Past Future Present 2011

by Helen E. Davis

Sixteen speculative fiction writers have chosen works to represent themselves. The book has links to their websites, blogs, and to other work. "This is a map to fiction you will love." FOREWORD by Helen E Davis,THE BLESSED DAYS by Mike Allen, SOLDIERS HOME by William Barton, SEGUE by Keith Brooke, DEAD MAN STALKING by Alfred D. Byrd, NEEDLE AND SWORD by Marian Crane, THE HUMAN EQUATIONS by Dave Creek, GUARDIAN GARGOYLES OF THE GORGE by Helen E Davis, CROCODILE ROCK by Linda J. Dunn, THE GIRL WHO WAS UGLY by John Grant, THE NEW CORINTH by Roby James, BUT LOYAL TO HER OWN by Leigh Kimmel, EARTH, ASHES, DUST by Catherine Mintz, THE WITCH WHO MADE ADJUSTMENTS by Vera Nazarian, CREDO by Jonathan Shipley, SHADOW CHASING by Justin Stanchfield, A RHUMBA OF RATTLESNAKES by Elisabeth Waters.

Genres: Science Fiction

342 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 7, 2011

Reviews

[Sherwood Smith]

This anthology is offered at 99 cents. It's intended to be a showcase for the writers, many of whom are self published, or published mainly in small presses. A few are reprints. There is something for every taste, from horror to YA fantasy.

I could wish that some of the stories had been better edited, but I know that the writers put the antho together fast, in hopes of catching the Amazon Christmas buyers . . . they and 40,000 others, last I heard. That's right, more than forty thousand new books offered that month. Wow!

So how do people get the word out, without blasting people right and left with "Buy my book!" all over social media?

Well, these anthologies are one way. I carry my Kindle around with, or instead of, a book, so if I get caught in a long line or having to wait somewhere, there's always something to read. I'm finding myself turning to the short fiction on my Kindle at such times, as short stuff is great for quick reading dips.

The first story that appealed to me was Alfred Byrd's "dead Man Stalking," a light sf piece whose tone worked as well as the imaginative aliens.

Other favorites were Helen E. Davis's "Guardian Gargoyles of the Gorge," a sprightly young adult fantasy about a girl who wants to be a Hero, Vera Nazarian's "The Witch Who Made Adjustments," (the title tells it all, but the story has a great deal of fun getting there) "Credo," by Jonathan Shipley, a light-hearted musical haunt, and most fun of all, Elizabeth Waters' "A Rhumba of Rattlesnakes," about nine slithering sisters who have to figure out how to break their curse.

There were other stories I thought had a lot of strengths, but seemed like either Chapter Ones of longer works, or else longer works mashed down to short form. Among these were stories by Marian Crane, Leigh Kimmel, Linda J. Dunn, Catherine Mintz, and Justin Stanchfield.

There were also some horror tales, which are sure to appeal to those who like horror. (I'm too much of a wimp.) As this is a showcase anthology, the reader will find links to the writers' other works.

Really, a bargain at a buck.

[Rachel Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The three stars are meant to represent that the stories ranged from one to five stars.

An e-book anthology of reprint and original sf, fantasy, and horror. There are some stories I liked, and at the very very low Kindle price it’s worth checking out, but other stories are weighed down by the over-use of very familiar genre clichés and the failure to do anything new and interesting with them. The best stories also used very old plots and tropes – the stranger who comes to town and shakes things up, zombies, quests, mysterious aliens – but either gave a new spin to them, or freshened them up with wit, realistic detail, and good prose.

I don't think it was a good idea to arrange the stories alphabetically by author's surname. It resulted in several stories that were extremely similar being placed back to back, and had two of the weakest stories placed very early on, when a reader might be tempted to give up on the whole thing. It's better to place the strongest stories first, midway, and last, to start strong, encourage the reader to continue, and end on a high note.

Individual reviews below.

“The Blessed Days,” by Mike Allen. Inexplicably and universally, people go to sleep and wake up drenched in their own blood. Well-written and with a creepily intriguing concept, but the ending, which employs a standard horror trope, didn’t live up to the rest of the story. Also, this is a bit of a nitpick, but given the level of thought Allen put into the implications of the premise, I wondered why we never learned if everyone was dangerously anemic, or if the blood was somehow replenished, or what.

“Soldier’s Home,” by William Barton. A war-weary soldier encounters aliens and robots. I didn’t get this at all. The story was hard to follow, there was too much description to too little point, the climax was sentimental, and I didn’t care for the moments of sexual violence.

“Segue,” by Keith Brooke. This story hits every “cynical white expat in exotic foreign country” cliché before coming to a conclusion so completely out of left field that I flipped back to see if I’d accidentally skipped a page.

“Dead Man Stalking,” by Alfred D. Byrd. Zombie vs. cephalopods! Exactly what it says on the tin, playfully executed with a hard-ish sf gloss – the cephalopods are aliens and the zombie is a medically altered, clinically (and legally) dead person. A bit slight, but lots of fun. I liked the resigned, just-doing-my-job zombie narrator.

“Needle and Sword,” by Marian Crane. A warrior woman cursed into an old body meets a young woman who weaves spells into her needlework. An epic fantasy squished into a longish short story; it needed room to grow and breathe. Full of fantasy clichés, but the plot twist near the end has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, the story ends before it has room to fully explore its implications.

“The Human Equations,” by Dave Creek. A young man gets exiled from his space-Mennonite community for breaking a law no one bothered to tell him about; the cop who arrests and escorts him into tragic banishment learns a valuable lesson in humanity and forgiveness. It makes no sense that when people can freely travel from community to community, and breaking the law in another community means permanent exile to hell, it never occurred to the man’s parents to tip him off that in other places, there’s this thing called “stealing,” and it’s not allowed. Readable but cliched, predictable, full of expository lumps, and preachy. Reprinted from Analog.

“Guardian Gargoyles of the Gorge,” by Helen E. Davis. The silly title gave me very low expectations for this story, but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Young Ingrid is determined to earn the title of Hero, normally reserved for men, by staying out all night in a supposedly gargoyle-infested gorge. There’s nothing surprising here, but the little details of daily life are well-chosen and evocative, and the story is quite sweet. Though it comes to a satisfying resolution, it also reads a bit like the first chapter of a Tamora Pierce-esque YA.

“Crocodile Rock,” by Linda J. Dunn. Pointlessly cutesy title. This starts out like a children’s story, complete with pee jokes and the space kids picking on the Earth-born kid who’s scared of zero-g. I was certain that the Earth kid was going to save the day and then they’d all be sorry. That’s not exactly where it goes. I liked the twist, but the conclusion feels like it either needed to be longer (and take the character in a new and deeper direction) or shorter (and lose the page of post-climax angst and unnecessary plot wrap-ups.) It’s also odd that a kid who keeps worrying about her family being desperately poor would find something that’s clearly of immense value, and then keep it a secret for months or possibly years because secrets are cool, without ever thinking that she might be able to use it to get some money for her family.

“The Girl Who Was Ugly,” by John Grant. I would not have placed this story next to “Crocodile Rock,” as it’s similar in setup, tone, and theme. Kids spend all their time playing sports very badly and switching from one beautiful body to another. The intro, in which it’s obvious that something is deeply wrong but it’s not clear what, is well done.

Then an “ugly” (not perfectly beautiful) girl shows up and shakes up the hero’s world by revealing that he’s in the middle of a hoary sf cliché. In a bit of “cleverness” which made my eyes roll, the hero hears “clones” as “clowns” and “genes” as “jeans.” The ending is poignant, but undercut by the barrage of clichés in the middle.

“The New Corinth,” by Roby James. A doctor investigates a child’s mysterious infection with an alien virus. The aliens are the best part of the story, and some nice worldbuilding went into them. The humans utter stilted dialogue, like, “He was not so deeply involved with the campaigns then, and his desire for immortality overcame his obsession for duty long enough for him to impregnate me,” and (as a physical description) “He was racially quite centrist.” The climax is ridiculously melodramatic.

“But Loyal To Her Own,” by Leigh Kimmel. The story of a girl kidnapped by mages and accidentally transformed into a dragon, only to find an unexpected new purpose in life. It could have stood to be longer, to more fully explore Sera’s character and the mages’ motivations.

“Earth, Ashes, Dust,” by Catherine Mintz. This seems to be the opening to a novel, not a short story; it stops rather than coming to a conclusion. In what appears to be a lost colony, human villagers must pay a tithe of servants and women to the all-male, genetically altered unmen. As you can probably guess from that, an undercurrent of dark sensuality runs through the story. I would have liked to have seen that played up more. The protagonist, a young girl waiting to be chosen, is a bit of a passive nonentity, but the backstory is interesting and the world has potential.

“The Witch Who Made Adjustments,” by Vera Nazarian. An elegantly stylized comic fable about a witch who comes to town and rearranges everything, metaphorically and literally. Playful and well-written, with wit and charm and delectable food descriptions. This story and Elisabeth Waters’ are the most polished and have the most distinctive voices in the anthology.

“Credo,” by Jonathan Shipley. Mildly amusing comedy about a possessed organ (the musical kind.)

“Shadow Chasing,” by Justin Stanchfield. This compelling, emotionally intense story of alternate realities would have been even stronger if the unnecessary and tedious technical details had been edited out, and if the rules of reality-traveling had been more straightforward. (The characters are uncertain about exactly what happens under certain circumstances, and it would make more sense if they did know for sure. At one point a character argues that they should deliver a little girl to certain death because if they don’t, she might die. That moment would have worked if they thought she was doomed no matter what.) I also would have liked to have known the protagonist’s backstory.

“A Rhumba of Rattlesnakes,” by Elisabeth Waters. A really funny fantasy told in first person from the POV of a rattlesnake with human intelligence. She and her eight sisters were all born to a cursed Goddess (hence the snakiness), and if they don’t break the curse before they go into hibernation, they won’t survive the winter. And we’ve barely had a chance to live at all – we’re less than two months old! Oh noes! Can nine rattlesnake sisters evade cars, nuns (they live at a convent), and security guards with flashlights in time to break the curse? Totally adorable, and just the right length to not overstay its welcome.

[Leigh Kimmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection had its start in a discussion in one of the old SFF-Net newsgroups, back when they were still a lively place. Indie publishing was just beginning to take off, and we were all talking about how difficult it could be to promote ourselves. Someone hit on the idea of an anthology that would showcase our best work to date, something like the old Orbit anthologies (although it turned out to be a one-off rather than an annual like those long-running anthology series).

I picked a story that an editor had once held for months, hoping to finally find a place where it fit and returning it regretfully with a note that she couldn't keep holding it indefinitely in good conscience, yet found that she didn't love it so much she couldn't bear to part with it. With a dearth of sold stories at the time, I figured that was the best recommendation I could bring to the table.

And reading it, I'm glad to see that it's in good company. I remembered reading Dave Creek's "The Human Equations" in Analog when I was still at the University of Illinois (the Undergraduate Library had a subscription, and I went over there every month to read it). It was poignant then, and it's still poignant -- and a little disturbing, to think of someone casually traveling between space habitats without the first lick of training not just in physical safety, but cultural. Is it any surprise that things would go badly, when the universe outside his native habitat was a minefield of unknown unknowns.

Linda J. Dunn's "Crocodile Rock" and John Grant's "The Girl Who Was Ugly" are also hard sf, one about asteroid mining and the other about interstellar generation ships. Ms Dunn's story also has a poignant ending, which puts me in mind of a story I read long ago about a man who was offered a one-way trip to a paradise world. Just as he concluded that they'd all been had and was walking out the door, he discovered that he was wrong -- and was being forever left behind.

Catherine Mintz's "Earth Ashes Dust" is space opera, an introduction to her long-running series about the Varr. When I started reading it, I thought that the protagonist's peasant village was simply an unthinking use of the space opera trope of the medieval peasant village In Space. If the Varr have the technology to fly between the stars, they should also have the technology to build and operate robotic farms, maybe even in orbit to spare them the delta-V of planetary gravity wells. But as I continued to read, I saw that we are dealing with a people for whom vengeance is more valuable than economy, even generations later.

There are also some excellent fantasy stories here, including Vera Nazarian's "The Witch Who Made Adjustments," as well as some chilling horror and a fascinatingly puzzling slipstream story that may not be for everyone. It's an anthology that I'm at once both proud and humble to have been included in.