Fleeing an empty future in the Nekropolis, twenty-one-year-old Hariba has agreed to have herself "jessed," the technobiological process that will render her subservient to whomever has purchased her service. Indentured in the house of a wealthy merchant, she encounters many wondrous things. Yet nothing there is as remarkable and disturbing to her as the harni, Akhmim. A perfect replica of a man, this intelligent, machine-bred creature unsettles Hariba with its beauty, its naive, inappropriate tenderness ... and with prying, unanswerable questions, like "Why are you sad?" And slowly, revulsion metamorphoses into acceptance, and then into something much more. But these outlaw emotions defy the strict edicts of God and Man -- feelings that must never be explored, since no master would tolerate them. And the "jessed" defy their master's will at the risk of sickness, pain, imprisonment ... and death.
]]> A brief review cannot discuss all the stories, but can only suggest the range of subgenres within. These include the hard SF of Alastair Reynolds's extrasolar murder mystery "Glacial"; the soft SF of Maureen F. McHugh's wise "Interview: On Any Given Day"; the testosterone-drenched adventure SF of Paul Di Filippo's "Neutrino Drag"; the doomed lesbian love in a future so distant it seems like fantasy in Ian R. MacLeod's "Isabel of the Fall"; alternate history about Philip K. Dick and Richard Nixon in Paul McAuley's "The Two Dicks"; the triple-timeline Trojan fantasy of Howard Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy's excellent collaboration, "One-Horse Town"; the scathing satire of Carolyn Ives Gilman's "The Real Thing"; and the high-density postcyberpunk of "Lobsters," in which new author Charles Stross blends bleeding-edge infotech and venture-capital bizbuzz to create the standout SF story of 2001. --Cynthia Ward
Comprising:
New Light on the Drake Equation by Ian R. MacLeod;
More Adventures on Other Planets by Michael Cassutt;
On K2 With Kanakaredes by Dan Simmons;
When This World is All On Fire by William Sanders;
Computer Virus by Nancy Kress;
Have Not Have by Geoff Ryman;
Lobsters by Charles Stross;
The Dog Said Bow-Wow by Michael Swanwick;
The Chief Designer by Andy Duncan;
Neutrino Drag by Paul Di Filippo;
Glacial by Alastair Reynolds;
The Days Between by Allen M. Steele;
One-Horse Town by Howard Waldrop and Leigh Kennedy;
Moby Quilt by Eleanor Arnason;
Raven Dream by Robert Reed;
Undone by James Patrick Kelly;
The Real Thing by Carolyn Ives Gilman;
Interview: On Any Given Day by Maureen F. McHugh;
Isabel of the Fall by Ian R. MacLeod;
Into Greenwood by Jim Grimsley;;
Know How, Can Do by Michael Blumlein;
Russian Vine by Simon Ings;
The Two Dicks by Paul McAuley;
May Be Some Time by Brenda W. Clough;
Marcher by Chris Beckett;
The Human Front by Ken MacLeod.
Dem jungen Zhang begegnen Menschen, die ihm ihr Leben erzählen. Die Geschichte von Zhang selbst ist damit so fesselnd und so trivial wie der Alltag und dennoch voller Intensität -- intim erzählt, ohne voyeuristisch zu sein. Er trifft auf andere Menschen und wird von ihnen angezogen und abgestoßen, immer auf der Suche nach seinem Platz im Leben, dessen Horizont vom kommunistisch-chinesischen Amerika über die Antarktis bis nach China und der Marskolonie reicht. Überall hinterlässt er Spuren, die ein Eigenleben entwickeln. Die Faszination des mit Preisen überhäuften und plastisch übersetzten ABC Zhang ist vergleichbar mit dem Tagebuch eines Menschen aus einem anderen Land -- einem Land in der Zukunft. Keine Idee ist so spannend wie das Leben selbst und Maureen F. McHugh lässt durch die Zeit in ein solches blicken -- Science Fiction nahe an unserer Realität ... und doch so fern. --Wolfgang Tress
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