Starlight 1
edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Starlight 1 is an collection of original fiction (meaning the stories in it have not been published before). Patrick Nielsen Hayden is better known as an editor at Tor Books. This is the first collection of fiction I've read that is edited by him and, while I don't feel his selection is top rate, it does bear watching.

The stories featured in this book are:

"The Dead" by Michael Swanwick tells the tale of a future where dead people can be revived and put to work. The implications of this to society become clearer when a chilling use for the dead is unveiled.
"Liza and the Crazy Water Man" by Andy Duncan looks at a country singer with a beautiful voice who is finally persuaded to make a recording for a tonic company. But the recording doesn't go as planned.
"Sister Emily's Lightship" by Jane Yolen looks at the relationship between Emily Dickinson's poetry and strange going-ons at her home.
"The Weighing of Ayre" by Gregory Feeley follows the journey of an English spy in Holland in wartime and looks at what warring nations will do to win it.
"Killing the Morrow" by Robert Reed looks at a world where time has been disrupted in the past by humans in the future who were observing through time. To bypass the disruption, present day mankind is 'recruited' to grow future man in the present day (before the disruption reaches the future). But not everybody in the present is enthusiastic about the project.
"The Ladies of Grace Adieu" by Susanna Clarke looks at the going on in a small country village between several ladies and two gentlemen from London who may have the touch of magic about them.
"GI Jesus" by Susan Palwick looks at the life of a woman who sees her friends suffer the agonies of life (broken relationships, etc.). But one day, she discovers a strange power inside her to help to mend those relationships in an unusual way.
"Waking Beauty" by Martha Soukup looks at how an office liason could take place without co-workers knowing about it by the use of office routine.
"Mengele's Jew" Carter Scholz follows Mengele (the doctor who murdered Jews) as his intrigue with quantum mechanics leads him to try his own version of the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.
"Erase/Record/Play" by John M. Ford follows a play within a play within a play (so to speak). Set in the form of a screenplay, it looks at a group of players performing Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". As it proceeds, we find the world has been changed by a brutal experiment to change people's memory.
"I Remember Angels" by Mark Kreighbaum is a short tale of a man who sees an unusual event during wartime Britain.
"The Cost to Be Wise" by Maureen F. McHugh is a tale of a community set on a distant planet and what happens when the routine of the community is disrupted by hunters who may be interested in more than just good food and wine.

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Starlight 1 edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Starlight 1
edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden