Full Spectrum 3

by Lou Aronica (editor), Betsy Mitchell (editor), Amy Stout (editor)

Eight Hugo & Nebula award nominations to its credit, this anthology series has earned a reputation for providing the best sf. The 3rd installment offers 23 new stories from established talents & new voices in the genre.

Introduction - essay by Lou Aronica
Daughter Earth - story by James Morrow
Dogstar Man - story by Nancy Willard
Prism Tree - story by Tony Daniel
Desert Rain - novella by Mark L. Van Name & Pat Murphy
Precious Moments - story by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Lethe - novelette by Peg Kerr
Lake Agassiz - story by Jack McDevitt
Transfusion - story by Joëlle Wintrebert
The Dark at the Corner of the Eye - story by Patricia Anthony
Tracking the Random Variable - story by Marcos Donnelly
Division by Zero - story by Ted Chiang
Matter's End - novelette by Gregory Benford
Newton's Sleep - novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Helping Hand - story by Norman Spinrad
Fondest of Memories - story by Kevin J. Anderson
Loitering at Death's Door - novelette by Wolfgang Jeschke
Rokuro - story by Poul Anderson
Police Actions -1 story by Barry N. Malzberg
Black Glass - novelette by Karen Joy Fowler
Chango Chingamadre, Dutchman & Me - story by R.V. Branham
Apartheid, Superstrings & Mordecai Thubana - novella by Michael Bishop
Snow on Sugar Mountain - novelette by Elizabeth Hand
When the Rose Is Dead - novelette by David Zindell

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction

560 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1991

About the author

I have been associated with the book publishing world since August 1979, when I started as an assistant in the Managing Editor’s Department at Bantam Books. Prior to founding The Fiction Studio, I served as Deputy Publisher of Bantam and Publisher of Berkley Books and Avon Books. During this time, I launched the premier science fiction and mystery imprints in the business, and also presided over the largest growth period to date in the history of the #1 single-title romance program.

My earliest publishing experiences were in the field of science fiction and fantasy. I started my first publishing imprint, Bantam Spectra, at the age of 27 and published my first New York Times bestseller with that imprint a year later. My first editorial acquisition, David Brin’s Startide Rising, won the field’s two highest awards, the Hugo and the Nebula. I subsequently published New York Times bestsellers with Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, David Brin, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Raymond Feist, William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Neil Gaiman, and others, while also acquiring five consecutive winners of the Nebula Award. In addition, I created the “Full Spectrum” anthology series, which won me a World Fantasy Award in 1994.

My biggest commercial accomplishment in the field of science fiction and fantasy was my acquisition and design of the Star Wars book publishing program. Started at a time when licensing interest in the movies was very low, the book publications consistently hit the New York Times list (as high as #1) while also jump-starting the entire Star Wars franchise.

In the nineties, I moved beyond science fiction. As Mass Market Publisher for Bantam, I launched the Bantam Crime Line mystery imprint and was closely involved in the development of several bestselling authors, including Elizabeth George, Robert Crais, and Diane Mott Davidson. I launched the Bantam Fanfare romance imprint, which led to the development of bestselling authors such as Amanda Quick, Tami Hoag, and Iris Johansen.

In 1994, I left Bantam to become SVP and Publisher of the Berkley Publishing Group. The two imprints I started there, Boulevard (a media imprint) and Signature (a literary imprint) had New York Times bestsellers within their first year. I also acquired and edited the bestselling futuristic mysteries by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts).

In 1995, I moved to Avon Books to spearhead a turnaround of that company as SVP and Publisher. I supervised significant changes to the company’s industry-leading romance program, which led to the largest growth period in the program’s history to that point. Committing the company to a profitable path of publishing for dedicated readers, I launched a series of imprints focused on science fiction, literary fiction, mystery, pop culture, health, history, and teen literature. Most of these imprints had bestsellers very quickly.

In 1999, I left Avon after the acquisition of the company by The News Corporation. The creative investment I made in that house continues to pay significant dividends, however, as writers whose publishing programs I developed became breakout bestsellers, including Dennis Lehane, Susan Elizabeth Phillips, J.A. Jance, Stephanie Laurens, Lisa Kleypas, Bruce Feiler and Peter Robinson.

In addition to my current role with The Fiction Studio, I am a novelist and nonfiction writer. My novels, The Forever Year and Flash and Dazzle appeared under the name Ronald Anthony. My nonfiction books include the New York Times bestseller The Element (written with Sir Ken Robinson), the national bestseller The Culture Code (written with Dr. Clotaire Rapaille), Conscientious Equity (written with Neal Asbury), Miraculous Health (written with Dr. Rick Levy) and A Million Thanks (written with Shauna Fleming).

Finding myself missing the publishing side of the business, in 2008, literary manager Peter Miller and I started a small book imprint called The Story Plant. Right now, it’s a tiny opera

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are no explicit genre signifiers on the cover—the phrase "science fiction" does not appear at all, not even in its abbreviated form. Even so, the attentive reader will see several telltale signs that Full Spectrum 3 is an SF anthology. That cover painting, for example, wouldn't appear on a work of mimetic fiction. The quote on the front cover is from the long-running SF review magazine Locus. And the contributors' list on the back is chock-full of genre names, some of whom are even more well-known today than when this anthology was published back in 1991.

I first read Full Spectrum 3 when it was brand-new, almost 30 years ago now. That's a long time, long enough that I was able—almost—to reread it with fresh eyes. Many of these stories have become dated in the meantime, either by changes in technology or in society—but fewer than I would have thought. That's probably because most of them are something other than "hard" science fiction—their authors aren't even trying to engage in rigorous extrapolation of current technological trends. In his Introduction, editor Lou Aronica calls these stories "fantastic fiction," a label which does seem more accurate to me. I would also tend to credit the balance of the editorial team, Amy Stout and Betsy Mitchell, for including a higher-than-usual proportion of women (at least for typical anthologies of the time) among the contributors.


The first three stories have similar tones—they're all told in a kind of homespun voice, from a rural perspective far from the centers of science and innovation which must still exist although they're not the focus.

James Morrow's "Daughter Earth" gives us a farm couple who have a most unusual baby. A light-hearted story with a serious point that's only become more pertinent in the intervening decades.

"Dogstar Man," by Nancy Willard, features an eccentric cheesemaker in rural Wisconsin who wants only the best for his beloved team of sled dogs.

"The secret of cheese is patience," he said. "Cheese has taught me everything I know about life."
—p.23

And Tony Daniel's "Prism Tree" also concerns an old farmer, whose beloved land is soon to be inundated by a reservoir project. Hardly a fantasy concept, at least to begin with.

This rural thread is broken with the very next story, though. "Desert Rain," by Pat Murphy and Mark L. Van Name, has no farms, or farmers, in it whatsoever—it's a powerful exploration of one artist's relationship with a nascent artificial intelligence (and of our ability to anthropomorphize even unintelligent systems). Marred only slightly by incorrect terminology (one use of "terrabytes") and dated references, the philosophical concerns that Murphy and Van Name's story raises remain relevant, if not even more pressing, today.

"Precious Moments," by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, is about an interview with a ballerina who once danced for the Peróns in Argentina. Rusch's story has become dated politically—there are still Soviets, and the setting in a left-wing talk radio station seems much less believable these days, somehow—but observations like these remain knife-sharp:

Sometimes I wished I was a conservative. They seemed to have only three lines of ideological bullshit instead of two hundred.
—p.100

Peg Kerr's "Lethe" takes us off-planet for the first time in this anthology, to Calypso, a world where death is managed a little more... gracefully, let's say, than in Matthew's residency at Los Angeles County General. A powerful and underrated work, reminiscent for me of Ursula K. Le Guin (who puts in her own appearance later in this anthology).

Jack McDevitt's "Lake Agassiz" dips again into that rural well shared by the first three stories. A farmer in North Dakota, far from any body of water that currently exists, digs up a long-buried sailboat that just happens to be in excellent condition...

"Transfusion," by Joëlle Wintrebert is short, feverish, and surreal. Barbel Hachereau's frustratingly vague predicament leads her, and those around her, to some exigent choices. This vignette was translated from the French by Kim Stanley Robinson, about whom it is said in "About the Authors" (p.535) that "he is at work on a trilogy about the colonization of Mars."

The brevity of the late Patricia Anthony's SF bibliography (she stopped writing genre stories in the 1990s, and died in 2013) belies her impact on the field. "The Dark at the Corner of the Eye" turned out to be one of the best stories in Full Spectrum 3, and its inexorable intensity would make that so even if individual lines like these weren't still sharply relevant:

"You shouldn't leave a wallet unattended. This is a police station. There are all sorts of crooks here." After a perfectly timed comic pause, he added, "Some of them wear uniforms so you can spot them, but what about the others?"
—p.171

"Tracking the Random Variable," by Marcos Donnelly, highlights the pitfalls of taking a statistical approach to human interactions. Ronald Barr thought he had Jessica all figured out...

Ted Chiang, whose name you may have heard once or twice of late, sets off a string of three mathematical apocalypses in a row with "Division by Zero."

Then comes SF veteran Gregory Benford's "Matter's End," a tale of appropriation both cultural and otherwise, which follows through on its title.

"Yes, for a scientist certainty is built on deep layers of doubt."
—p.240

And third, the promised Ursula K. Le Guin with "Newton's Sleep," which portrays a dystopian space ark in the making. After all,

"{...}Earth was not a viable option."
—p.252

After the apocalypses, though, we get a little breather—an uncharacteristically hopeful Norman Spinrad story called "The Helping Hand."

Before Kevin J. Anderson became a toiler in others' vineyards, back when he had only two novels to his name, he explored the horror to be found in the "Fondest of Memories."

"Loitering at Death's Door," by German author Wolfgang Jeschke (translated by Sally Schiller and Anne Calveley), is a similarly horrific story about memories that are somewhat less fond than those in Kevin Anderson's story. The two make a good pair.

Stylized and compelling, Poul Anderson's "Rokuro" was an interesting departure for this author, who was old-school even in 1991.

"Police Actions," by Barry N. Malzberg, maintains relevance by means of its determined nonspecificity:

That was the year before the year in which the gunfire and the huge lights winked and blazed, roared and stumbled, the year before that time when parties became hopeless and we were forced to consider the unavailing manner of all options.
—p.342

Karen Joy Fowler does not disappoint with her stunning novelette "Black Glass," which is not just a Temperance tantrum but also a biographical fantasy about a resurrected Carry Nation, as seen through the eyes of a jaded DEA agent who may, inadvertently, have imbibed some substances he really shouldn't have...

On the other hand, I'm afraid I found R.V. Branham's "Chango Chingamadre, Dutchman, & Me" casually offensive from the title onward. It's a Beat jazz junky thing that I probably lapped up and spit back out, back in the day, but this one was probably my least-favorite story in Full Spectrum 3, upon rereading.

Michael Bishop's "Apartheid, Superstrings, and Mordecai Thubana" was hard for me to reread as well, although for different reasons. It just goes on and on, an extended nightmare... but even though apartheid has ended, the themes Bishop explores remain relevant.

"What we do," said Van Rhys coldly, "we do to protect."
—p.446

Close to the end, we are treated to another rural fantasy: "Snow on Sugar Mountain," by Elizabeth Hand, a fable of lost boys and Native American shapeshifters that I'd especially recommend for Clifford Simak fans.

Full Spectrum 3 concludes with "When the Rose is Dead" by David Zindell. This one's an odd combination, of details that wouldn't be out of place in our mundane reality, offset by unsettling worldbuilding, in which a doctor working for the state forms an inappropriate relationship with one of his most criminally-inclined patients...

"And that was the diagnosis, that she was suffering from an illness the doctors call 'Desire for Utopia.'"
—p.506

"Rose, your life has been so hard—aren't there some painful memories you'd rather not have?"
—p.521

I can't say that Full Spectrum 3 is the best sf anthology I've read—it's not even the best I've read this year—but nevertheless this book stands out for me as a significant snapshot of its time, and I'm glad I had the chance to rediscover it after all these years.

I would also like to thank The Internet Speculative Fiction Database for the Table of Contents data I used to write this review.

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Highlights include:

James Morrow’s “Daughter Earth” — I’m not a big fan of Morrow’s short stories, and I’ve not read his novels, but this story astonished me with its audacity. Not just anyone could pull this off–I’m not even sure that Morrow does–but just the fact that he tried gives him brownie points in my book. A biosphere is born to a new age-farmer couple, and they try to keep it out of the hands of the government. Life-affirming and planet-affirming.

Mark L. Van Name and Pat Murphy’s “Desert Rain” — Pat told us (in the NOVA Express interview) that she was writing this story with Mark, but she didn’t say it was gonna be this good. An artist’s construction of rain in the desert is hampered by her feelings for her husband and the home software he’s creating. This is what Jonathan Carroll would write if he wrote science fiction.

Kristine Kathryn Rusch’s “Precious Moments” — Kind of an “Odd Joan” story, filled with this author’s nouveau family angst and some really intriguing characters.

Peg Kerr’s “Lethe”–This is a tale about medical and cultural responsibility for dying. It reminded me of the empathy of Theodore Sturgeon, and this story should be considered for the award that bears his name. I’m keeping my eye out for Kerr stories in the future.

Marcos Donnelly’s “Tracing the Random Variable” — A Twilight Zone-ish tale of a man obsessed with stability, that only serves to increase his instability.

Norman Spinrad’s “The Helping Hand” — It may be a little saccharine tasting, but who’d have thought that Spinrad would write a little piece of wish-fulfillment fantasy like this? I couldn’t help myself; I like it.

Elizabeth Hand’s “Snow on Sugar Mountain” – I was predisposed to not like this story by Hand, based on having read some wrong-headed critical pieces by her in the past, but she overcame all that, and this tale of an orphan, a dying astronaut, and their friendship was probably my third favorite story in this collection.

And that’s not to mention the contributions by Tony Daniel, Gregory Benford, Ursula K. Le Guin, Wolfgang Jeschke, Karen Joy Fowler, R.V. Branham, or Michael Bishop, which I also liked.

[StarMan · Rating 2 out of 5]

23 short stories. Mostly fantasy (some of it silly) and speculative fiction. A very few stories had a light dusting of SciFi.

The stories ranged from about 1.4 to 3.5 stars for me, with most being under 3 stars. None were badly written.

VERDICT: ~2.6 stars overall, but a few tales I'd give 3-3.5 stars to.

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike most of the science fiction anthologies containing many authors, I actually remember some of the stories in this better-than-average one.

[Woman In Gold · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite was "Desert Rain"