The Start Of Another Book Binge

I haven't really gone on one of those since late May, and I purchased some books over the weekend, so I'm going to try alternating between books and other stuff the next few days. Might as well start with some science fiction, since I seem to end up there eventually.

Millennium 3001 is a collection of short stories edited by Martin Greenburg and Russell Davis. In the introduction Davis discusses how all the stories are meant to take place a thousand years in the future, and deal with what things might be like, with more of an emphasis on the people, and less on the science. Davis admits he's tended towards science fiction that focus on psychology, sociology and the like, because he was never much interested in biology, physics, and chemistry. Largely because they ultimately seem to have solid answers to their questions, and I guess the others are more up for interpretation.

So there's a variety of premises. You have a "humanity was wiped out by a catastrophe" story, stories about losing oneself in a virtual reality simulation, stories about humanity fragmenting (in several different ways), about humanity being supplanted by higher forms, and of course a story about someone waking up after centuries of being frozen.

As you might expect when dealing with many different authors, I found the stories to be hit and miss. "Go Tell The Spartans" works off the concept that humanity has spread out from Earth, but space travel renders women infertile, so Earth's economy is apparently entirely based off the fact if you want a kid, you got to pay some lady on Earth to have it for you, 'cause no women on your planet will be able to. Except science is gonna find a way around that. It always does. I kind of figured women would be more resistant to cosmic radiation, what with having, on average, stronger immune systems than men, so there'd be a greater risk of guys winding up sterile.

"River" deals with a person who spends their leisure time in virtual reality, pretending to be historical figures, but for some reason during one simulation, remembers all the past ones, which they shouldn't, and decides to try dying. The mystery of death comes up in "A Better Place" as well, and it didn't really work for me either time. I didn't feel either story said anything significant. "Take Me Back to Old Tennessee" and "To the Universe Station" both posit that in the future some humanity will live on Earth in a more primitive state, and others will live on either the Moon or in space, and the former suggests the space folk will abduct and experiment on their terran-based brethren. Why? Don't know. The latter spends too much time moralizing about recent policy makers for my taste, in the form of a recap of the time the recently unfrozen fellow missed. At least the unfrozen fellow voices my feelings, asking them to skip the moralizing and just state the facts, ma'am. That being the case, why did Zebrowski include such tediousness in the first place?

I'm complaining a lot. There must be a few stories I can talk about positively. Some of the stories I like could really be set anytime. "Landscapes" is about guys trying to escape from their everyday lives, the jobs, families, and how that can still hound you. Plus, it demonstrates the value of friends, which I'm a big believer in. We all need our supporting casts in the solo titles of our lives. "Dr. Prospero and the Snake Lady" could easily be a story about teenage/childhood resistance to change in the way things are, and the selfishness that accompanies that.

"Geometry" is a story I started off hating, because I couldn't make sense of all this stuff about Geometries, and Dyson, and totems, and "lesser geometries", and kangaroo villages being destroyed by dingos wielding stone spears. Eventually it starts to make sense, though I can't help feeling bad for the sentient animals that have been created largely to be sacrificed. I'm not sure how far they could go if given the chance, but their purpose is solely to die to serve as an example. It did raise a question in my mind: Humans keep fighting and killing each other, and potentially wiping each other out for stupid, petty reasons, and we can't seem to stop doing it, even though at least some of us seem to realize it's not really the best way to be going about things. Could we actually create a lifeform that could not only see that, but act to block it? Since they were created (albeit inadvertently) by us, wouldn't they possess the same inability to stop? And maybe they do, since the Geometries keep setting up these sentient animals to wipe each other out. They just aren't doing it to each other, they use simulacra to express it, and pass it off as an abject lesson to humans.

I'm not clear on the point Dean Wesley Smith was making with "Nostalgia 101". The people on Earth in the story regard interest in the past as a waste of time and resources, and those people a drain on society. Which seems short-sighted. I don't know that adage about ignoring history and repeating it is written in stone, but surely it can't be a bad idea to keep track of past mistakes others have made? Sure, one probably shouldn't spend all their time focusing on the past, but occasional reflection can't hurt. And how many breakthroughs have been built upon past research? The past has useful things to teach us, and so I'd think some interest in it is healthy, and that it isn't a waste of time to revisit places and ideas others have already tread. Never know what a fresh pair of eyes will see. So does Smith believe what the characters say, or are we meant to pity them as fools?