Rich Horton (by Francesca Myman)
As I write, distribution of two separate COVID-19 vaccines is in progress in the United States. A new President has been elected and will soon be inaugurated. And on a personal note, I have welcomed my first grandchild into the world. A time of optimism, right?
At the same time, COVID cases are at or near their highest rate of incidence in the US (and indeed, in many countries). The vaccine distribution is a hopeful sign but is going more slowly than we might wish. Though the new President was elected by a considerable margin, the outgoing President continues to dispute the election, going so far as to threaten a member of his own party, the Secretary of State of Georgia, with criminal charges if he can’t “find” enough votes to alter the result of the election in that state. On a personal note, the list of over 300,000 deaths from COVID in the US includes my aunt and a close personal friend at work. Surely this parallels numerous SFnal examp
Samantha Mills‘s “
Anchorage” a medical spaceship stops at an “anchorage” – an isolated pod where a woman lives a hermit-like existence. The story is told by Geneva, the AI running the medical ship, which allows us to slowly learn the backstory of the crewmembers, of dead Earth, and of course of Geneva, all modulated by what we hear from the anchoress in her pod.
James Yu‘s “
In the Space of Twelve Minutes” is told by Reuben, an astronomer researching the possible existence of a planet well beyond Pluto. His wife is a taikonaut, part of a Chinese mission to Mars. He has been provided an “avatar” of her – a robot with an AI based on his wife, and updated via a link to her – a contrivance to help maintain the stability of the taikonauts on their lonely mission. The story effectively mingles several SFnal themes: the search for life on Mars, the hope of exploration of the far reaches of the Solar System, and, perhaps most importantly, the issue of AI per�