Cybersex

Cybersex is a collection of 25 short stories, all of which share a common theme: sex, or, more precisely, the future of sex.

Let me explain a little further. These stories are all about sex in the widest sense; that is, the sense of gender, and how gender differences can permeate our lives. And sure, a lot of these stories also contain a certain amount of the physical act itself. But, thankfully, many of the stories in the collection are not just about the hot, steamy stuff, in the way that the cover blurb and art would have you believe.

This is all to the good. The whole collection, though a bit patchy in places, is made of deeper stuff than stories about cheap thrills. Although some of the stories here didn't strike a chord with me, many of them are fascinating, and raise some interesting and difficult questions. The general aim of the collection is to gather a number of stories about how we may think of sex in the future, but as with so much science fiction, these stories also tell us a lot about ourselves now. Many of the stories in this collection pose fundamental questions about the way we think of matters of the flesh, and the time span in which the stories were written (as opposed to when they are set) reflects our changing attitudes towards the subject, and how openly we are willing to talk about it.

The Big Space F**k: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

This is a story about kids suing parents, and as such is a fine example of the changing attitudes I mentioned above; kids suing parents is not such an outrageous idea these days! The title of the story, for those interested, refers to an almost incidental satellite that is launched in the context of the story.

Memories of the body: Lisa Tuttle

This is a rather scary cautionary tale warning how, in a world where human cloning was commonplace, we could act out our most dire fantasies, using clones as expendable versions of the real person, with disturbing results. Quite by coincidence, this story was quite topical, with stories of cloned sheep resounding in the news at the time I was reading the book.

More than the sum of his parts: Joe Haldeman

This is an interesting story, written in diary form, of a man who is slowly replaced by mechanical parts.

Ian Watson: Custom-built girl

This story asks what would happen if humans could be built to order, including the possibility of building in some, ah, unusual customisations.

Finally, I should add a word of thanks to the Pure Fiction web site, for providing the competition which supplied me with this book (I was one of the winners).

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