The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF Read online

  Mike Ashley is a full-time writer, editor and researcher with almost a hundred books to his credit. He has compiled over fifty Mammoth Books including The Mammoth Book of Extreme Science Fiction, The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy and The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries. He has also written the biography of Algernon Blackwood, Starlight Man, and a comprehensive study The Mammoth Book of King Arthur. He lives in Kent with his wife and three cats and when he gets the time he likes to go for long walks.

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  Constable & Robinson Ltd

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  First published in the UK by Robinson,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2009

  Copyright © Mike Ashley, 2009 (unless otherwise indicated)

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library

  UK ISBN 978-1-84529-891-3

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in the United States in 2009 by

  Running Press Book Publishers

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and

  International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

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  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  US Library of Congress number: 2008944131

  US ISBN 978-0-76243-723-8

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  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Out of the Sun, Arthur C. Clarke

  The Pevatron Rats, Stephen Baxter

  The Edge of the Map, Ian Creasey

  Cascade Point, Timothy Zahn

  A Dance to Strange Musics, Gregory Benford

  Palindromic, Peter Crowther

  Castle in the Sky, Robert Reed

  The Hole in the Hole, Terry Bisson

  Hotrider, Keith Brooke

  Mother Grasshopper, Michael Swanwick

  Waves and Smart Magma, Paul Di Filippo

  The Black Hole Passes, John Varley

  The Peacock King, Ted White & Larry McCombs

  Bridge, James Blish

  Anhedonia, Adam Roberts

  Tiger Burning, Alastair Reynolds

  The Width of the World, Ian Watson

  Our Lady of the Sauropods, Robert Silverberg

  Into the Miranda Rift, G. David Nordley

  The Rest is Speculation, Eric Brown

  Vacuum States, Geoffrey A. Landis

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Permission to use the stories in this anthology has been granted as follows:

  “The Pevatron Rats” © 2009 by Stephen Baxter. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  “A Dance to Strange Musics” © 1998 by Gregory Benford. First published in Science Fiction Age, November 1998. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Hole in the Hole” © 1994 by Terry Bisson. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 1994. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Bridge” © 1952 by James Blish. First published in Astounding Science Fiction, February 1952. Incorporated in They Shall Have Stars (Faber, 1956) and subsequently in Cities in Flight (Avon, 1970), currently in print from Victor Gollancz. Reprinted by permission of the author’s estate, the estate’s literary agent, Heather Chalcroft, and Orion Publishing, Ltd.

  “Hotrider” © 1991 by Keith Brooke. First published in Aboriginal Science Fiction, December 1991. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Rest is Speculation” © 2009 by Eric Brown. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  “Out of the Sun” © 1957 by Arthur C. Clarke. First published in If, February 1958. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agents, Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency, Inc., New York.

  “The Edge of the Map” © 2006 by Ian Creasey. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, June 2006. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Palindromic” © 1997 by Peter Crowther. First published in First Contact, edited by Martin H. Greenberg & Larry Segriff (New York: Daw Books, 1997). Reprinted by
permission of the author.

  “Waves and Smart Magma” © 2009 by Paul Di Filippo. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  “Vacuum States” © 1988 by Geoffrey A. Landis. First published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 1988. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Into the Miranda Rift” © 1993 by G. David Nordley. First published in Analog Science Fiction, July 1993. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Castle in the Sky” © 2009 by Robert Reed. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  “Tiger Burning” © 2006 by Alastair Reynolds. First published in forbidden Planets, edited by Peter Crowther (New York: DAW Books, 2006). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Anhedonia” © 2009 by Adam Roberts. First publication, original to this anthology. Printed by permission of the author.

  “Our Lady of the Sauropods” © 1980 by Robert Silverberg. First published in Omni, September 1980. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Mother Grasshopper” © 1997 by Michael Swanwick. First published in Geography of Unknown Lands (Lemoyne, PA: Tigereyes, 1997). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Black Hole Passes” © 1975 by John Varley. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1975. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Width of the World” © 1983 by Ian Watson. First published in Universe 13, edited by Terry Carr (New York: Doubleday, 1983). Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Peacock King” © 1965 by Ted White and Larry McCombs. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November 1965. Reprinted by permission of Ted White on behalf of the authors.

  “Cascade Point” © 1983 by Timothy Zahn. First published in Analog Science Fiction, December 1983. Reprinted by permission of the author’s agents, Scovil Chichak Galen Literary Agency, Inc., New York.

  INTRODUCTION

  THAT SENSE OF WONDER

  What was it that first attracted you to science fiction? Or, if this is the first time you’ve thought of checking out a science-fiction anthology, what are you hoping for?

  I’ll tell you what first hooked me on science fiction: its ability to evoke a sense of wonder. Science fiction is a good medium for a number of things – satire, prediction, adventure, invention . . . but these can also be delivered by other forms of fiction. If there’s one thing that science fiction has that towers above all other types of fiction, it is that sense of wonder.

  But what is the “sense of wonder”. If you’ve experienced it, you’ll know exactly what it is, but it isn’t so easy to put into words. To me, it’s that moment when the story flicks a switch in your mind and opens new doors and perceptions, allowing you to appreciate things in a different and remarkable way. It’s especially pertinent in demonstrating the potential of science or technology, the wonders that may be discovered in the depths of space or in the far future or deep within the human spirit.

  That sense of wonder once defined science fiction: the wonders that science might bring. Unfortunately, as we all learned with the coming of the nuclear age, science could bring as much horror as it could wonder, and, for some, science fiction lost that glow. These days it tends to be associated with the earliest forms of science fiction, particularly in the American pulp magazines, when the spirit of science fiction was still young. But, while the spark of wonder may have dimmed in certain regions of science fiction, it has not expired. It’s still there, if you know where to look.

  And that’s what I wanted to do in this anthology: to show that the spirit of wonder can still be discovered in the science fiction of the recent years.

  This anthology brings together twenty-one mindblowing stories – two of them full-length novellas – that will allow you, once more, to experience that sense of wonder. Much like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I can’t guarantee that every story will ignite that spark for you, as they do for me, but I’d be surprised if most don’t. Here are some of the concepts you will encounter:

  a discovery on the Moon that allows us to revisit our past

  distances across the world suddenly expand and people vanish in between

  explorers trapped under the surface of an alien world where the only way out is down

  a future where death has been eradicated but returns to fulfil its destiny

  the very last moments on planet Earth and the fate of the last inhabitants

  And a lot more besides. For the most part I’ve selected stories from the last ten or twenty years, but I chose two older stories, both from the 1950s, to show how that sense of wonder compares with more recent material. Those stories are by Arthur C. Clarke and James Blish, two authors whose work was always vibrant with wonder. There are also five new stories, written specially for this anthology, which bring new twists and turns to the wonders of science and humanity.

  One side-effect, indeed a major benefit, of that sense of wonder, is that these stories are, for the most part, uplifting and positive. They may at first seem to deal with difficult subjects and problems, but opening the mind allows new ideas and solutions to be generated. Science fiction at its best makes you think about the world and ourselves, and when it does it in a positive way, it encourages us to look beyond. So in selecting these stories I wanted ones that not only blew the mind, but left us with a glow of satisfaction and delight and, of course, wonder.

  Here’s science fiction doing what it does best.

  Mike Ashley

  OUT OF THE SUN

  Arthur C. Clarke

  If there is one writer whose work epitomizes that sense of wonder, it is without doubt, Arthur C. Clarke. It’s almost impossible to read any of his stories or novels without experiencing that trigger-moment when the mind expands to take in an awe-inspiring concept. Along with Stanley Kubrick, he achieved it magnificently in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s there in his novels Childhood’s End, The City and the Stars, Rendezvous with Rama and his short stories “The Star”, “Jupiter V” and “The Nine Billion Names of God” – possibly the definitive “sense-of-wonder” story. For this anthology I wanted to choose a lesser known story, but one that still packs a considerable punch – even though it’s the shortest story in the book. (Well, the last story is the same length.) Clarke had that ability to develop a remarkable, near transcendental idea, in just a few words – and deliver an idea that will remain with you ever after.

  I was much saddened upon learning of Clarke’s death in March 2008, while I was assembling this volume. His death brought to an end a significant chapter in the history of science fiction – but it was only a chapter. Clarke would be the first to emphasize that the story continues – and that’s why he opens this anthology.

  IF YOU HAVE ONLY LIVED on Earth, you have never seen the sun. Of course, we could not look at it directly, but only through dense filters that cut its rays down to endurable brilliance. It hung there forever above the low, jagged hills to the west of the Observatory neither rising nor setting, yet moving around a small circle in the sky during the eighty-eight-day year of our little world. For it is not quite true to say that Mercury keeps that same face always turned toward the sun; it wobbles slightly on its axis, and there is a narrow twilight belt which knows such terrestrial commonplaces as dawn and sunset.

  We were on the edge of the twilight zone, so that we could take advantage of the cool shadows yet could keep the sun under continuous surveillance as it hovered there above the hills. It was a full-time job for fifty astronomers and other assorted scientists; when we’ve kept it up for a hundred years or so, we may know something about the small star that brought life to Earth.

  There wasn’t a single band of solar radiation that someone at the Observatory had not made a life’s study and was watching like a hawk. From the far X rays to the longest of radio waves, we had set our traps and snares; as soon as the sun thought of something new, we were ready for it. So we
imagined . . .

  The sun’s flaming heart beats in a slow, eleven-year rhythm, and we were near the peak of the cycle. Two of the greatest spots ever recorded – each of them large enough to swallow a hundred Earths – had drifted across the disk like great black funnels piercing deeply into the turbulent outer layers of the sun. They were black, of course, only by contrast with the brilliance all around them; even their dark, cool cores were hotter and brighter than an electric arc. We had just watched the second of them disappear around the edge of the disk, wondering if it would survive to reappear two weeks later, when something blew up on the equator.

  It was not too spectacular at first, partly because it was almost exactly beneath us – the precise center of the sun’s disk – and so was merged into all the activity around it. If it had been near the edge of the sun, and thus projected against the background of space, it would have been truly awe-inspiring.

  Imagine the simultaneous explosion of a million H-bombs. You can’t? Nor can anyone else but that was the sort of thing we were watching climb up toward us at hundreds of miles a second, straight out of the sun’s spinning equator. At first it formed a narrow jet, but it was quickly frayed around the edges by the magnetic and gravitational forces that were fighting against it. The central core kept right on, and it was soon obvious that it had escaped from the sun completely and was headed out into space – with us as its first target.

  Though this had happened half a dozen times before, it was always exciting. It meant that we could capture some of the very substance of the sun as it went hurtling past in a great cloud of electrified gas. There was no danger; by the time it reached us it would be far too tenuous to do any damage, and, indeed, it would take sensitive instruments to detect it at all.

  One of those instruments was the Observatory’s radar, which was in continual use to map the invisible ionized layers that surround the sun for millions of miles. This was my department; as soon as there was any hope of picking up the oncoming cloud against the solar background, I aimed my giant radio mirror toward it.