Not whining

I want you all to note that I did not whine in this post. Too much whining on blogs. Too much whining on this blog. So, instead of whining (in the face of some good reason to do so), I offer this: I’ve been catching up on my reading for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year for Night Shade over the past few weeks. You know, going over the last few stragglers for the year, beginning to go back and see if that story from January was really as good as I remember it. Anyhow, yesterday I was reading stories from the December issue of Asimov’s, and finally got to Paolo Bacigalupi’s “Yellow Card Man”.  It’s a near-future SF novelette set in the same world as “The Calorie Man” and is absolutely corruscating. Bacigalupi completely nails the story, from the desperation of his lead character, the harshness of his situation, to the details of the background. I doubt he’s written a better story, and it reinforced my feeling that SF is a long way from being done with what it can say about things. I’m not sure how long it is – probably something like 16,000 words – but it’s amazing. Bacigalupi is always worth watching, and one day there’s going to be a hell of a collection come out.  See: that was better than whining, yes?