Twenty-First Century Science Fiction

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction
edited by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden

This is an anthology of post-2000 sf written by authors who "came to prominence" after 2000. That is to say, they may have published something prior to 2000, but they didn't break through into wider consciousness until after; see for example Charles Stross, whose first publication is all the way back in 1985, but achieved wider acclaim with his 2001 novel The Atrocity Archive. I got the book as a parting gift from my boss back when it came out in 2013, but as is usual for me, did not get around to reading it for another decade. In a way, this was helpful for evaluating the book's "argument."

Collection published: 2013
Contents originally published: 2003-11
Acquired: December 2013
Read: April–June 2023

It's been my thesis that large anthologies (and this one clocks in at 572 pages, with over thirty stories) are arguments. In this case, the argument seems to be: "These writers are the future of science fiction." In that case, reading it ten years late lets me estimate how right the editors got it. Did these talents pan out?

Overall, I have to say yes, but sort of with reservations. There's no denying that, say, Mary Robinette Kowal has gone on to be a juggernaut of twenty-first century science fiction. But enjoy as I might her "Lady Astronaut" books, the story included here ("Evil Robot Monkey") didn't grab me—this isn't the reason. (Though given the story was a Hugo finalist, it must have grabbed other people.) Similarly, some of the stories feel like stretches, in that they're sf tales from writers much better known for publishing fantasy or even horror, like Jo Walton's "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction" or Daryl Gregory's "Second Person, Present Tense"; these were two stories I enjoyed a lot, actually, but I wouldn't put either Walton or Gregory in the pantheon of great twenty-first century sf writers, based on what I've read of them at least.

And of course, there are a couple stories I found outright bad... but they're by writers whose work in general I struggled to enjoy yet I cannot deny that those writers are generally popular. I speak here of John Scalzi's "The Tale of the Wicked," which requires all of its main characters to be idiots, and Catherynne M. Valente's "How to Become a Mars Overlord" which at eight pages still had me skimming to get to the end. So I guess the anthology is right to include them: both works read as fairly typical for their writers even if I did not like them. They are a key part of twenty-first century sf. I just wish they weren't.

But of course there are areas where the editors totally get it right. I always like a bit of Vandana Singh, and her story "Infinities" (one of only three rereads for me in the book) is a typically excellent piece of work. I don't think Rachel Swirsky has ever published a novel, but her story "Eros, Philia, Agape" is astounding, a masterful tale of what might it mean for an android to love, and she's an acclaimed writer of short science fiction and fantasy, with two Nebula wins and a number of Hugo and Nebula finalists. Madeleine Ashby is someone I haven't read much of, but I really enjoyed her story "The Education of Junior Number 12" here (another story of androids in love, actually, but very different from the Swirsky) and everything else I have read by her I have enjoyed; she's an incisive writer on the cutting edge of current technology, and now I want to seek our her related novel, vN. Ken Liu is an acclaimed writer of short sf, and though I've personally found his stuff hit or miss, "The Algorithm of Love" is probably the best thing I've read by him, a dark meditation on the implications AI might have for human consciousness.

"A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel" is a pretty typical piece by Yoon Ha Lee: told in the form of a series of encyclopedia entries, so purely exposition, it nonetheless manages to say interesting things about how societies interact, especially with a really strong last line, and it's no wonder he went on to do acclaimed work like Machineries of Empire. Peter Watts is a highly acclaimed writer of hard sf about consciousness, and his story "The Island" here is great on many levels, examining how people think, how machines think, and how something we don't even understand thinks, and how different that might or might not be; dark but highly effective. There's a Cory Doctorow story here, too: "Chicken Little," about a lot of stuff, including immortality, marketing, and rational calculations of risk. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Doctorow story before, but I thought this was great. So you have a lot of great stuff here by acclaimed writers.

Beyond that, though, you have great stuff from writers I actually had never heard of... but if Hartwell and Nielsen Hayden are making an argument, it's that I should have heard of them, and so I'm prepared to accept that it's not the anthology that's at fault but the universe—or, perhaps, me. I'd never heard of David Moles, but I loved his story "Finisterra" about a gas giant with an Earth-like atmosphere where people build communities on the backs of giant floating life-forms. Similarly, I didn't know Karl Schroeder but found his "To Hie from Far Cilenia" very intriguing, a story about digital communities overlapping with the physical world that we might not even notice unless we learn how to see differently. "The Prophet of Flores" by Ted Kosmatka was fascinating, set in a world where the Earth really was created in 4,000 B.C. but otherwise science is the same, and exploring what implications the discovery of the so-called hobbits of Flores would have. It was expanded into a novel, which I'll have to seek out. These people ought to be the face of twenty-first century sf if they're not.

It's not all great, of course; I've mentioned a couple I didn't like already, and there were some more that I bounced off of, including Stross's "Rogue Farm" (too clever for me, maybe), Marissa Lingen's "The Calculus Plague" (some improbably bad research ethics; where's the IRB?), Paul Cornell's "One of Our Bastards Is Missing" (I love Cornell but have never gotten much out of his Hamilton shorts), Oliver Morton's "The Albian Message" (less a story, more a thought experiment), and Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Third Day Lights" (I just could not be bothered to work out what was actually happening). But most of what was left was usually good, if not great, or among the best short stories I've read in the past year.

One story is a bit tragic: Kage Baker's "Plotters and Shooters" was good fun, a take on Ender's Game where the protagonists are all thirty-year-olds who are stuck in their mothers' basements. But Kage Baker can't be the future of sf, because she unfortunately died at the age of 57 in 2010. It reminded me I really must get around to finishing her Company series, though.

There's a lot of great stuff here; I think this probably has one of the best hit rates for an anthology I've read outside of something like The Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes. Perhaps the real argument here is that "Twenty-first century science fiction is in rude health." If that's the case, then the editors have assembled evidence that demonstrates their conclusions thirty times over.