According
to Jonathan Strahan’s introduction, Engineering
Infinity (2010) is intended to be a survey of the state of hard sf short
fiction at the beginning of the 21st century. Specific writers targeted,
indeed if one looks at the table of contents there are several (white males)
known for their realistic extrapolation on theory. Karl Schroeder, Peter Watts, Kathleen Ann
Goonan, and Gregory Benford are four easily recognizable names in the
sub-genre. But there are a number of
stories in the collection which must really suck their bellies in to fit
through the doors of hard sf. John C.
Wright, Gwyneth Jones, Charles Stross, and David Moles are not authors that
immediately pop into mind when the term is bandied about, and the stories they
provided for the anthology are dubiously hard sf, at best. But throwing taxonomy to the winds (where it
probably belongs), Engineering Infinity
remains a solid collection of stories.
No single story outshining the others or existing entirely in
nothingness, it is also a highly consistent selection.
The two
stories falling furthest on the hard sf side of the line are by the Canadians,
Peter Watts and Karl Schroeder. “Malak”, Watts’ addition, is freighted. Examining the morals of drone technology in
warfare, he shifts the Middle East conflict a few years into the future where
flying weapons possess semi-AI minds and are able to make some decisions in combat. The remaining decisions, well, they are
unfortunately still left to humans.
“Laika’s Ghost” is also a political/military influenced story, but this
time in near-future Kazakhstan where an agent has been sent to investigate the
bomb making capabilities—bombs worse than nuclear—of the post-Soviet culture
still existing in the backlands. Stuck
traveling with a paranoid American looking for asylum from what he saw on Mars,
the investigation unearths a lot more than just bombs. Highly, highly reminiscent of a Bruce
Sterling story, “Laika’s Ghost” is interesting for not being a Cold Ware redux,
rather a look ahead at what the state of world agriculture, politics, space
travel, and, unfortunately, weaponry, may be like in the former Soviet states.
