Fantasy: Short Stories: Old Venus, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois

Old Venus
Edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Stories by Allen M. Steele,
Lavie Tidhar,
Paul McAuley,
Matthew Hughes,
Gwyneth Jones,
Joe Haldeman,
Stephen Leigh,
Eleanor Arnason,
David Brin,
Garth Nix,
Michael Cassutt,
Tobias Bucknell,
Elizabeth Bear,
Joe R. Lansdale,
Mike Resnick,
Ian McDonald
ISBN: 9780345537287
Short Story Collection:
Read June 2015

This collection asks modern fantasy and sf authors to imagine that Venus was actually the
steamy jungle (or water) world it was imagined to be in the pulp sf years, and write new stories set in that mythical world.  And did they ever deliver!

Allen M. Steele's Frogheads takes us to an ocean world where the locals are very fond of chocolate, and the Russian bureaucracy is still shaking off the accumulated inertia of failed communism.  We follow a jaded and taicturn PI searching for the missing son of a rich shipping magnate, and he finds that the son isn't exactly missing.

Lavie Tidhar then gives us the seriously creeptastic and more-than-slightly-Lovecraftian The Drowned Celestial, where our hero is dragooned into a sinister cult, but on the flip side, manages to find a lover!  Bonus points for the Aztec link.

Paul McAuley's Planet of Fear pits a tenacious scientist against a war-mad general who is convinced that the evil Americans are plotting against him.  And of course a science outpost filled with evidence of crazy people, and lots of dead pigs.

We get my favorite story of the collection, Greeves and the Evening Star, from Matthew Hughes.  This was a Jeevsian romp through the most politest of society gentlemen as they attempt to wrap their heads around the amorous advances of a most persuasive and persistent Venusian.  Hughes language nearly killed me in this story, and it's the only one that I've gone back and re-read.  Just as enjoyable the second go round.

A Planet Called Desire, by Gwyneth Jones, was strange.  It had the bones of a white colonial "Crocodile Dundee" sort of story, but the lead driver of the action was an enigmatic scientist mired in regnal red tape, and it resolves itself with a lingering creepy hope.  Extra points for being one of the only stories to delve into teleportaton.

Joe Haldeman gives a short creepy first-contact sort of story set in a truly nasty jungle Venus.  Living Hell is a perfect descriptor of a place where everything seems designed to do horrible damage to humans.  We arrive mid-crisis, as our rescue pilot attempts a desperate rescue of a science outpost that has been cut off due to a giant solar flare.  Our pilot is about to get real close and uncomfortable with the biota.

Bones of Air, Bones of Stone, is Stephen Leigh's contribution to oceanic Venus lore, with a strange tale of a pair of ex-lovers united and driven apart by the urge to conquer the extreme - do what's never been done.  Here, it's the Great Darkness, a huge pit of deep black water that laughs at the Marianas Trench.  Complicating matters is the lore of the locals, who believe that oceanic darkness to be their sacred resting place, and forbid anyone from diving there.

Eleanor Arnason also likes the idea of Communists on Venus, and Ruins gives us a National Geographic meets Washington Post intrigue featuring a team of scientists and explorers, and yes, a National Geographic photography team, complete with "Autonomous Leica.  My model name is AL-26.  My personal name is Margaret, in honor of the twentieth-century photographer Margaret Bourke White.  You may call me Maggie." which juust about killed me.  They're headed into the back country in search of a persistent rumor about ancient ruins, but they discover something a lot more sinister.

The Tumbledowns of Cleopatra Abyss by David Brin was my second favorite story, and also the second-best serious tale in the bunch.  I was in awe of this story the whole time I was reading, and I'm still in awe at how well it all flowed.  I can't say much without destroying the impact, but the tale reminds me that even when things go badly wrong, life finds a way.  So very very good.

Garth Nix gives military sf a whirl with By Frogsled and Lizardback to Outcast Venusian Lepers, which, really, that title is just about all you need to know about this story.  Oh, and clones.  And military draft rules.  And really colorful personal fungi.

The Sunset of Time didn't quite work well for me.  Michael Cassutt gives it a good shot, and the story is interesting, but the weird parentheticals took too long to be explained, and the characters never quite gelled for me.   Earth has gone all Handmaid's Tale, and deviants are shipped out to exile on sinful Venus.  The natives are prepping for their regularly scheduled End Times, but humanity just keeps tootling along, although our protagonist Jor is beginning to have his concerns.

We follow that one up with a gut-punch of a story, beautifully and hauntingly told by Tobias S. Buckell.  Pale Blue Memories has a light-skinned black member of the exploratory astronaut team narrate the horrible, but oh-so-human consequences of his team's ill-fated Venus landing.  Painful to read, but so very well done.

Elizabeth Bear follows this one up with a tale of a bruised spirit who takes refuge in death-defying exploration - far away from her perfect and overbearing co-worker and lover.  The Heart's Filthy Lesson balances the pain of jealousy with the overwhelming ecstasy of discovering new places and pushing your limits.

The Wizard of the Trees is John Carter of Venus, and god bless Joe R. Lansdale for giving him to us.  Unlike Carter, our hero is plucked from his world by a slimy glowing thing, and chucked into a muddy hot pool.  Things don't get much prettier from there, but Jack Davis, our intrepid US Buffalo Soldier, isn't afraid of a challenge.  He even has a kick-ass princess encounter of his own!

Mike Resnick works from the same basic story structure as Tidhar, but The Godstone of Venus is a lot less Lovecraft and a lot more Indiana Jones.  A merc and his partner are picked up by really strange clients in a run-down bar.  The partner can't read the lady's mind, which is odd, because he can read anything's mind.  They're on a quest for an artifact that can't exist, and things only get weirder from there.

Our last story is, in my opinion, the absolute best.  Ian McDonald delivers to us Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts by Ida Countess Rathangan.  It was absolutely and incontrovertably perfection.  I loved the conceit, I loved the execution, the story was gripping, and the mystery was lovely.  Utterly, utterly delightful.

Nonfiction: Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols

Blue Mind: the surprising science that shows how being near, in, on, or under water can make you happier, healthier, more connected, and better at what you do.
Wallace J. Nichols
ISBN: 9780316252089
Nonfiction: popular science: the therapeutic benefits of various interactions with water.

Interesting book, but despite the footnotes and carefully applied various disciplines and sciences (everything from property valuation to fMRI to sensory-deprivation chambers), it felt a little light-weight.  I don't know why - perhaps because most of what was covered falls squarely into common sense.  I sympathise with the scientific urge to explain and nail down the whys and wherefores of life, but for something as basic and universal as this, it feels somehow cheap to attempt to pin down specific biological responses and say that those are the reason; to me, that is confusing the mechanism with the motive.

Perhaps in humans, the mechanism and the motive are so interlinked as to be one and the same when looked at through a scientific eye, but in the meantime, as much as I enjoyed reading about the science behind emotional responses, and the peculiar human preferences that make ocean-view penthouses millions of dollars more expensive than their city-view next-door neighbors, I just didn't feel like I was any more renewed or enlightened about my relationship with water, or any more able to advocate for it.

Still, it was a nice enough read, much like floating around on a lazy river loop.  The journey is relaxing, even if you don't go anywhere new.

Renegade, J. A Souders

Renegade
J. A. Souders
ISBN: 9780765332455
Read January 2014?
YA dystopia, girl power (except not really)

I was really put off by this book.  It started with such a strong premise, and then it all just went pear-shaped.  I'm not going to go into details, but suffice it to say that the worldbuilding and narrative structure did not stand up, even under the insubstantial weight of the cliffhanger story that was set upon them.  Add in cliche relationships, a convenient set of powers, and memory loss that isn't dealt with realistically, and the whole read was just really frustrating to experience.

Listing here because someone had asked about it, and I had a hard time remembering the title.  Mileage may vary, and just because I didn't enjoy it, doesn't mean that you wouldn't.

(Edit: helps to actually include a brief synopsis, doesn't it?)

Heroine is a kept girl chosen at birth and raised essentially in a utopian seraglio because of her "perfect genes" and destined to inherit the leadership of her underwater commune from the current Mother.  Everyone has blonde hair and blue eyes, and Mother is really quite strict about genetic purity, and proper behavior.  People are manipulated through having their memories wiped when they do things wrong, or through simply being "vanished."  Our heroine, not able to be vanished, keeps getting her brains wiped as she's incapable of actually acting in accordance with Mother's wishes for longer than about half a day.  That's perfect genes for you, I suppose.  In addition, there is a brute squad of very young girls who have been trained and mentally conditioned into being ruthless emotionless (or alternatively rage-filled - consistency isn't really great here) assassins.

Our heroine has begun to make the foggy realization that all is not dandy in utopia, aided in her discovery by a boy - an outsider from Above who arrives via a really stupid reason.  After that, everything goes downhill pretty quickly, devolving into long chase scenes through secret districts of the city (remember this is a smallish underwater commune here), hidden lower city levels (again, where?), mutants, fraught history lessons (spoiler, Mother is a liar), and more gory shambling zombie mutants before the inevitable cliff-hanger ending that sets up for the next book.