#david marusek

[askyea-poesy]

The person who works for recognition devalues the work he does, that awards are first and foremost political instruments, that altruism's true name is always Anonymous.

David Marusek

[mayim]

[tediousreviews]

Asimov’s Science Fiction (June 1999)

Sorry about the delay. We've got one novella, two novelettes, and four short stories this time.

Novella

The Wedding Album, David Marusek

For a decent, thoughtful, well written, and often entertaining look at what could happen if a person could duplicate themselves at will you should go read Schlock Mercenary. For a horrid little story about people enslaving and torturing AI copies of themselves, read this story.

*sigh*

Novelettes

10^16 to 1, James Patrick Kelly

A time travel story built around the idea that the US really should have started WWIII during the cuban missile crisis because it would have been winnable then.

So my least favorite science fiction sub-genre, combined with batshit insane advocacy for the murder of billions.

Ladies in Their Letters, Gregory Feeley

Two young women become penpals for a school assignment. One gets caught up in a disaster that will trap her and almost everyone she knows in a desperate struggle for survival that will last for decades at a minimum. The other gets her feelings hurt when she stops getting letters and turns into a passive aggressive stalker.

...

Short Stories

Sexual Dimorphism, Kim Stanley Robinson

A researcher with a stalling career and a lover who has probably found a new lover decides to try out domestic violence. Then he decides to try sexually assaulting a pod of genetically engineered martian dolphins.

...

Written in Blood, Chris Lawson

A biologist on his Hajj decides to have the Quran encoded into his DNA, which results in cancer and death. But on the bright side, his daughter finds a way to keep anyone else from dying the same way.

...

Visit the Sins, Cory Doctorow

Have you ever watched Click? This is a slightly smarter story with just the fast forward function.

Dirty Little Cowards, William Sanders

More time travel, this time to allow people to commit famous murders.

Final Thoughts

...

[caribassa]

2025

David Marusek

L’Enfance attribuée

[tediousreviews]

Asimov’s Science Fiction (February 1999)

Another, well month and a bit, another Asimov's.

On top of our usual theme of abject, inescapable misery, we've got a bit of an immortality theme this time as well. It's one novella, three novelettes, and two short stories.

Novella

Living Trust, L. Timmel Duchamp

The man who sold the world on a bright new future where no one has a job and there's not much of a safety net for people without vast pre-existing fortunes has a stroke. His daughter is left figuring out whether or not to carry out his will and make him Test Subject #1 for an as-yet half baked bid for immortality.

I agree with her choice. But I think the whole fetal harvesting subplot felt a bit tacked on and unnecessary. I mean, sure, it's a ripped from the then-current headlines ethical dilemma but it doesn't really factor into the protagonists decision so it seems like an odd thing to include.

Novelettes

Cabbages and Kales, or, How We Downsized North America, David Marusek

Politics, confounded and complicated by technology that allows people to send out AI proxies of themselves to participate in debates, hold rallies, and cast votes. Further complicated by a main character who might have an urgent need to see a neurologist considering the wild differences between his proxies stated opinions.

Also the future doesn't suck yet, but apparently US politicians won't let that stop them from not-so-subtly committing economic and let's face it almost certainly ethnic cleansing in pursuit of making the wealthy more comfortable. And BSABSVR I guess. Yuck.

Mac and Me, Robert Reed

Nanotech makes everything worse. But for the people who grew up with it, trying to unmake it might just be worse.

Also don't be a dick and create an imperfect clone for the express purpose of making them the loser of a love triangle they didn't get themselves into.

Fossil Games, Tom Purdom

Horrible future filled with horrible immortal people. This time with interstellar travel, inept politicking, and academic pissing contest, and some very bizarre and unhealthy attitudes towards ones own interpersonal relationships.

The opening sequence where the viewpoint character reminisced about his father committing suicide and his mother becoming a cyborg prostitute because they couldn't fit in with all the genetically and chemically enhanced people showing up all around them was horrible and Tom Purdom should feel bad for writing it. It was also bizarre and implausible, as the setting is such that his parent's entire generation should have been locked out of getting the enhancements they were missing, so they should have had plenty of company to socialize with and it’s unlikely they would have had so much difficulty supporting themselves economically. Particularly given the way the rest of the story basically treats those same enhancements as completely irrelevant to people’s lives.

Short Stories

The Night Copernicus Died, Kathryn Kulpa

Time travel to change the world. Told in clipped and broken segments.

Sorry Kathryn, you lost me with those first two words through no fault of your own. (Also your name was misspelled in the table of contents and I nearly listed you as ‘Kathyn Kulpa’ here because of that. Thanks for having the good sense and common decency to have a website with a list of publications.)

Ancient Engines, Michael Swanwick

There's immortality and then there's immortality. And, of course, there's bragging about finding the secret of immortality to an AI you created after rubbing it in that that AI will shortly be doomed to death through obsolescence and the use of non-standard parts and connections.

Final Thoughts

Who wants to live forever? Well, I wouldn't mind it. Unless the world was being written by an Asimov's contributor.

[tediousreviews]

Asimov’s Science Fiction (January 1999)

It's a new Year and a new issue of Asimov's. I'm almost as excited as the woman on the cover. Or are we both horrified?

One novella, two novelettes, and three short stories.

Novella

The Exile of the Evening Star, Allen Steele

The continuing adventures of the guy who was present when the guy who pretended to be Captain Future died. This one involves political intrigue, skullduggery, and entirely too many people getting tossed out of airlocks.

Fun enough though.

Novelettes

The Ice Forest, Richard Wadholm

Any plan that involves destroying reality is not a good plan. You wouldn't think that was a moral that needs to be in quite so many works of science fiction, but then here we are.

Quantum wibbly wobbly, oh hey! I'm not dead in this universe and that means I can get married and have kids and quietly ignore my own corpse.

Dragons Teeth, Lois Tilton

The future sucks, this time with minefields and a refugee underclass on the moon.

Short Stories

Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, Yurek Rutz, David Marusek

Literally just a not-even-veiled excuse to publish the name Yurek Rutz as often as possible.

Original Sin, S. N. Dyer

What if Neanderthals were actually doomed to extinction because our ancestors thought they were just so damn tasty? Well, it probably wouldn't have any effect on the doomed marriage of a pair of archaeologists.

The Pragmatical Princess, Nisi Shawl

If you're ever a princess who's being sacrificed to a dragon, you should maybe consider getting it to fake its conversion to Islam. 

Final Thoughts

I should probably be putting in more effort to capitalize on the little bump in attention all my sub-blogs have been getting for the past few weeks. I don't know whether people are just bored now that the porn is... well obviously not actually gone from tumblr... or it's just the usual school's out bump.

Screw self promotion though, I'm tired, I'm sick, and I have no intention of treating my hobbies like work in the first place.

Also the issue was fine I guess.

[scififr]

Upon this rock – First contact, par David Marusek (General Genius LLC, juin 2017)

J’avais beaucoup aimé « Counting heads » (2007) et sa suite « Mind over ship » (2010) ne m’avait pas déplu.  C’est pourquoi j’ai acquis cet ouvrage… que j’ai reposé vers la page 80 !

Si vous aimez un bouquin  qui se passe en Alaska sous la présidence Obama (!) et qui met en scène quelques paumés et autres fanatiques religieux dégénérés  et où le facteur SF est loin, loin, très loin… Sinon, non.

[randomglory]

So you attempt to hide your loneliness in public, to behave, in fact, as though you have too many friends already, and thus you hope to attract people who will unwittingly save you. But it never works that way. Your condition is written all over your face, in the hunch of your shoulders, in the hollowness of your laugh. You fool no one. Believe me in this; I’ve tried all the tricks of the lonely man.

David Marusek