FUTURES FROM NATURE edited by HENRY GEE
Tor Books hardback, 320pp, RRP US$24.95

Reviewed by Shaun C Green

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Packed with a numeric century of sf yarns from as many writers, Futures From Nature is a book ideal for dipping into for a quick reading session. All the stories contained within first appeared in the pages of the British science journal Nature, and the consistent theme is the titular future.

With so many stories filling the anthology there’s a truly diverse range of approaches to this theme. Inside there’s profundity and triviality, tragedy and comedy, love and hate, serenity and violence.

Some writers remain close to the present day’s near-future, such as Tobias S. Buckell with the convincingly observed “Toy Planes�, a tale about small island nations and their entry into the space race. David Eagleman blends humour with poignancy in “A Brief History of Death Switches�, concluding that the computer era ushers in something as close to an afterlife as the secular world is likely to see.

Others look into farther territory, such as the late John M. Ford with “In the Days of the Comet�, about the ubiquitous uses of manufactured prions, and Benjamin Rosenbaum in “Falling�, a story about how social roles are defined and how people escape them.

Then there are tales that reach still further ahead - like “At the Zoo� by Warren Ellis, in which posthumans look back at baseline humanity to reflect upon themselves. This being an Ellis story, it ends with a crack about ‘human nature’.

Nate Balding sees a different form of posthumanism in “Twenty2�, one that’s as much Second Life as sf. Perhaps the volume’s deepest foray into a future is the late Arthur C. Clarke’s “Improving the Neighbourhood�, which examines the reasons for the extinction of the human species.

Plenty of more traditional sf-nal ground is re-trodden. Charles Stross addresses SETI and the Fermi Paradox with “MAXO Signals�, which draws its cynical conclusion from the fringes of contemporary consumer culture. Peter Roberts and Jon Courtenary Grimwood both turn to identity theft and cloning in “The Trial of Jeremy Owens� and “Take Over� respectively. Robotic life, where it is examined, provokes more comfort than fear, as Gregory Benford’s “A Life with a Semisent� demonstrates.

In “Great Unreported Discoveries No. 163� Mike Resnick answers the eternal question of why plants aren’t talking to us. Animals aren’t left out either, with Eileen Gunn’s “Speak, Geek� ably demonstrating that dogs aren’t just man’s best friend. It’s true that silicon-based life is underrepresented, although Rudy Rucker proves true to form as “Panpsychism Proved� serves a comic dose of mineral love.

Other stories tackle more personal or social themes. In “My Morning Glory� David Marusek takes a look at how hardware and software designed to support our lives might end up dominating them, resulting in infantilised citizens. And in “The Charge-Up Man� Catherine H. Shaffer muses that a Singularity might follow traditional social/technological trends – leaving behind the majority of people who travel behind the cutting edge.

Other writers take advantage of the short form for bolder experimental fictions. Greg Egan’s “Only Connect� is a bewildering spiel of high-level mathematics than left me feeling a little lost – able only to guess that it’s a take on macro theories of the cosmos, postulating one based on connecting mathematical structures.

In the altogether more comprehensible “COMP.BASILISK FAQ�, Ansible’s David Langford provides a grim story of a near future through the medium of a Usenet FAQ. Alastair Reynolds attempts something not dissimilar in “Feeling Rejected�, a report damning a fictitious mid-21^st century scientific paper, building a world around matter-of-fact criticisms of academic fallacies.

It’s tempting to write a little on every story in the collection, as each one leaves you with an impression of some sort. Some are more fleeting than others, it’s true, but this is inevitable with any anthology.

Still, many of these flash fictions provoke the same frenzied bursts of imagination that birthed them; others might challenge you to extrapolate further, or to criticise the mistakes perceived in that author’s imagined future. Others leave you simply admiring their ideas or prose style. Very few demand great familiarity with hard science, although an awareness of the contemporary scientific world will contribute to appreciation of many stories.

To say something of every tale present would result in a review running to thousands of words long; a review far too verbose for a collection of flash fiction. It is altogether more sensible to opt for the concise conclusion: that this book should be read by anyone interested in the form, by anyone interested in the output of the writers included and - hell, why not - by anyone who’s not already read these minifictions in the pages of Nature itself.

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Shaun C Green lives in Brighton and subsists on a diet of IT work, computer games, science fiction literature and punk rock. You can encounter more of his writings, fictional and non-fictional, at Nostalgia For Infinity.

Tags: book • flash fiction • Futures From Nature • Nature • review • Science Fiction