Down in the Bottomlands, by Harry Turtledove

Down in the Bottomlands was nominated for a Nebula in 1994 for best novella.  Kind of a thin year, I guess.  It's a competent story, but not something one would normally go far out of the way to read.  It's an espionage/mystery story set on an alien Earth--rather too literal a one.  This planet is what I would call an Earth "skin"--peopled by humans with predictably human motivations, with 20th century human technology, all with straightforward english analog names.  Examples--"starbombs" = nuclear weapons, "The Trench" = pretty much like the Grand Canyon, etc.  There's action, sex, and environmental appeal, but it's all stiff as can be.

Turtledove is mostly known for alternate history work--alternate versions of WWII, etc.  I would go there for better examples of his writing.  Two stars for this one.

Glimpses, by Lewis Shiner

Music in fantasy literature is a common theme.  Seems like it would be hard to do, since you are describing what you hear, but maybe that's because novels are mostly vision and dialog.  Emma Bull's War For the Oaks (read back when it was online for free) was an example, but Lewis Shiner's Glimpses is even better.  It is finely crafted and powerfully told.  Ray Shackleford can somehow conjure up lost music onto any stereo, and the story revolves around his process of retrieving albums that were rumored but never (?) made.  To his credit, Shiner wastes no time on theories of how this would be caused, it just happens.  And Ray hits a bit close to home as a sort of OK but sad-sack character who winds up with this gift.

This book was fascinating to read nearly twenty years after it was written.  I have never read a 1990s take on the 1960s before, and it really worked on all levels.  The sadness over current affairs and longing for a better past had taken a powerful grip on the country by that time, though hope (fall of the Berlin Wall) was apparent then as well.  Shiner does a fine job of using the 90s as a frame.

The protagonist recovers two albums--Celebration of the Lizard by the Doors, and Smile by Brian Wilson.  Interestingly enough, about ten years after this book was published, Smile was finally released.  I wonder if it was anything like Shiner had imagined.

This is speculative fiction to savor, should you decide to read it.  4 stars from me.

Some Strange Desire, by Ian McDonald

I have enjoyed Ian McDonald's other works, including Dervish House, and was glad to find this one, Some Strange Desire, among the Free SF Online award winners.  Infinity Plus is still around as a site, makes me hopeful someone will pick it up again someday.  Anyway, this story is particularly good in that it manages to sketch a whole quasi-human species living alongside humans in a single short story.  Granted that they have a relationship to vampires, but the blending of Greek and Voodoo myths is very well done.  It's very different and tasty, worth a little time and one of those treasures one likes to come across on the Web.  Long may McDonald prosper.  3 stars because I had to work a little too hard to get going on it, but it is worth it.

A Walk in the Sun, by Geoffrey Landis

A Walk in the Sun won the Hugo for Landis in 1992.  I've read a little of Landis before, and been struck with nostalgia.  The stories read like those of earlier times, down to the themes.  This one is a moon exploration story, long after it became pretty clear we aren't going back to the moon anytime soon.  Though the story is not dated, so it may be further in the future than it appears--a lot of technical issues with wearing a space suit for an extended period seem to have been overcome.  The big one not taken into account is leaks.  Human exploration of space is way hard, and I expect that lots of communication satellites will be available once humans actually get into space.  Good luck.  3 stars.

One Perfect Morning, With Jackals, by Mike Resnick

One Perfect Morning, With Jackals is the prologue to Mike Resnick's Kirinyaga stories.  Kind of a surprising nominee, as it's not really a complete story.  I have only read this series in bits and pieces, but I think in order to understand it I will need to go back and read it all, in sequence.  I think it will read more like a novel than some novels do.  Two stars for it by itself, go and read the whole thing.

Before I Wake, by Kim Stanley Robinson

Before I Wake is a short psychology SF story.  Those are tough to write, since what goes on in someone else's head is pretty much speculation anyway.  So Robinson adds a physical explanation for the events.  Ever awakened from a dream that you were dreaming?  This creepy sensation has inspired a lot of fiction, and here it gets a hard SF twist by being generated by a radiation field.  Everyone is continuously dreaming and waking at the same time.  Makes it tough to stay alive, and pretty much no one is.  Our protagonist fights it as best he can, but given glimpses of reality after dreaming, it's just too much. 

Short stories often end up sort of hopeless like this.  It feels like a story that's much older than 1990--after all, the Internet existed by then, if not the WWW.  But it's fun to see someone  basically pull off a psychological SF story that's not about drugs.  3 stars for trying.

Particle Theory, by Edward Bryant

Particle Theory was recently republished in Strange Horizons, linked from Free SF Online, the best one-stop SF library one could ask for.  Having gone through the award nominees for this year, I am again reaching into the past.

Ted Chiang has an excellent introduction to this piece, commenting on SF's addiction to large scales--galaxies, empires.  This focus on the very big picture is common across the spectrum of hard SF to fantasy.  I confess to being an addict of the large scale, which has made SF very rewarding for me to read.  But I also love Chiang's fiction, and he operates at a mostly personal level.  He claims his greatest influence here is Edward Bryant. 

In this story Bryant brings together two big ideas in one conflicted and lonely man.  He is an astronomer following news of several nearby stars going supernova, and is at some level suspecting we are next.  He is also facing prostate cancer, and decides to try an experimental pion therapy at Los Alamos.  I am not sure if this was even being thought of in 1977, but I do know that proton therapy is emerging as a treatment in this millenium.  Always fun to read stories that have later come somewhat true.

And the story is a decent one, expanding my appreciation of the personal approach.  Certainly those seem more common now.  In any case it is good to see this available for free.  3 stars, worth seeking out.