"Michael Swanwick - Congratulations from the Future" - читать интересную книгу автора (Swanwick Michael)

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2036: WillisтАЩs Record Surpassed. Twelve-year-old genetic chimera and
brain-enhanced Wunderkind Tiffany Genome wins her hundred-and-first major SF
award, surpassing the record previously set by Connie Willis. Willis graciously
sends congratulations from her summer retreat in Mare Imbrium.
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2037: WillisтАЩs Record Restored. Winsome young Tiffany Genome is reduced
to tears as Connie WillisтАЩs latest novella sweeps not only the Hugo, Nebula, and
World Fantasy Awards, but the Wolfe, Tanith, Rosenblum, Stableford, Paolo,
McDevitt, Di Filippo, and Rucker тАЬTop This, Sucker!тАЭ Awards. тАЬI didnтАЩt mean to
do this, honest!тАЭ says a stricken Willis. тАЬI can give some of them back, if that will
help.тАЭ
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2046: Asimov Cloned. To mark its seventieth anniversary, AsimovтАЩs
mass-clones Isaac Asimov and distributes one to every subscribing
householdтАФwhich by now includes every human being and tentacle-sprouting
abomination on Earth. A decade-long depression follows as every thinking entity on
the planet realizes that he or she or it will never again be the smartest or wittiest
person in the room.
Luckily, the clones are averse to space travel (the original didnтАЩt set foot in an
airplane until his old age), and so the Solar System is colonized in no time flat by
people trying to regain their self-respect. тАЬI may not be able to breathe free here,тАЭ
says one settler on Io, тАЬwhat with the air being so expensive and all. But at least I
can compose a limerick without somebody instantly improving upon it.тАЭ
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2060: The Death of Science Fiction. Science Fiction, born Francis
Aschweiler III, dies of complications after a botched full-body transplant meant to
make him look like Robert Silverberg. The former Aschweiler had his name legally
changed at age twenty-four and spent the next thirty years suing anybody using the
term science fiction or his initials, SF, in print, charging them with identity theft.
Though he never won a single case, Science FictionтАЩs nuisance suits terrorized the
publishing industry for decades. In a related development, AsimovтАЩs
You-Know-What is finally able to resume its old name.
Upon hearing the news, John Clute, speaking from exile, snarls, тАЬItтАЩs about
time!тАЭ
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2061: James Patrick Kelly Dies. Prolific writer Jim Kelly, long a mainstay of
AsimovтАЩs, dies after being bitten by a poisonous orchid in the Antarctic Rainforest
Preserve. At the time, he is researching Dino Clans of Ophir, the twenty-sixth
volume in his popular Dino Elves fantasy series. Briefly, it is feared he will not be
able to write his traditional June story for the magazine. Thanks to newly developed
necrotechnology, however, his body is plasticized and a weak electric current is run
through his brain, enabling the dead author to keep faith with his myriad fans. A
contract is signed with the Necropoleum to provide one story annually for as long as
the corpse holds out.
Kim Stanley Robinson, writer-in-residence at the Disney-Atlantis undersea
metroplex, pronounces the new story тАЬdistinctly creepy.тАЭ
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2064: Special Lunar Issue. Amateur astronomers everywhere rejoice as a
bank of giant lasers carves an entire issue of AsimovтАЩs into the near side of the