Reading Tomorrow

“Of Late I Dreamt of Venus” (novelette)
by James Van Pelt
Originally published in Visual Journeys, ed. Eric T. Reynolds, Hadley Rille 2007

(slated for inclusion in Gardner Dozois’ upcoming The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, due out from St. Martin’s Griffin in July 2008.)

The Story: Elizabeth Audrey, the richest human being who ever lived, is using her vast wealth to realize the dream of an inhabitable Venus. With the help of her assistant Henry, she facilitates the terraforming of the second planet, bombarding it with asteroids to adjust its orbit, and with comets to introduce water to its ecosystem. (more…)

“Finisterra” (novelette)
by David Moles
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2007

(The first of a series in which I’ll review the stories slated for inclusion in Gardner Dozois’ upcoming The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, due out from St. Martin’s Griffin in July 2008.)

The Story: Bianca Nazario, an engineer from a Spanish/Muslim community where her status as both a woman and a Christian stifled her talents and prospects, accepts a job from a shady character named Valadez. That job takes her to Sky, a gas giant planet with an Earth-like nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere but no ground, where gigantic flying creatures called zaratánes have become settlements—living, floating islands kilometers long with ecologies and weather patterns, where humans eke out meager existences. (more…)