4 newly filled up entries in Hartwell & Cramer (Ed)'s "Year's Best SF 14" (2009)

Main post.

1. Ted Kosmatka's "N-Words" (B); podcast (including downloadable MP3), alternate link for MP3; John Joseph Adams' Seeds of Change (2008); What if a few Neanderthal kids were left stranded in our world?
   
   This is an old trope, with many stories. Best known I'm aware of are Isaac Asimov's "The Ugly Little Boy" & L Sprague de Camp's "The Gnarly Man".
2. Sue Burke's "Spiders" (B); Asimov's, March 2008: A man takes a walk through a forest with his 5 year old son, pointing out jungle life to him.
   
   Its only claim to being science fiction is because the author says story is set on an unnamed world that is not earth. I consider it non-genre, but a decent read.
3. Robert Reed's "The House Left Empty"; Asimov's, April/May 2008: (B): Description of a post-disaster world where communities are tiny & self sufficient, no one travels beyond their little local community area that one can walk around, & where strangers are generally suspect.
   
   Title comes from regret of one of the characters near end: Instead of being in "an asteroid or comet with us safe in the middle, starting a ten thousand year voyage to whichever sun we want our descendants to see first", their universe has shrunk to these tiny neighborhoods.
4. Neil Gaiman's "Orange" (C); read online (no download); video of author reading the story; Jonathan Strahan's The Starry Rift: Tales of New Tomorrows (2008); fantasy: Jemima Ramsey, 17, is describing how her sister Nerys, 15, turned into "a giant orange glow & was controlling our minds" as a result of using some sort of body lotion! And that then aliens came & took her away!
   
   Unusual presentation - a series of answers to a questionnaire, but without questions.

Ted Kosmatka's "The Ascendant" (novelette, anarchy, free): A less interesting variation of Heinlein's "Coventry"

Ruthless anarchy prevails in "prison", a part of the "world" cut off from civilized parts. This is the story of two children born in prison who survive to grow to their teen years & are tough enough to fight their way back through the gates to civilization.

"World" itself is an immense tower - part of many such in what must once have been a city. But that is ancient history - no one here has been through the bottom floors which are charred, let alone to ground.

Civilization is in upper floors where they grow food & have some sort of semi-tribal society. Below that are "prison" levels - a one-way street for convicts of civilization, convictions themselves apparently of an utterly degenerate society.

Fact sheet.

First published: Subterranean Online, Spring 2009.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Related: Stories of Ted Kosmatka.

Ted Kosmatka's "The Prophet of Flores" (novelette, free): What if we are god'd lab animals?

Imagine an especially gifted boy playing selective breeding of animals. He has large cages filled with many kinds of mice - sort of microcosm to mice. He favors some with special traits, & arranges breeding conditions that make favored multiply - sacrificing other animals.

What if our universe is such a game, with we & other animals as pets & playthings!

In this story that has minor flavors of Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God" & Voltaire's "Plato's Dream", the protagonist discovers that the universe is not playground of one god but two. Sort of a competitive game where our god won!

I found it a good read, except for last 10%.

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, September 2007.
Rating: B.
Download full text from publisher's site.
Among the preliminary nominees for Nebula Award 2008 in novelette category.
Related: Stories of Ted Kosmatka.

Ted Kosmatka's "Divining Light" (novelette, quantum mechanics, free): Who else besides humans is special in God's scheme of things?

This very unusual story requires a basic knowledge of particle physics. Really interesting parts are somewhat technical.

Also, I found the first half distracting & boring. Real story begins only half way through the text.

Story summary.

Recall double-slit experiment in physics? A particle, say an electron, shows a wavelike interference pattern on detector screen. Except when there is a mechanism that detects the fact that electron passed through a that slit! And even in case of detector, if information about what the detector found is somehow wiped out before the particle hits the detector screen, wavelike behavior is restored!

This story asks the question: will the results be still altered if information recorded by detector at slit were made available to a non-human observer - say a frog, an elephant, or a still only partially developed human embryo? Very cool.

Fact sheet.

First published: Asimov's, August 2008.
Rating: A.
Download full text from publisher's site, author's site [via Torque Control, where there is also a rather long discussion on its ending]. Podcast.
Nominated for Nebula Award 2009 in novelette category.