Solaris Rising 3 - The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction Read online

  Praise for Solaris Rising

  “One of the three or four best SF anthologies published this year... there’s nothing here that isn’t at least good, and some that’s outstanding.”

  Gardner Dozois, Locus Magazine

  “**** The literary equivalent of a well-presented buffet of tasty snacks.”

  SFX Magazine

  “This anthology of new short stories is essential reading.”

  BBC Focus Magazine

  “A+, highly recommended... A very strong, eclectic anthology with something to please any lover of contemporary sf.”

  Fantasy Book Critic

  “An excellent collection... In my review of Engineering Infinity, I pondered ‘I’d be surprised if there’s a stronger anthology in 2011.’ Well, the same publisher has now produced another anthology that is right up there with it.”

  BestSF

  “Believe me, it’s a journey well worth taking. Science fiction storytelling at its finest...”

  Mass Movement Magazine

  “If you’re of a mind to dip your toes into science fiction, then this is a perfect starting point. At the same time, a rewarding read for SF aficionados. One anthology anyone with an interest in SF shouldn’t miss!”

  A Fantastical Librarian

  “Chock-full of enjoyable and interesting new SF stories: diverse, entertaining and, for those who don’t already know the authors, a great introduction to their work. I hope it’s the first of many.”

  SF Crow’s Nest

  “This is a must buy anthology for SF fans. Be ready; you are in for a treat.”

  Terror-Tree

  “Solaris have, in a short time, established a fine tradition of publishing top quality anthologies. A must for fans of SF in its shorter (and some would say, more perfect) form.”

  SFRevu

  “A strong showcase of the genre.”

  Locus Online

  First published 2014 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd

  Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-84997-767-8

  Cover Art by Pye Parr

  ‘Introduction’ © Ian Whates 2014

  ‘When We Harvested the Nacre-Rice’ © Benjanun Sriduangkaew 2014

  ‘The Goblin Hunter’ © Chris Beckett 2014

  ‘Homo Floresiensis’ © Ken Liu 2014

  ‘A Taste for Murder’ © Julie E. Czerneda 2014

  ‘Double Blind’ ©Tony Ballantyne 2014

  ‘The Mashup’ © Sean Williams 2014

  ‘The Frost on Jade Buds’ © Aliette de Bodard 2014

  ‘Popular Images from the First Manned Mission to Enceladus’ © Alex Dally MacFarlane 2014

  ‘Red Lights, and Rain’ ©Gareth L. Powell 2014

  ‘They Swim Through Sunset Seas’ © Laura Lam 2014

  ‘Faith Without Teeth’ © Ian Watson 2014

  ‘Thing and Sick’ © Adam Roberts 2014

  ‘The Sullen Engines’ © George Zebrowski 2014

  ‘Dark Harvest’ © Cat Sparks 2014

  ‘Fift and Shria’ ©Benjamin Rosenbaum 2014

  ‘The Howl’ © Ian R. MacLeod & Martin Sketchley 2014

  ‘The Science of Chance’ © Nina Allan 2014

  ‘Endless’ © Rachel Swirsky 2014

  The right of the authors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Designed by Rebellion Publishing

  SOLARIS RISING 3

  THE NEW SOLARIS BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION

  EDITED BY

  IAN WHATES

  INCLUDING STORIES BY

  Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  Chris Beckett

  Ken Liu

  Julie E. Czerneda

  Tony Ballantyne

  Sean Williams

  Aliette de Bodard

  Alex Dally MacFarlane

  Gareth L. Powell

  Laura Lam

  Ian Watson

  Adam Roberts

  George Zebrowski

  Cat Sparks

  Benjamin Rosenbaum

  Ian R. MacLeod & Martin Sketchley

  Nina Allan

  Rachel Swirsky

  CONTENTS

  Introduction, Ian Whates

  When We Harvested the Nacre-Rice, Benjanun Sriduangkaew

  The Goblin Hunter, Chris Beckett

  Homo Floresiensis, Ken Liu

  A Taste for Murder, Julie E. Czerneda

  Double Blind, Tony Ballantyne

  The Mashup, Sean Williams

  The Frost on Jade Buds, Aliette de Bodard

  Popular Images from the First Manned Mission to Enceladus, Alex Dally MacFarlane

  Red Lights, and Rain, Gareth L. Powell

  They Swim Through Sunset Seas, Laura Lam

  Faith Without Teeth, Ian Watson

  Thing and Sick, Adam Roberts

  The Sullen Engines, George Zebrowski

  Dark Harvest, Cat Sparks

  Fift and Shria, Benjamin Rosenbaum

  The Howl, Ian R. MacLeod & Martin Sketchley

  The Science of Chance, Nina Allan

  Endless, Rachel Swirsky

  INTRODUCTION

  IAN WHATES

  I STILL HAVE to pinch myself when realising that this is now the third volume of Solaris Rising (the fourth if you include the e-book only SR1.5). I can’t thank the folk at Solaris/Rebellion enough for inviting me to compile and edit this series and for allowing me such a free rein. The appearance of Solaris Rising 2 on the 2014 shortlist for the Philip K Dick Award came as a complete though very welcome surprise, suggesting that I must be doing something right.

  As stated in previous introductions, what I’ve been attempting is to showcase the rich variety that modern science fiction has to offer, without placing any restraints on the authors’ imagination by imposing a theme, and that remains the guiding principal.

  The first two submissions I received for Solaris Rising 3 were from Gareth L. Powell and Aliette de Bodard. Both contributed to the SR1.5 mini-anthology, which was intended as a bridge between the first book and future volumes. Neither writer has disappointed, with Gareth providing a typically odd but action-packed piece and Aliette a new story set in her highly successful Xuya universe: surely one of the most interesting alternative/future histories currently being written.

  I owe Tricia Sullivan a debt of thanks for suggesting I check out the work of Benjanun Sriduangkaew and Alex Dally MacFarlane. I did, and was suitably impressed. Both authors have contributed stories to recent NewCon Press anthologies and it’s a pleasure to work with them again here. Alex seems to enjoy playing around with unusual narrative structures, while Benjanun brings a refreshing perspective to her writing as well as genuine depth. As Tricia suggested, here are two writers that definitely merit watching.

  No one needs to introduce me to either Adam Roberts or Ian Watson: award-winning authors who appeared in the first volume of the series and return here with typically clever tales. Ian’s is surreal and bristling with toothy wordplay, while Adam’s is thought-provoking and intense. It was Ian who introduced me to George Zebrowski, a writer whose short fiction I’ve admired for decades but never dreamed I would have the o
pportunity to work with (I suppose that’s another drink I’ll owe Ian at some point).

  Best Opening Line Award has to go to Laura Lam. How could anyone resist a tale that begins: “I thought I would write and tell you what happened after you died.”? Thankfully, what follows lives up to that initial promise. The darkest contribution comes from Tony Ballantyne, whose claustrophobic story shows an all too plausible near future that’s likely to induce an involuntary shiver, while the oddest is probably from Swiss resident Benjamin Rosenbaum. I met Benjamin by chance at World Fantasycon in Brighton, and instantly recalled his entertaining ‘Biographical Notes To “A Discourse On The Nature Of Causality, With Air-Planes” By Benjamin Rosenbaum’ (it’s difficult not to remember a novelette with a title like that), which was shortlisted for a Hugo award a few years back. Of course I had to invite him to submit.

  Ken Liu and Sean Williams are two authors whose work has long impressed me. I’ve been seeking stories from both since the very first book, but each has invariably been too busy. This time around, Solaris gave me a considerably longer submission window and I was delighted when both Ken and Sean found the time in their busy schedules to write something; even more so when I received the stories and realised how good they were.

  Ian R. MacLeod is another writer I’ve been gently badgering since volume 1. Ian doesn’t write many shorts, but those he does are always of a high quality – every short story he was responsible for in 2013 made it into a Year’s Best anthology, for example. I was expecting the usual polite brush-off (Ian is ever the gentleman) and so was pleasantly surprised when he said, “You know, I might just have something for you this time.” It turned out that Ian was planning a collaborative story with mutual friend Martin Sketchley (who appeared in volume 2).

  The remaining contributors fall into two categories: authors whose work I admire and have long hoped to work with, and those I have worked with and am always eager to do so again.

  The latter include Nina Allan and Chris Beckett, two of the most exciting writers of intelligent, modern SF working in Britain today. Nina gets under the skin of a protagonist as effectively as any writer I know, and her story here, a police procedural in an alternative Russia, is no exception. Chris manages to instil a sense of social commentary into his work without ever obstructing the narrative. ‘The Goblin Hunter’ is set on the strange colony world of Lutania, one of my favourite Beckett milieus – I’m fortunate enough to have published two previous Lutanian stories in the collection The Peacock Cloak.

  Julie Czerneda, Cat Sparks, and Rachel Swirsky fall into the former category. Oceans separate me from all three, which means that our paths have never yet crossed at conventions, we’ve never nattered at the bar, shared panels or lively debate... Only the quality of their fiction has brought them to my attention, but how better to meet a writer? These are busy, multiple award-winning authors and as ever in such instances I’m extremely grateful that they have found the time to write me such cracking stories. Another dip into the murky world of police and crime, Julie’s contribution is very different in style and texture from Nina’s, while Cat provides the closest to traditional military SF you’ll find in the book, though the story is far from straightforward. Rachel’s submission arrived at the very last minute but was worth the wait; its punchy high-tempo narrative proved an ideal closing word for the book.

  So there we have it: eighteen stories from nineteen authors, providing a cross-section of the genre which, hopefully, will entertain and satisfy, and might just tempt you to explore some of the contributors’ work further. Happy reading.

  Ian Whates

  Cambridgeshire

  May 2014

  WHEN WE HARVESTED THE NACRE-RICE

  BENJANUN SRIDUANGKAEW

  Benjanun Sriduangkaew writes soldiers, strange cities, and space opera. A finalist for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Phantasm Japan, Dangerous Games, the NewCon Press anthology La Femme, and has been reprinted in best of the year collections. Her contemporary fantasy novella “Scale-Bright” is forthcoming from Immersion Press.

  THE UN-WAR BETWEEN Jiratar and Sujari is fought by madness and ballistic allegory, by trojan-fire aimed at collective memory. The sky flashes not with ammunition charges but perceptive warp, fractures in shared consciousness.

  History blisters apart. Recall gains the property of liquids and flows to fit its vessel. No one remembers.

  Under this climate, everyone is a combatant.

  THAT PARTICULAR DAY Pahayal is wading out to the Amraste, her secondskin mottled with sweat and river silt. The trap-drones nibble at her ankles, the sun’s glare rough as grit in her eyes.

  She finds the stranger floating among catfish that swirl belly-up and engine drift like mourning-weeds: a face dressed in soot and bruises, eyes tight shut against a day too bright. Dead, Pahayal thinks as her shadow falls across; alive, her datasphere insists. Almost she expects the body to dissipate, another figment of hallucinatory sync, another leftover from an illogic burst.

  Clenching her teeth against the weight and the wet she pulls the body out. Her grip slips and slides, but she perseveres until they are both on muddy banks and then on solid ground. Readings indicate eighty-six kilos and steady vital signs. She doesn’t bother requesting an ambulance; an overview of hospitals in the area shows her staff shortage and overtaxed equipment. For a patient in non-critical condition there will never be a slot.

  Pahayal looks up at a sky so clear, so true. There’s no interference buzzing and scratching at her mind. She doesn’t want to return to the city and she has no time or energy. But in the end she summons her carrier.

  On the way home she takes a second look. The stranger is phenotypically local, the mode of dress off-world: too cosmopolitan and sleek by far. An aggressive jawline, a sharp nose, and eyelashes voluminous enough for two. With profile metadata offline she doesn’t assume a gender but feels certain this is no enemy. Elsewise she would have a duty – but she doesn’t think of that; she’s long ago given up the luxury of what-ifs.

  She sets the house replicant to clean and monitor her good deed. These days only basic units, none too clever, can be relied on. Advanced intelligences have shattered long ago, victims of their own heuristics. Pahayal imagines humans will follow someday until Jiratar is a country of lesser replicants cycling through their default routines, cooking for the dead, cleaning empty houses.

  She goes to sleep lucid; holds out the hope she will wake up the same.

  The next day arrives with dawn gone and midday imminent. Ten hours of sleep, all of them bad: a throb in her temples, an itch under her skin. She unfilters a window and kneels dazed in a pool of sunlight. Listening to birds and feeling ill, but grateful that she is not seeing what isn’t there. The noon is calm, a promise of normalcy. Allusion-coded channels give no warning of imminent attacks.

  She’s halfway dressed in mismatched lehenga choli when she realizes that the first-aid subroutines have gone silent. One glance at the wardrobe and she decides she doesn’t care.

  The kitchen is on, simmering pots and toggled cookers. The stranger presides over them, datasphere online and profile broadcasting female. Pahayal judges her build. Exceptionally dense and, though earlier scans haven’t revealed implants, almost certainly augmented. An athlete, or – “Are you a soldier?” The proper kind, trained and ranked.

  “Am I?” Enunciation precise and angular, the perfect Costeya only found on Hegemonic cradle worlds. “If you honestly wanted to know you could have gene-matched me. Since you didn’t, I’ll have to assume that’s a conversation starter more than a real question. You could’ve just said hello.”

  “Where are you from?” Pahayal means to ask more but the smell of blue-rice steam distracts. The cooker has been working for fifteen minutes. Garlic and ginger sit in saucers by the side; stains on the stranger’s hand tells her the dicing has been done manually. “Look, the replicant could’ve done that.”


  “A friend of mine doesn’t let replicants cook. Bad influence.” She drops the ginger and garlic into the pot, adding dollops of shark-eel concentrate. “I’m Etiesse Hari-tem-Nakhet, from Imral. A mouthful, I know.”

  “Pahayal Rukhim. And half your name is local.” Though Etiesseis as Costeya a name as she’s ever heard, carved-ice syllables, elegant and aristocratic.

  “Some great-great-such-and-such were from this planet, yes. That’s why I’m here – I’ve never been to Jiratar before and my parents insist it’s past time I connect with our heritage.” Etiesse stirs the pot. A hiss of oil; a bouquet of spices. “This is Tiansong food, as close as I can approximate it. You’ll have to let me know if the taste disagrees with you.”

  It doesn’t, though the absence of chargrilled bread and pickles for breakfast is unusual. More unusual is a person cooking for her. Pahayal can’t remember the last time that happened. When she lived with her family? Years ago, a decade at least. “How did you end up in the Amraste?”

  “An engine failure.” The off-worlder touches a chrome shark at her throat as if to ward off bad luck. “A really stupid way to die. I owe you a hell of a lot. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Take me away from here. Pahayal does not say that. “Not much. I’ll get you to the tourist board.”

  THERE WAS A time when they weren’t at war.