Fantastic Metropolis

Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett. Everything in this remarkable book was unexpected, including the fact that I was so completely engaged in a literary novel.

Spin State, by Chris Moriarty (2003). This is more typical of my usual reading habits—high adventure and a kick ass heroine with moral dilemmas and fight scenes. Given the complexity and layers in this book, you won’t be surprised to hear that Moriarty admires C.J. Cherryh, and particularly Cyteen. But don’t worry: this book’s not a clone.

Stark’s Crusade, by John Hemry. I finally got around to the third of John Hemry’s Stark books right about the time the U.S. starting sending troops into Iraq. The parallels between the U.S. of Hemry’s book—an arrogant country with corruption at its heart that has overextended itself militarily—and the same country I heard about on the news every day made the book uncomfortable reading rather than something escapist. Even if you don’t think you like military SF, you should probably read the whole series for the underlying political analysis.

Empire of Bones, by Liz Williams. I love Williams’s lush settings, complex plots, political sensibilities, and ability to write science fiction about people who’ve never been part of the canon. The main character in Empire is an Indian woman of the Untouchable caste. And there are aliens. That should be enough to draw you in.

Short Fiction

“The Fluted Girl,” by Paolo Bacigalupi in the June 2003 Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. This haunting story combines a highly sophisticated science of genetic modification with a feudal setting. Surely someone will put it in a year’s best collection.

“The Road Leads Back,” by Michael Bishop in Polyphony 3 (2003). By exaggerating his characters, Bishop always makes them incredibly real and human, and tells a truth that is strengthened by the presence of the fantastic. This is one of his finest examples, though I also liked (for much the same reasons) his completely different story in the October 2003 Realms of Fantasy, “The Door Gunner.”

“Frankenstein’s Daughter,”??]] by Maureen McHugh on SciFiction (2003). This story proves that, in the right hands, good science and complex character development do not have to fight with each other.

Other Cities, by Benjamin Rosenbaum. This is a chapbook collection of very short stories—a person who demands more plot might call them vignettes. I call them the kind of stories that open a door and leave what happens next to the reader’s imagination.

In Springdale Town, by Robert Freeman Wexler (2003). Wexler bends reality in a quiet manner that is just a bit different from work by anyone else.

Nonfiction

Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. People have been telling me to read this book for years. Now that I’ve done it, I’m doing the same thing. Diamond, a physiologist, has reached beyond the borders of his own discipline and come up with a complex theory on why human civilization has developed as it did. Some years ago I read Edward O. Wilson’s Consilience, which among other things argues for the importance of cross-pollination among academic fields. Diamond has done what Wilson encouraged, and the results give plenty to think about.