Writers of the Future edited by
Jody Lynn Nye
(Galaxy Press, May 2024, 448 pp., pb)
“The Edge of Where My Light Is Cast” by Sky McKinnon
“Son, Spirit, Snake” by Jack Ash
“Nonzero” by Tom Vandermolen
“The Last Drop” by L. Ron Hubbard and L. Sprague de Camp (reprint, not reviewed)
“The Imagalisk” by Galen Westlake
“Life and Death and Love in the Bayou” by Stephannie Tallent
“Five Days Until Sunset” by Lance Robinson
“Shaman Dreams” by S.M. Stirling
“The Wall Isn’t A Circle” by Rosalyn Robilliard
“Da-Ko-Ta” by Amir Agoora
“Squiddy” by John Eric Schleicher
“Halo” by Nancy Kress
“Ashes to Ashes, Blood to Carbonfiber” by James Davies
“Summer of Thirty Years” by Lisa Silverthorn
“Butter Side Down” by Kal M
Reviewed by Mina
The anthology includes original stories by the winners of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest for 2024, a reprint story by Hubbard, two original stories from Nancy Kress and S.M. Stirling, and a handful of essays. Each story includes a beautiful illustration, each by a different artist. And this book helped me rediscover my love of anthologies, it was such a pleasure to read.
“The Edge of Where My Light Is Cast” by Sky McKinnon is narrated by a simulated cat. Its creator, Ary, has not come home for three days and it is worried. It pushes outside the confines of its programming as a cat to search for Ary. It pieces together the electronic clues till it finds Ary dying in a hospital. In its grief, it brings a simulated Ary into its world. The created becomes the creator, and they both become more than their original programming that began with love.
“Son, Spirit, Snake” by Jack Ash is a wonderful tale about ordinary people who see and talk to spirits in their daily lives. A boy of the Snake Clan, Étienne, blames himself (and is blamed by his mother, Thérèse) for his older brother’s, Dieudonné’s, death. His brother gave him a gold bracelet, which everyone assumed was stolen and led to his brutal death. Étienne falls into a disused gold mine where his father died and there, in the darkness, he talks with death, a snake and a scorpion. His mother searches for him, defying the spirits to rescue him. Recognising his honesty and innate kindness, death gives Étienne a gift. It reads partly like a fable and imagines a world where spirits are given tangible form by belief. But it is Étienne’s pure soul that lights this tale.
In “Nonzero” by Tom Vandermolen, Susan is floating through space, remembering moments in her life and her obsession with the stars. The AI in her suit gives her two options, self-euthanasia or going into low-temperature stasis. After calming down, she chooses stasis, which her AI tells her presents a nonzero chance of survival. Perhaps during stasis she will hear the stars calling to each other?
“The Imagalisk” by Galen Westlake is fun. Dan is dumped in a retirement home by his son after he can no longer hide his dementia. But things start looking up when he gets a visit from his childhood imaginary friends, Jack and Kate. And suddenly he finds himself on a quest to save their existence. This tale reminded me of Cocoon, where being old does not mean being obsolete and remaining active with a reason to live makes all the difference. And I loved the author’s gentle humour with phrases like “even in my most cognitively addled state.” Returning to your childhood can also bring back magic.
“Life and Death and Love in the Bayou” by Stephannie Tallent is haunting in the best way. Delphine can see the spirits in the Bayou and she must learn to harness them to save her mother from bad choices, and remind her of what love should look like. I loved how she did not demand but asked the spirits, in tune with the Bayou and her growing power. It is also a tale about honesty, courage and sacrifice.
In “Five Days Until Sunset” by Lance Robinson, Bering awakes from hibernation as their pilgrim ships have arrived at their destination, Epsindi Ta. But all is not as it should be for Bering is part of the support team. The initial revival team has disappeared and the onboard computers are not answering any questions about the missing 159 people. Epsindi Ta is home to various Earth plant and animal species that arrived thirteen millennia ago in a seed ship. But there are surprises in store for the pilgrims: a planet they thought did not rotate does indeed rotate, just very slowly. The science is carefully explained but, basically, to survive, they will need to migrate constantly westward, with no fixed settlement. A descendant of the first pilgrims, Adam Leifson, leaves clues for them to follow, becoming the Teacher. It’s an interesting look at the idea of a promised land, in particular, and can humanity adapt to it being different from expectations. As Bering states at the end: “The hardest part will be letting go of what we wanted this world to be. Instead, we need to accept the gift as it is and become part of it.” The title makes more sense as the story progresses. Anthropologically fascinating.
“Shaman Dreams” by S.M. Stirling imagines a world where mammoths still walk. The Real People clan are suddenly being hunted by the Horned Men. In flashbacks, we see what the life of the hunter-gatherers was like before they became prey. Their shaman Sees-Much-Everywhere summons great magic fuelled by her life’s blood to kill the enemy’s shaman. She trusts Strong-Far-Spear to lead the defence and escape of her people. An interesting look at the lives of a tribe in tune with the land and its creatures: “Here they had prospered, their own dead being the first human spirits to take up forever-life in the shadow this land cast in the Otherworld, just as they had been the first to claim it here in short-life. Steering the beast-clans and tree-clans and fish-clans from there, for the good of their blood-kin. That was what your ancestral spirits did.” The First Nations could have looked like this.
“The Wall Isn’t A Circle” by Rosalyn Robilliard is a truly disturbing tale. It imagines time travel as a series of mind hacks: travelling through time like a spider hopping from mind to mind. Macy works for a law firm trying to prove that the sister-brother duo behind the invention and marketing of time travel were responsible for deaths with a previous invention for diagnosing illnesses. She works with the firm’s techie Hattie to use the spider technology to find the proof they need. Woven into everything are her complicated feelings about her twin sister. The story is an interesting look at sibling dynamics but, above all, a sickening look at what it would mean if anyone and everyone could live stream through your mind.
“Da-Ko-Ta” by Amir Agoora is set in a period of history where there are no easy answers. A Sioux boy possessed by a violent spirit he calls the Tarnished is taken by Teddy Roosevelt from a school of stolen children. The boy does seem to have some control of the spirit and Roosevelt hones him into a weapon to hunt a wendigo. For much of the tale Roosevelt treats him like a pet he is amused by and fond of. Only at the end does he see and respect the man the boy is becoming. A tale about identity, friendship, loss, betrayal, and new beginnings. And a cunning weaving of the Classics with an indigenous culture.
“Squiddy” by John Eric Schleicher shows us a bleak world with almost all of humanity addicted to the high provided by the invading squids. Jocelyn is being paid to look for Anne Marie by Ma Bev. She locates Anne in a compound run by the brutal Boyd. The miracle is not that she finds Anne but that Anne is clean, she is not addicted to “squidding”. Jocelyn finds hope: if Anne can remain free of addiction perhaps she could too? And she experiences the ultimate high, the one that comes from nascent trust and companionship.
In “Halo” by Nancy Kress, Susan is sent on what appears to be a petty assignment by her superior: her team is to investigate a virus that causes mild symptoms and kills nobody. The only side-effect is that it seems to make patients more cooperative and pleasant. The results are buried until soldiers at a military base are infected and no longer wish to fight. It turns out that the virus acts much like cannabis and the infected lose their aggression: a pandemic of “niceness”. Susan suspects one of her team of spreading the virus on purpose. She has conflicted feelings as less aggression means less violence in society but it also leads to people without drive, unable to make hard decisions and sacrifices. The first line is a delicious play on the first line of Pride and Prejudice and both sentiments do play a role in the spread of the virus. The last sentence is also wonderful because it encapsulates the story so neatly.
“Ashes to Ashes, Blood to Carbonfiber” by James Davies reduced me to tears at one point. Rick lives in a world that was once a green paradise but was turned into a huge desert by untrammelled greed. He regrets having invented Fabricators, which convert living matter into anything of the same mass. A select few live in a shielded city while the rest must live in a salted wasteland so that they cannot create anything. Rick is building a Fabricator to bring back life to the planet and hope to the oppressed majority. But first, he must save a very sick girl. In the end, he literally gives everything so that that girl will have a future. I love the title which gains resonance as you read the story: from dust springs life.
“Summer of Thirty Years” by Lisa Silverthorn is a tale of love, friendship, guilt and sacrifice. Mark and Mimi died in a car accident but they rise from their graves every summer for thirty years, aided by their friend Brandon and magic daffodils. But this final summer, they learn of Brandon’s sacrifice to fuel the magic. Bittersweet, like daffodil wine.
“Butter Side Down” by Kal M is fun. The story is in the form of a trial and the main character, Joe Smith, is a clumsy, hapless and not very bright human being. But he is warm, brave and very, very loyal. Despite his likely execution, he refuses to betray the location of an AI that accidentally destroyed all life on a planet. Unaware of its original programming, Joe befriended the AI, christening it Breadna. He discusses ethics, emotions, jokes, fiction and generally treats it like it can choose who and what to be. He respects Breadna’s freedom of will. In return, Breadna gives him affection and loyalty, qualities his crewmates were willing to exploit in him but never returned. We don’t worry about Joe, despite his hairy predicament, because we know Breadna values his life more than Joe himself does. The story is so much fun yet not superficial. A reminder that SF doesn’t always have to be grim, apocalyptic, dystopian or heartless; it can be intelligent, lively and warm.