HUMAN FUTURES
by James Van Pelt
Every year, Brenda Cooper attends a writers retreat at the Rainforest Writers Village in Lake Quinault, Washington. The rainforest is an excellent venue for writing. Cell phone reception is spotty, and the sole internet connection is slow and unreliable. The environment stands as a challenge to the high-tech, connected world that most of us live in. But it is in this throwback, slow-paced venue that Brenda’s writing soars into possible futures where robot dogs compete with flesh and bone ones on the battlefield, electronic nannies raise a little girl, an autistic physics genius communes with parallel universes, and brain to brain remote viewing brings to life the reality of third world lives.
Of course, the rainforest retreat is only a few days of the year. As far as I can tell, Brenda writes all the time, whether it’s at a writers retreat, or after work for the City of Kirkland, Washington, where she’s the city’s Chief Information Officer (doesn’t that sound like a Star Trek bridge officer position?), or in between gigs as a public speaker, or when she’s not blogging in her role as a futurist. Brenda has a free-range mind. I don’t think what’s going on around her, whether it’s the hiss of a rainforest afternoon shower, or the bustle of a busy city office, impacts what’s going on inside her head.
Happily for us, she shares her head, as she has in the outstanding collection of pure science fiction short stories you are holding right now. Here’s what you get with Brenda Cooper short stories: rigorous, interesting extrapolations about our possible futures. One of this genre’s greatest gifts is in its capacity to ask “what if?” For Brenda, some of the what-ifs include a way we might care for special needs children that enriches their lives, how life in an underwater city might present unusual challenges (and unusual allies—there’s this great bit about whale sentience . . . whoops! Almost got into a plot spoiler there), what a life-threatening tragedy on Pluto might feel like, and how a truly long distance relationship between an earthbound woman and an isolated astronaut might play out.
Brenda “gets” the exploratory nature of science fiction. Her stories are intrinsically about their science fictional settings. They aren’t stories with tired, traditional, familiar science fiction tropes. I think you can read Brenda’s stories just for the ideas. There’s a reason that part of her day job is being a futurist.
But Brenda’s speculations about the future are not the sole payoff by a long shot. The second gift in these stories is their heart. Each story paints a picture about human relationships that are emotional, passionate and vital. One of my favorite stories in the collection is “Blood Bonds.” I’m not going to spoil any part of it, but I can tell you that I haven’t read a story that tied so closely intricate and fascinating scientific speculation about consciousness and artificial intelligence with such a delicately rendered portrait of a pair of sisters.
She does this in all of the stories! If you want a quick taste, skip straight to “My Grandfather’s River.” Go ahead. I’ll give you a minute.
Back so soon? See what I mean?
So much in literature lately seems tied up in the long form. Big, fat fantasies fill the bookstore’s shelves. Multi-book series are the rage. However, science fiction’s roots lie in the short story. I think of Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Alice Sheldon writing as James Tiptree Jr., Zenna Henderson, and so many others who lured young minds with short stories. Remember those great, old magazines: Galaxy, Worlds of If, Omni, and Fantastic Stories? Brenda would be at home between any of their covers. Oh, Brenda’s written her share of novels too (I particularly like Creative Fire). She knows narrative forms, but we’re lucky readers because Brenda can go short, too.
What you’ll find here is Brenda’s masterful blend of hard-edged speculation tied to insightful evocations of the human spirit.
You are all so fortunate: you get to read these stories for the first time.