"Perpetua" by Kit Reed

Okay, I've been hit hard by a bad cold today, so my brain is pretty much mush. As a result, I'm going to be brief. Kit Reed's story is very, very weird. It centers around a family of five grown daughters and their father, who have shrunk themselves to take refuge inside a specially outfitted alligator to escape a seriews of catastrophic weather events that promise to destroy all of human civilization. Like I said, weird.

It is also enjoyable, however. Rather than getting preachy about the evils of Humanity that have brought these characters to this point, Reed instead, through the character of Molly, focusses on the relationship between the father and his daughters. It explores the urge on the father's part to keep his daughters as "daddy's little girls," and on the urges of the daughters to alternately create their own lives and to please their father. Ultimately, it is about Molly's attempt to escape her father's influence, breaking what she refers to as the "King / Princess" relationship that exists between all fathers and daughters. Keeping with the setting, she does this in a very strange way.

Okay, that's all I have to say for now. I'm going to get some tea and have a rest.

"Search Engine" by Mary Rosenblum

I really enjoy cyberpunk. Even after all these years, William Gibson's Neuromancer is one of my favourite novels. As a result, Mary Rosenblum's short story, "Search Engine," was a real treat. It had that great computer tech taken to it's nth degree feel to it, with the all too familiar reminder that technology isn't always a good thing. Rosenblum takes the idea of computer networking and runs with it, taking it to some logical, but disturbing conclusions. For good measure, she also throws in Luddiste/Hippie political dissidents called Gaiists, and the idea of migrant "cash" workers to flesh everything out, since everyone wouldn't be happy with the idea that everything is networked, and there are always going to be people who have to take crappily-paying, under the table jobs just to get by. A dark view of society, I know, but this is cyberpunk, folks. It kind of goes with the territory.

It wasn't the setting that really pulled me into this story, though. Instead, it was the very complex main character, Aman. Aman works for Search Engine Inc., which is basically a high-tech detective agency that sorts through all the data generated by everyday life to track down people for their customers. Aman is an old pro at this. He's the sort of cynical, seasoned professional you come to expect from cyberpunk fiction. However, when he's hired by the government to track down a young Gaiist, he starts to have doubts. Throught the progression of the story, the reader discovers that Aman's own son, became a Gaiist years ago, and hasn't spoken to Aman since. So, understandably, the case opens up old wounds in Aman, and the full range of his character unfolds to the reader as the story progresses. In the end, the readers is present with the story of a nuanced and very interesting character, whose true nature is quite far from the stereotypical "hardened professional" that you'd normally get in a lot of cyberpunk fiction. My only complaint is that the story ended too soon. Aman's story could easily have spun out into a novella, or even full novel.