Susan Palwick. The Fate of Mice.
Originally in : Asimovs January 2005
Well Strahan chose the story for this volume, Horton for his volume, and Asimovs editor Sheila Williams obviously liked it. Me, not really - in its original appearance I gave this plot summary
the mouse in question is Rodney, a lab mouse. But not your common or garden lab mouse, as he has an IQ boost and a vocal synthesiser, which enable him to establish a relationship with the scientist's young daughter. Rodney's worldview is of course limited, although he has strange dreams, and, inexplicably is aware of the place of meeses in our literature - from
Cinderalla to the sfnal eponymous mouse in Flowers for Algernon.
He dreams of being free, but the scientist has warned him of his likely fate - mouse traps, and cats and other horrors. However, young Pippa has his best interests at heart, and he is freed on the doorstep of the lab.
and in Horton's anthology I added 'upon further reading, I still would categorise this as lightweight. True, it does clearly reference an SF classic, but it's anthropomorphic and a faint shadow of the story to which it refers'.
Cory Doctorow. I, Robot.
Originally : on Infinity Matrix - still online
In its original appearance in the now defunct 'zine, I said:
I was attracted to this story due to a) its length (Infinite Matrix tends towards 'nanotales', a form of story which tends not to do much for me) b) its authorship ('nuf said) c) and the intriguing background to the story : 'Last spring, in the wake of Ray Bradbury pitching a tantrum over Michael Moore appropriating the title of 'Fahrenheit 451' to make Fahrenheit 9/11, I conceived of a plan to write a series of stories with the same titles as famous sf shorts, which would pick apart the totalitarian assumptions underpinning some of sf's classic narratives.'
Arturo Icaza de Arana-Goldberg is the cop who struggles with the ubiquitous nature of robotics in Doctorow's disturbing near-future USA. He has trouble with them, with his teenage daughter, whose middle name -is- Trouble, and with his wife who has left him, and his country in the lurch.
Whereas the Will Smith vehicle of this title has US Robotics as the global hi-tech leader, her we have UNATS Robotics' robots making the streets a safer place. Unfortunately, whilst they are properly imbued with the 3 Laws, the robots from Eurasia have no such positronic compunctions, which is bad for global relations and bad for the United North American Trading Sphere, but personally bad for Arturo, as his wife has fled the States to take her world leading robotic skills to that other continent.
Doctorow unfurls on the one hand a reasonably dramatic search/rescue mission, as Arturo has to use his native human cunning to track down his missing daughter, whilst a very scary society in with Regional Managers for Social Harmony are keeping a very close eye on people is detailed.
Arturo ends up following his wife's lead, hoping for a somewhat freer life away from the claustrophobic States, only to find that the use of robotic tech has gone much further, and that humanity is threatened in an entirely different, albeit similarly scary manner.
Ian McDonald. The Little Goddess.
Originally in : Asimovs, June 2005
When the story appeared in its original magazine appearance I enthused:
The issue gets off to a strong start with the reminisences of a girl who has been the 'Kumari Devi', a Living Goddess. She remembers how she as a young child she was chosen, the bloodcurdling rituals, the separation from family, and the years waited on hand and foot, worshipped as a god, but only whilst she remains pre-pubescent. This early part of the story, with only a few references to the fact that we are about fifty years hence in Nepal, is unsettling and alien (assuming that most Asimovs readers are not Nepalese). As I've stated before, often such settings are more 'alien' than many offworld settings in poorer SF.
The sfnal elements come into play when the young girl, returned to her community, finds her next role in life is to be that of a wife. As soon as she is 14 she is betrothed to a Brahmin, one of the higher castes in India, who benefit from tweaked DNA, giving them twice the usual longevity, but consequently grown at half the usual pace. Her husband, aged 20, is therefore physically only a 10 year old boy, and the wedding night comes as a shock to her (I'm guessing here, but this may be the first SF short story to feature a strap-on?)
Following her failed marraige, she becomes involved in smuggling - not as a drug mule, but by transporting outlawed AI's in her own skull. However, this becomes increadingly hazardous, and a final smuggling run, with a risky complement of 5 AI's 'on board' sees her finally able to take a grip on her future, and to be able to become, in effect, a little goddess in her own right.
A powerful story, in which you can almost smell the ghee and feel the heat, evidently sharing some story elements with his very well received novel 'River of Gods' from last year, and which, on this basis, I may well choose to be one of the few novels I read this year.
And, when reviewing Dozois annual collection, which opens with this story I provided an update to that earlier review:
And, gentle reader, 'River of Gods' was one of the few novels I did read last year (or maybe earlier this year) and I have to say that the novel was every bit as good as this novella, and I would humbly suggest if you haven't read either that novel or this novella, then you have missed out, big-time.
And looking back on this year's 
cover by John Picacio
