Slow Life, by Michael Swanwick

Slow Life won the Hugo for Best Novelette in 2003, and for good reason.  It's a fine modern example of a hard SF story, lots of good technological stuff with big ideas.  The setting is Titan, one of the most fascinating places in the solar system.  There's potential for all sorts of weirdness there, so this story isn't that big of a stretch.  We set the scene with a description of a climate based around liquid hydrocarbons that would be gaseous here.  What might be in those oceans?  Life, as it turns out, and intelligent at that.  The title turns on the speculation that life in this setting would have to move slowly, since there isn't much energy.  But that's a matter of perception, and it might in fact be quite fast.  We run through a history in a few hours, with some adventure thrown in.  If you don't like this one, you just don't like hard SF.  But I do.  Four stars.

Stories for Men, by John Kessel

Just finished Stories for Men by John Kessel, which got a Nebula nomination in 2003.  It's part of his The Baum Plan for Financial Independence And Other Stories collection.  I've taken to pigeon-holing these stories, which is more useful than its reputation sounds--there are only so many story themes, and it can be good to know what you will get.  This one falls into the Morality Plan pigeon-hole, and it's a really good one.  The Men's Movement was a big deal in the '90s and I studied it then.  This story takes feminist utopia/dystopias, the Men's Movement and ordinary humans and stirs it into a very challenging mix.  Our protagonist, Endo, is a man in a matriarchal moon colony.  Men are the petted creatures without rights, and most that have stayed are happy with it.  A few, now represented by "comedian" Tyler Durden, are not.  They hark back to the warrior code, defending the weak, etc.  Endo is fully torn between what he sees as the rightness of men's grievances vs. the evils the matriarchal society was set up to overcome.  The story is gripping all the way through.  And threaded through it is a 1936 issue of Stories for Men, defining the warrior ethic as it was seen in pre-war America. 

We have come further since then.  In the past 20 years I believe we have all become more comfortable with difference, and with the notion that we need both male and female energies to survive.  This story is a powerful reminder to protesters, that they not let the means of expression make the accusations of oppressors true.  4 stars.

In Spirit, by Pat Forde

It's awfully hard to write effective SF about 9/11.  I heard a composer say once that she wrote several songs about the event and trashed them before finally finding something that worked.  In Spirit got a Hugo nomination in 2003, and it's a pretty good story.  Compelling, for me, even though it didn't suck me in entirely.  It has interesting speculation on time travel without paradox, and the science is laced through the story, which explains the Hugo nomination.  But the real point is how that time travel is used. 

The true ability to view the past would be very traumatic, as many authors from Asimov and before have explored.  We don't want to know what really happened to Jesus 2000 years ago, or at several other key turning points.  The stories are what matter.  In the current story, the defenders of time travel have found a use for it that may make the trauma worthwhile--the development of empathy.  The protagonist is one of the 9/11 co-conspirators, a fully hardened man after 30 years in jail.  He is allowed to "deep project" back to carefully selected scenes in the attack.  It reads somewhat tritely in places, but is in the end very convincing.  Read it and remember.  3 stars

The Last of the O-Forms, by James Van Pelt

The Last of the O-Forms is a nicely depressing tale, one that makes you think about how We Might Be There Soon Enough.  It picked up a Nebula nomination for 2003.  It's an ecological collapse story, with rather a stronger hint of disaster than in "'Hello' Said the Stick" below.  But a good short story has more than one thing going on.  In this one, the protagonist has tried to adjust to the change, creating a traveling show out of the mutated creatures he finds.  But it's not much of a show when the whole rest of the world starts looking like it.  In the end it looks like he finds a new gig, but also looks like it's a further spiral down.  One can appreciate his attempt, futile as it is, to adapt.  Give it 3 stars, and then go look for some hope.

Creation, by Jeffrey Ford

Creation is a triple threat--got nominated for all three major SF awards, and won World Fantasy Award short story honors in 2003.  And it was deserved--really good stuff.  It centers on the protagonist's foray into Creation, a result of his religious education but critically enhanced by his atheist father.  It just carries you along, like a really interesting dream.  It's a great online gem to find, and well worth a few minutes to take in.  I give it four stars.

'Hello' Said the Stick, by Michael Swanwick

'Hello' Said the Stick is a fine example of a short story form I would call the Hint--there's a much bigger game afoot, and you get a little glimpse of it.  Swanwick is a master of such stories, he has a number of them on The Infinite Matrix, a site no longer maintained but still around.  Our protagonist is a mercenary in Renaissance Italy--but really it's the Stick.  This comes out relatively gradually, and gracefully.  It got a Hugo nomination for 2003, which was deserved.  Go read it for a little fun. 3 stars, strong.

Little Gods, by Tim Pratt

This was a quick one, so I am right back.  Little Gods had a Nebula nomination for best short story in 2002.  And it's a solid entry.  A well-used premise--a man whose wife is tragically killed interacts with supernatural beings, maybe to get her back--but it's done quite well.  With a nice happy ending that was quite appropriate for Valentine's Day.  Slices of life make good short story material, so while I can't say I've added to my knowledge of SF literary devices etc., it was a nice read.  Would be for you too.  I give it three stars, with a pat.