Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin - 2019 - Winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.

 Emergency Skin by N. K. Jemisin - 2019 - Winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novelette.

K. Jemisin is one of, it not most, award winning Science Fiction writers of all time. She is the first author ever to win the genre’s most prestigious award, The Hugo Award for Best novel of the year in three consecutive years for her Broken Earth Trilogy.  

I’m glad that her Emergency Skin (reading time 45 minutes) can be read free by Amazon Prime members (or purchased as a Kindle for $1.95).  This is a very imaginative work with a marvelously realized future setting.

The Earth seemed headed for self destruction.  An elite group left for a distant location to continue humanity.  Now much time has gone by and

an explorer is being sent to report on the current state of the planet. Centuries have gone by and he is being prepared to encounter a ravaged place.  He finds something very unexpected.

So far I have read book one of The Broken Earth Trilogy and hope to finish it next year.  I have her full The Inheritance Trilogy and hope to also read that in 2021.

From the Author’s website 

N. K. Jemisin is the first author in the genre’s history to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugo Awards, for her Broken Earth trilogy. Her work has won the Nebula and Locus Awards. The first book in her current Great Cities trilogy, The City We Became, is a New York Times bestseller. Her speculative works range from fantasy to science fiction to the undefinable; her themes include resistance to oppression, the inseverability of the liminal, and the coolness of Stuff Blowing Up. She’s been an instructor for Clarion and Clarion West writing workshops. Among other critical work, she was formerly the speculative book reviewer at the New York Times. She is a MacArthur 2020 Genius Grant Fellow. In her spare time she’s a gamer and gardener, responsible for saving the world from Ozymandias, her dangerously intelligent ginger cat, and his destructive sidekick Magpie. Essays and fiction excerpts are available at nkjemisin.com.

 

Among Others by Jo Walton - 2010 - Winner of The 2012 Hugo and Nebula Wards

Among Others by Jo Walton - 2010 - Winner of The 2012 Hugo and Nebula Awards

If you are looking to expand your reading in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres, as the real world sucks right now, I suggest you look for Hugo and Nebula Award Winning works.

Among Others  focuses on a young woman, she is 15 when we meet her, who uses classic science fiction and fantasy works to help her cope with her life.  It is structured as a series of brief diary entries.  For sure the central character and narrator Morwena Phelps lives a very reading centered life.

She was raised by a mentally disturbed mother.  They lived in an abandoned industrial park in Wales.  Welsh fairies are fond of such places.  Morwena played with the fairies as a child.  Her refuge is in classic science fiction and fantasy works.  Her mother tries to use the spiritual forces for an evil purpose. She wants to take over the world.  She is a witch.   Morwena  is drawn into a contest of will with her mother which leaves Morwena half crippled and her twin sister dead when her mother causes a car wreck.  She is sent to to her father who she barely knows.  Luckily for her he also loves science fiction.  He places her in a boarding school.

Throughout the narrative Morwena sees fairies of all sorts.  We see her encounters with other girls, teachers, a helpful librarian.  She joins a book club and gets interested in boys.

The mother continues to harass her at school through threatening letters.  A great magical battle ensues.

I found this book fascinating.  I can very much relate to an adolescent who used books to escape from an unhappy existence in which she was made to feel like she was an outcast.  The more she reads, the more she sees beyond the world in which she was raised, the odder she is made to feel.

Of course she is attracted to magic and magic to her. Those who believe in the intrusion of magic into this world, as do I, will love this book.  Science Fiction fans will relish reading along with Morewena.

This is my first venture into the world of Jo Walton, I will be back.

Jo Walton won the Hugo and Nebula Awards in 2012 for her novel Among Others, and the Tiptree Award in 2015 for My Real Children. Before that, she won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her novel Tooth and Claw won the World Fantasy Award in 2004. A native of Wales, she lives in Montreal.

Check her very interesting website for more information

http://www.jowaltonbooks.com/

"Cat Pictures, Please" - A Science Fiction Short Story by Naomi Kritzer (2016)

"I don't want to be evil. I want to be helpful. But knowing the optimal way to be helpful can be very complicated. There are all these ethical flow charts—I guess the official technical jargon would be “moral codes”—one for each religion plus dozens more. I tried starting with those. I felt a little odd about looking at the religious ones, because I know I wasn’t created by a god or by evolution, but by a team of computer programmers in the labs of a large corporation in Mountain View, California. Fortunately, unlike Frankenstein’s Monster, at least I was a collaborative effort."  From "Cat Pictures Please" by Naomi Kritzer

A few days ago, to support my resurgence of interest in the science fiction/fantasy genre I acquired, on sale for $1.95 a big anthology, The Best Book of Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 1, edited by Neil Clarke (612 pages, 2016). Clarke, a noted writer and editor of SF, has assembled a large collection, scouring lots of magazines on and offline, of among the very best science fiction short stories recently published.  He provides an interesting perspective in his introduction and their are good brief bios of the authors.  At $1.95 I rate this a solid buy for those interested in this area.

Looking over the titles, I found one that sounded like my kind of story, "Cat 

Pictures, Please".  The story is told by an artificially created intelligence, a search engine on Google.  The engine knows all sorts of things about people and tries to guide users to things online and in the real world that could help them or make them happier.  For example, it guides a gay closeted minister at a conservative church to come out and leads him to a position at a liberal church where he can be open.  All the entity wants is for you to post cat pictures. It loves cat pictures and 

Picks out people to help based on their cat pictures.

A fun story, I enjoyed reading this one a lot. Yes I like cat pictures.

Naomi Kritzer’s short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and many other magazines and websites. Her five published novels (Fires of the Faithful, Turning the Storm, Freedom’s Gate, Freedom’s Apprentice, and Freedom’s Sisters) are available from Bantam. She has also written an urban fantasy novel about a Minneapolis woman who unexpectedly inherits the Ark of the Covenant; a children’s science-fiction shipwreck novel; a children’s portal fantasy; and a near-future SF novel set on a seastead. She has two ebook short story collections out: Gift of the Winter King and Other Stories and Comrade Grandmother and Other Stories.

Mel u

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor (2015, winner of Hugo and Nebula Award, 98 pages)

African Reading Challenge 2017 - Hosted by Kinna Reads

If you want to read top quality Science Fiction or Fantasy works but you don't really know what to read you pretty much cannot go wrong by picking a Hugo or Nebula Prize Winning work (both awards have webpages listing all the winners from past years).  Awards are given for best novel, best short story and best novella.  

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor won both awards for best novella in 2015.  The description on Amazon and the publisher's website (tor.com) sounded very intriguing, reading time under two hours.  

Binti is a 16 year old mathematics genius, called a harmonizer, a member of the Himbi people, living far in the future.  The Hambi live in Northern Namibia, in 2017 the population is estimated at 50,000.  In our story, they are very into technology, computer design, and mathematics.  They are also very devoted to their own ancient culture, almost insular.  They rarely leave their home area and they fear the idea.  No one in Binti's family has ever left their area, let alone Earth.  

Binti receives an invitation to study at the most advanced academy in the universe, the very prestigious planet Oomza, the population there is only five percent human.  Binti is so worried about how her family will react that she sneaks off to catch the space ship the planet.  Okorafor is super creative and imaginative.  I loved the idea that the space ships were Bio-engineered living creatures.  Everyone at the space port is surprised by the red clay caking the face of Binti and in her braided hair.  This is an ancient Hambi tradition, going back to very old times when the red clay as used as protection from dangerous insect bites and to demarcate tribal identity.

Something very exciting and scary happens on the trip but I don't want to tell anymore of the so much fun, so very intelligent plot.  There is a sequel to Binti and I hope to read it this year.

I read this as part of my participation in The African Reading Challenge 2017 (see the link above for details.

From Nnedi.com

Nnedi Okorafor has made a name for herself with novels that combine politically complex science fiction and lyrical fantasy. 
-- The New York Times

Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism for both children and adults. Born in the United States to two Nigerian immigrant parents, Nnedi is known for weaving African culture into creative evocative settings and memorable characters. In a profile of Nnedi’s work titled, “Weapons of Mass Creation”, The New York Times called Nnedi’s imagination “stunning”.

Nnedi’s books include Lagoon (a British Science Fiction Association Award finalist for Best Novel), Who Fears Death (a World Fantasy Award winner for Best Novel), Kabu Kabu (A Publisher’s Weekly Best Book for Fall 2013), Akata Witch (an Amazon.com Best Book of the Year), Zahrah the Windseeker (winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for African Literature), and The Shadow Speaker (a CBS Parallax Award winner).

Her latest works include her novel The Book of Phoenix (an Arthur C. Clarke Award finalist), her Binti Trilogy ( the first of which won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for Best Novella) and her children’s book Chicken in the Kitchen (winner of an Africana Book Award). The final installment of the Binti Trilogy (titled The Night Masquerade) will be released in September and the sequel to Akata Witch (title Akata Warrior) is due out in October. Nnedi is an Full Professor at the University at Buffalo, New York (SUNY).

Mel u

"The Toy Theater" - A Short Story by Gene Wolfe, a master of the Science Fiction Fantasy Genre, 1971

I offer my Great Thanks to Mudpuddle and Fred of Fred's Place for suggesting I read Gene Wolfe

"“You will learn. You have already learned more difficult things. But you will not learn traveling with just one. If you wish to learn three, you must have three with you always, so that you can practice. But already you do the voice of a woman speaking and singing. That was the most difficult for me to learn.” He threw out his big chest and thumped it. “I am an old man now and my voice is not so deep as it was, but when I was young as you it was very deep, and I could not do the voices of women, not with all the help from the control and the speakers in the dolls pitched high. But now listen.” He made Julia, Lucinda, and Columbine, three of his girls, step forward. For a moment they simply giggled; then, after a whispered but audible conference, they burst into Rosine’s song from The Barber of Seville Julia singing coloratura soprano, Columbine mezzo-soprano, and Lucinda contralto. “Don’t record,” Stromboli admonished me. “It is easy to record and cheat; but a good audience will always know, the amateurs will want you to show them, and you can’t look at yourself and smile. You can already do one girl’s voice very good. Don’t ever record. You know how I learned to do them?”

I am greatly enjoying slowly getting back into science fiction and fantasy works, something I read avidly years ago but neglected for a long time.  I was inspired to venture back into fantasy worlds, partially through rereading Dune by Frank Herbert.  I also have recently began to read Olivia Butler and I greatly enjoyed "Green Magic" by the American master Jack Vance.  I was additionally delighted to read works by two young Filipino writers, Isabell Wong and Alyssa Yap whose development I hope to follow.

Going on the strength of recommendations from Mudpuddle and Fred of Fred's Place I decided to read a short story by another acknowledged American master, Gene Wolfe (born NYC, 1931, his best known work is the tetralogy, The Book of the New Sun).  I downloaded a sample of The Best Short Fiction of Gene Wolfe and was happy to find a story I could read, "The Toy Theater" first published in the popular  anthology series Orbit edited by Damon Knight, in 1971)

"The Toy Theater" is a really fun to read story.  A marionettist has just landed on the planet Sarg.  I like how Vance just plunges us right into an alternative universe without a lot of explanation.  Sarg was found with no life of but suitable for humans and earth plants.  It is preindustrial.  It looks like the main occupant, maybe the owner of the planet, is one Stromboli, a marionette master famous through the known universe. Our narrator has come to study with Stromboli.  Marionettes are very much in vogue everywhere.  We meet Stromboli's wife in their house, in the style of a Tuscan villa.  We sit in on the lessons, we come to respect the great artistry involved.

As he awaits in the buggy to take him back to the space port, his visit over, instead of Stromboli's butler, a doll, a woman, Lilli comes up in a buggy and says she will take him to the space port.  It appears she is a marionette, created by Stromboli to be his mistress.

I don't want to spoil the very interesting close of the story.  I found no work by Vance online.  I have two of his short stories in anthologies I have been given and will read them soon.  Maybe I will tackle The Book of the New Sun one day.


Mel u

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (1993)

Published in observation of the birthday anniversary of Octavia Butler, June 22, 1947
The Octavia Butler Society- Your First Resource

Octavia Butler on The Reading Life

Open Road Intergrated Media - Publisher of High Quality E Books of the works of Octavia Butler and thousands of other writers

Born 1947, Pasadena, California, died 2006

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction writer, one of the best-known among the few African-American women in the field. She won both Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, she became the first science fiction writer to receive the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant. - from Goodreads

“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.
To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.
To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.
To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen.
To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.
To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”

― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
I only recently, after a decades long hiatus, have gotten back into reading Science Fiction and Fantasy works.  During my time away authors have become world famous, won all the major genre works and died without me ever hearing of them.

Bloodchild, Butler's Hugo and Nebula Prize Winning novella, was my first venture into her work.  I loved this story about humans and aliens in a symbiotic relationship.  Next I read her time travel work in which an African American woman from contemporary California involuntarily time traveled back to a slave plantation in America, circa 1840.  The conception is brilliant and Butler executed it well.  I next made a bigger venture, reading her tetralogy Lilith's Blood.  I found the overarching idea, the earth being repopulated by humans rescued long ago by aliens interesting but I had to slog my way to the end.

Parable of the Sower begins around 2024, a hopefully not prophetic date when trump could just be completing his second term.  Set in a community near a totally in ruins Los Angeles, destroyed by drugs, an extreme shortage of water brought on by Climate Change, poverty and rampant lawlessness and corruption.  Our narrator, an African American woman Lauren Otamina, lives in a small walled enclave, with her father, her step mother and her brothers.  Her father is a preacher, in the old days both of her parents were professors.  Lauren has a hyperempathy, a condition which causes her to feel the injuries of those around her.  There is a highly addictive drug rampant which turns people into pyromaniacs.  Lauren and her family are in constant fear of roaming bands of scavengers.  Butler does just a wonderful job depicting a very believable dystopian vision of America.

One day scavengers burn down her small enclave, her family  is killed.  Everyone says things are much better in the northern states of Oregon and Washington and Canada is the new promised land.  These states have border guards but if you are lucky you can get through.  Lauren and a few other survivors set out north.  Butler makes the journey very real.

Lauren has her own religion.  Ultimately she learns of a safe heaven up north, owned by an older man she meets on her journey, where she hopes to set up a community.

I don't want to tell too much of the very exciting plot.  There is a sequel to this work, Parable of the Talents that goes further into the life of Lauren after she forms her community.  I hope to read it.

I greatly enjoyed this book.

Mel u

"Green Magic" - a short story by Jack Vance, a master of the Science Fiction/Fantasy World (June, 1963)

I offer my great thanks to Fred of Fred!s Place, a blog I have followed for years and Mudpuddle for turning me onto Jack Vance

"Green Magic" by Jack Vance- You will find lots of information on Jack Vance here

"Howard Fair, looking over the relics of his great-uncle Gerald McIntyre, found a large ledger entitled:

WORKBOOK & JOURNAL

Open at Peril!

Fair read the journal with interest, although his own work went far beyond ideas treated only gingerly by Gerald McIntyre.

"The existence of disciplines concentric to the elementary magics must now be admitted without further controversy," wrote McIntyre. "Guided by a set of analogies from the white and black magics (to be detailed in due course), I have delineated the basic extension of purple magic, as well as its corollary, Dynamic Nomism."

Fair read on, remarking the careful charts, the projections and expansions, the transpolations and transformations by which Gerald McIntyre had conceived his systemology. So swiftly had the 

technical arts advanced that McIntyre's expositions, highly controversial sixty years before, now seemed pedantic and overly rigorous." From "Green Magic" by Jack Vance 

After rereading Dune by Frank Herbert, I realized there was about a fifty year gap in my knowledge of Science fiction and fantasy works.  Back in the day I liked Phillip Farmer, Isaac Asimov, and 

Robert Heinlein.  Only in the last few months have I begun to read in this area again.  I recently read and really enjoyed Clifford Simak's Hugo Award winning novel, The Way Station, several works by the powerfully imaginative Octavia Butler and two wonderful short stories by Isabell Wong and Alyssa Yap, both of Filipino ancestry.  I have also read a few short stories by writers like Karen Russell and Leonora Carrington that border on the fantasy genre.  I must not forget to mention a stunning debut novel Bald New World by Peter Tieryas.  I also reread Brave New World.  There are other genres such as steampunk that blend into fantasy and science fiction also.  Of course there is Horror Fiction.

I wanted to find out what I had missed in the last fifty years.  Who better to ask than the readers of my blog, as smart and as literate group as can be found on this planet.  

Both Fred and Mudpuddle said some of the work of an American writer, Jack Vance (born 1916, died 2013, both in San Francisco Bay Area) was perhaps superior to Dune.  I did some quick research, the literary output of Vance is huge, over sixty books and uncounted short stories, mostly published in pulp magazines.  His work is still under copyright and I could find only one short story online, "Green Magic", first published in 1943. I read this story and loved it.  It is squarely a work of fantasy, of dark magic showing us the dangers of reading the journals of deceased great uncles who made a life long study of the cycles of magic.  

The journal is read by Howard Fair, himself a student of the black, white and purple cycles of magic.  He has been known to conjure up a demon to liven up a dull party. He is shocked when he reads of his uncle's exploration of the green cycle of magic, something hitherto fore unknown to him.  He invokes a sprite from the green world, who warns him against a study of the green cycle.  Howard ends up spending hundreds of years mastering this realm.  Finally he longs for his old world and returns to his apartment only to discover he has been gone only two hours.  I will leave much of the plot unspoiled.  Readers of the great Irish fantasy writer

The very real fun in this story is Vance's creation of the theories of magic, simulating great learning in an arcane realm.  We see how Howard has been changed.

I really enjoyed this story and will venture more into his world.

At the link to "Green Magic" there are links to webpages with lots of information on Vance.

Readers of Sheridan de Le Fanu, the great Irish fantasy writer (extensively posted upon on my blog) and the early 20th century Welsh master Arthur Machen will feel at home in this story.   Maybe they are the literary Lolos of Vance.

Again my thanks to Fred and Mudpuddle.  I will hopefully this year read a few more short stories and at least his Hugo Award Winning works.

Mel u

Dune by Frank Herbert (1965, 835 pages)

Is Dune The Greatest Work of Science Fiction of all time?  What are your choices for this?

I last read Dune by Frank Herbert in 1967 (1920 to 1986). I  had no plans to reread Dune but I received notice in an E book bargains newsletter to which I subscribe that the Kindle edition was marked down temporarily to $1.95.  I remembered that I totally loved it in the long ago, I knew many consider it the greatest Science Fiction novel of all time, plus I wanted to see if I would still love Dune, so I bought the book. I saw a movie based on Dune directed by David Lynch 33 years ago.


Dune is set far in the future, the planets of the known universe are each ruled by a royal house.  Rulership is structured like European royalty.  At the head of the universe is an emperor, each of the royal houses are involved in continual power struggles with each other.  The novel centers on the rise to power of Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto head of house Atreides and his concubine Jessica, a Bene Gesserit.

I decided not to do much of a synopsis of the plot (Wikipedia has a decent one).

The emperor has decided to give house Atreides control over the planet Dune.  Dune is a desert planet, with no rain, Life revolves around water.  Dune is of great importance as only there can a spice that prolongs life and allows space to be navigated be found.

Just a handful of spice can buy a house on other worlds.  Dune was previously controlled by the house Harkoonnen, long blood enemies of the Atreides.  The duke suspects this is a trick by the emperor to destroy his house.

The plot is intricate and fascinating, Herbert goes into great detail about the religion and beliefs of those in the story.  It is a very "ecological" work, we are constantly aware of the power of water.  On Dune there are huge worms, some up to 400 meters.  They are integral to the production of spice.

I really enjoyed this reread, I was happy to see I could recall a lot of the book.

There are five sequels to Dune, some by Frank Herbert, some by others after his death.  I have not read any of these.  If you have, please leave some feedback.

Mel u

"Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler (1984, Hugo and Nebula Award Winner)

"Bloodchild" can be read here

The Octavia Butler Society.

Webpage of The Huntington Library (keeper of The Octavia Butlef Archives)

It is funny how on a Tuesday you have never even heard of a writer and by Friday you have her placed on your read all I can list along with Joseph Roth, Clarice Lispector, R. K. Narayan, Irene Nemirosky, all writers I would never have read but for my participation in the  international book blog community, the world's best readers.

After reading Science Fiction classic
The Way Station by Clifford Simak (in the long ago I was a big reader of Sci Fi but I stopped nearly three decades ago so I know very little about writers who have come (and in some cases gone) in the last three decades.  My research indicated Olivia Butler (1947 to 2006, born in the Los Angeles, California area in 1947 and died in 2006 in Lake Forest Park, Washington after a bad fall), winner of every award in the genre including the Hugo and Nebula Awards was a writer I wanted to check out.  As I researched her (primarily on the links above) I read she was an extreme devotee of the reading life.  Like many of us, Butler came to love reading as an escape from a world in which she did not feel comfortable, a very shy child, books were her friends.  Not only did Butler have serious commercial success she is now avidly studied by academics.  (Just take a quick look at the web page for the Olivia Butler society to see the various ways in which her work is now being mined.)

I looked for a work by Butler I could read online, I located only one, Bloodchild".  I found it was


given the Hugo, Nebula, Chronicles of Science Fiction, and Locus award for best Science Fiction Novelette of 1984.

I was captivated and gripped  by "Bloodchild" in the first paragraph in which a human girl, maybe in her early teens is laying in the arms of a human size very intelligent insect like creature, on a planet far from her ancestors home on earth and far in the future.  It is not a sexual embrace but more a maternal protective embrace.  The girl is quite comfortable with this.



Long ago the ancestors of the girl had left Earth, where they were mistreated, settling on planet compatible to their life support needs.  The planet was home to Tics.  In order to reproduce Tics must implant their eggs in a host animal.  Once the humans arrived they were found to be ideal hosts for the eggs.  The Tic created a protected preserve for the humans, took care of them.  Many Tics bonded with particular humans and became sort of family members.  Tics fed and watched over their human families.  There was a very big negative to being implanted with Tic eggs.  Once the eggs hatched they would eventually begin to eat through their host as they made their way out.  In one vivid scene, the hatchlings have to be cut out of the man in which they are implanted.  The story is narrated by the girl's brother.

I really don't want to give out much more of the plot of "Bloodchild".  (Reading time easily under thirty minutes.). I think it would be a great classroom read, stimulating lots of discussion.


Butler is now firmly on my read all I can list.

I thank Buried in Print and Fred for remarks on Octavia Butler (in the comments on my recent post on Way Station).

Wikipedia has a decent article on Butler and one on "Bloodchild".  In 1995 she became the first


Science Fiction writer to receive The MacArthur Award (commonly called "The Genius Award")a

Have you read Butler?  Please share your experience with us.

Do you have a favorite Science Fiction writer.?

Many academics call Butler an "Afro Futurist Writer".  Are you comfortable with labels like that?

Way Station by Clifford Simak (1963, Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Novel, 1964)

Open Road Media - Publisher of 1000s of high quality value priced E Books

Open Road is the publisher in E Book fashion of Clifford Simak and lots of other top name science fiction writers

In the long ago I used to enjoy reading a lot of science fiction.   My favorite science fiction novel was Dune by Frank Herbert.

I decided to read Way Station by Clifford Simak (1904 to 1988, Wisconsin, USA) for three reasons, it was a Hugo Award Winning novel, the description intrigued me and the Kindle edition was on sale for $0.99.

The central character in Way Station is Enoch, he is over 100 years old but looks thirty.  Ever since the civil war (the story seems set in the 1920s, in rural America.  Enoch was always a loner, made more so by his war experiences.  One day a stranger wandered up to his house.  He turned out to be an alien and he set up on Enoch's property a Way Station for intergalactic travelers.  Beyond earth there exists a huge universe of much more advanced beings who have a way of traveling through space involving transmission to Way stations throughout the universe.  Enoch becomes fascinated with the aliens who visit him.  He begins to attract attention from neighbors and the government.  Simak does a great job making this all very believable and super interesting.

There are very suspenseful events involving a deaf mute girl and her brutal father, the CIA and a sinister alien.

Way Station was a lot of fun, easy quick reading that will make you think.

Dark Stars - The Year's Best Science Fiction (2012). Three Stories by Women

I have not read a lot of science fiction since I began my blog.  I used to read a good bit of it several decades ago.  Today I want to post on three interesting stories by female authors included in the anthology Dark Stars - The Year's Best Science Fiction.  Speaking just about the editing job of this anthology, there are several things wrong with it.  The biggest flaw, and it is really a major one, is that the table of contents includes only the names of the stories, not the author's names.  Secondly, you have to kind of guess what year the collection represents.  There is no introduction, no editor is named, we have no clue if these stories were published somewhere else first or if they were written for this anthology.  We have no idea why these stories can claim to be among the best of a year other than the fact they are in this collection. All in all a poor editing job. These flaws are enough for me to say do not buy this collection.  (I received a free copy of this book through a service.  When I tried to go to the publisher's web page, it no longer existed.)   There are legitimate juried best science fiction anthologies out there more deserving of your money.

I decided to post on female authored stories as the vast majority of science fiction is written by men, this is geek lit.  Overall the stories rely on a clever idea played out in an alternative universe, often with a surprise ending.  The level of the prose aims for a quick read but is not bad.  These stories are meant to entertain.  They are escapist reads.   They  deal with the consequences of the degradation of the earth. 

"Ghost Nebula" 

By Deborah Walker

This very brief story centers on a woman piloting a space ship through the ghost nebula while the rest of the crew sleeps in a frozen type state (a very common science fiction device).  We learn that she is 1000 light years from the "Shangai Factory Slums" where she grew up.  As the story ends, she is looking forward to seeing her mother.  Ok, sixty seconds to read this.  First thought was why does the author make reference to Shangai factory slums.  What is this meant to tell us about the future?  Or is this story just kind of pointless light entertainment?  

"Killing Jar Captives"

By  Suzane Van Royon 

This story starts out on an alien space ship, taking human captives back to the home planet of an insect like species that has conquered the Earth.  The captives are in jars, with an alien creature tapped into their psyche draining their life experience.  All of a sudden the ship hits a very bad meteor storm and ends up crashing to a planet, not earth.  There are four survivors, one is a man, one a woman and two are some kind of alien entity, not sure of the ontology here, connected to the humans. When the man called the woman "Eve" I winched.  Some decent descriptions of the conditions on the transport ship help make this an interesting story.   

"Christmas Eve in New London" 

By Patricia Correll

"Christmas Eve in New London" takes place somewhere in the galaxy that many residents of London migrated to when London became, due to horrible pollution and habit destruction, became virtually unfit for human habitation.  It has been six years since the residents moved to New London.  Since they got there no children have been born alive.  At first women gave birth to corpses but for a long time no one has gotten pregnant.  A disease killed all residents of New London under 14 or so.  The story centers on a man who, every Christmas,manufactures and 

 delivers replicates of children.  He picks up last years models, this years are just a bit bigger and developed.  Everyone on his route is happy to see him.  In an touch I found intriguing, he has programmed his replicants to always believe in Santa Claus.  This was the story of the three I liked the most.  

All of these stories seem to be a bit clichéd.  All basically have one idea.  There is little or no character development, the plots don't really interest you that much.  Ok good entertainment reads and maybe I am too demanding.  

Mel u