth-like planet. Their mission is to determine if the world is safe for colonists. The narrator is the sole survivor of the doomed expedition, who reveals what happened to his fellows.
This is a science fiction horror story. The narrator’s informal style adds realism, but the reader is likely to predict the nature of the planet’s hidden menace long before it is revealed.
“And a Child Shall Lead Them” by Stephanie Osborn takes place on a moon orbiting another planet in the system. It is inhabited by enhanced humans, who live in shelters protecting them from the hostile environment. The protagonist is a young woman. Although she has advanced degrees and is an expert in astrophysics, she is considered a child because she has not yet undergone a change in her body that occurs in the enhanced humans at full maturity.
The woman discovers that the star is soon going to send out a huge flare, threatening all humans and AIs in the system. The struggle to create adequate shelter from the deadly radiation is complicated by the fact that the woman’s body changes at the worst possible time, requiring dangerous surgery, and by a starship captain who refuses to listen to her because she’s a child.
The author creates a great deal of suspense, and the disaster is treated in a convincing fashion. The stubbornness of the starship captain makes him seem like a total fool, rather than someone worthy of command. The body transformation that the enhanced humans experience at adulthood (a major change in the digestive system) is so life-threatening that it seems unlikely its benefits would outweigh its dangers.
In “Somebody’s World” by Laura Montgomery, a woman discovers an ancient alien structure on the planet around which the moon in the previous story orbits. The protagonist is a lawyer who argues that the law of abandonment applies, and that the world is now human property. His opponent argues that the law of salvage applies, and that the planet must be considered alien property. This seemingly abstract disagreement has important implications for the possible colonization of the Earth-like world from the first story.
The author is a practicing lawyer, so the legal aspects of the story are completely convincing. Exploration of the alien structure adds some interest to what is otherwise a dry, intellectual tale.
(As a side note, it can be seen that the editors and the authors were careful to make the stories interact with each other. The book can be thought of as a mosaic novel, although the individual pieces are complete works in themselves.)
“Kraken Rising” by Daniel M. Hoyt and E. Marshall Hoyt takes place on a planet in the system that is lifeless but completely covered with water. A small number of researchers inhabit the world, in order to determine if it can be terraformed. The two main characters are long-time friends, both working on the planet. When the man is accused of sabotaging the project, the woman chases after him, evading the authorities at the same time, in order to find out if he’s guilty and to prevent a possible disaster.
The narrative jumps back and forth in time, beginning with a chase scene, then revealing the prior relationship between the two characters. This is not done in an ordinary flashback manner, but in multiple sections of text that appear to be arranged at random. Readers willing to struggle through this disorienting structure may be able to enjoy an exciting adventure story. The plot depends on the male character, supposedly a brilliant innovator, failing to recognize an obvious flaw in his grand scheme.
“Dim Carcosa” by D. J. Butler features a former member of the Space Patrol, discharged for ill health, who now works as a private investigator in what is essentially a ghetto for normal humans in the enhanced humans’ colony. He has a sophisticated but non-sentient computer system implanted in his brain. A wealthy woman hires him to find her missing daughter, leading him to a bizarre conspiracy of cultists.
As may be obvious from my synopsis, this story is very different from others in the book. The mood is one of cyberpunk mixed with hardboiled crime fiction. Frequent references to Robert W. Chambers’ 1895 collection The King in Yellow add a touch of supernatural horror as well.
The author manages to skillfully integrate a unique tale into the shared background of the anthology. Although readers may be able to predict the solution to the whodunit aspect of the plot, which is fairly clued, the resulting work remains an intriguing one.
The main character in “Echoes of a Beating Heart” by Robert E. Hampson is an artificial intelligence raised by human “parents.” (Throughout the anthology, AIs have AI “mothers” from which they receive basic data cores, and human “parents” who look after them as they develop. The AIs also use gendered pronouns.) He is at a stage equivalent to human adolescence. With the help of a human teenage girl, he investigates the native plant life of the Earth-like planet from the first story, and makes an extraordinary discovery.
The AI is a likable character, although some readers may find him a little too human to be fully believable as a sentient machine. The story is a pleasant one, with a touch of melodrama near the end that seems out of place.
“1-of-Antonia” by Monalisa Foster returns to Earth’s solar system. Pluto is inhabited by AIs, who provide virtual reality for wealthy human clients. (VR is forbidden elsewhere.) The protagonist is an AI who enters the VR of a man who refuses to emerge from his dream world, even though his corporation needs him to settle an important dispute. She pretends to be a human trapped in the VR with him. Acting as if she is just passing the time inside his bleak reality, where he is in permanent mourning for his dead wife, she creates a problem that draws him out of his imaginary world.
It may not be obvious from this synopsis, but the story has an important connection with the anthology’s theme. The author powerfully conveys the idea that working to improve reality is far superior to escaping into daydreams. One aspect of the plot will have special appeal to dog lovers, but may seem sentimental and implausible to others.
“MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure)” by J. L. Curtis is a problem-solving story in which two members of the Space Patrol, one human and one AI, are assigned to a colony under construction on a planet in the Ross 248 system. They investigate why drilling equipment keeps breaking down, and why materials don’t meet the required specifications.
Although the problem is a serious one, the story has a sort of backslapping, beer-drinking, good old boy feeling to it, even though it includes major female characters. The two protagonists josh each other playfully in the manner of old military buddies, perhaps reflecting the author’s own status as a veteran. It may best appeal to readers nostalgic for Astounding before it became Analog.
“A Field of Play” by K. S. Daniels goes back in time to the very beginnings of the Ross 248 project. The scene is once again Pluto. Two AI’s descended from the same “mother,” and thus thought of as “brothers,” work together as friendly rivals to create a VR for a client who wants to experience an accurate portrait of what the future will really be like. What they discover leads to the attempt to colonize another star system.
How the AIs predict the most probable future is reminiscent of Isaac Asimov’s concept of psychohistory from the Foundation series. Whether readers will find it plausible is another question. The characters are appealing, if, again, perhaps a bit too human.
In contrast, “Not Too Tired” by editors Les Johnson and Ken Roy takes place many centuries after the other works in the anthology. The narrator is one of the AIs from the previous story. Now extremely old, and growing weary of his existence, he agrees to meet with the leader of a terrorist group in order to save the life of an enhanced human comrade. The encounter leads to violence and the discovery of a conspiracy deeper than expected. Complicating matters is the fact that an approaching starship has been sabotaged and is set to explode, killing all on board.
The authors create a tense suspense story with a heroic protagonist. One aspect of the plot is resolved through a stroke of extremely good luck, which is difficult to accept.
As a whole, the book is well worth reading for fans of spacefaring fiction. The colonization of another star system is treated in a more realistic manner than usual. (There is no faster-than-light travel, for example.) The complex background, with multiple kinds of characters and several planets involved, may require frequent glances at the appendix for full understanding.
Victoria Silverwolf is grateful for the timeline.