Tag: Geoffrey A. Landis

The Rules of Unbinding by Geoffrey A. Landis

The Rules of Unbinding by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s SF, September-October 2022) opens with Kharkov in the Negev desert looking for antiquities, preferably gold or silver ones. We learn that he hasn’t bothered to get a permit and has no intention of reporting anything he finds to the relevant authorities.
After wasting his time digging up a jeep axle from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, he finds a bottle just before he gives up for the day:

The bottle was ceramic, still intact, beautifully decorated with geometric patterns in yellow and blue glaze, but bound with an intricate cage of bronze, which must have been what had set off the metal detector. A clay jar would be exactly what a fleeing family might use to put their stashed coins in, so for an instant he’d been hopeful, but this was more of a bottle than ajar, with the neck opening too small for anyone to slip coins into. It was closed with a carved stopper (ivory, maybe?) that was held in place with twists of bronze wire—green with corrosion now—and then sealed with wax. Ottoman era, he thought; perhaps fifteenth century. When he picked it up, he realized it was too light to hold anything metallic, but still, a piece of Ottoman ceramic could fetch something in the antiquities market.
But he was curious what it had held—wine? Perfume? The rules of the antiquity market said that an untouched bottle would be worth more than one with the seal broken, but to hell with the rules. He could reseal the wax later and no one would know.  p. 80

Kharkov opens the bottle and smoke comes out, which eventually resolves into a genie clothed in modern attire. Kharkov quickly tells the genie that he wants his three wishes and then, when the genie begins to tell him the rules, says his first wish is that there should be no rules. The genie (spoiler) replies that without rules the universe would not exist in its current form (he gives several examples involving gravity, oxidation, etc. etc.) and asks Kharkov to reconsider. Kharkov complies and modifies his first wish to “no rules about wishes”—this means, of course (double spoiler), that the genie is not obliged to give him his three wishes.
Normally I don’t like short-shorts, but this one is well written and has a clever twist on an old theme.
*** (Good). 1,250 words.

Ripples in the Dirac Sea by Geoffrey A. Landis

Ripples in the Dirac Sea by Geoffrey A. Landis (Asimov’s SF, October 1988) is about a time traveller who spends most of his time in 1965 San Francisco with a hippy friend called Dancer, and a woman called Lisa:

[Dancer] never locked the door. “Somebody wants to rip me off, well, hey, they probably need it more than I do anyway, okay? It’s cool.” People dropped by any time of day or night.
I let my hair grow long. Dancer and Lisa and I spent that summer together, laughing, playing guitar, making love, writing silly poems and sillier songs, experimenting with drugs. That was when LSD was blooming onto the scene like sunflowers, when people were still unafraid of the strange and beautiful world on the other side of reality. That was a time to live. I knew that it was Dancer that Lisa truly loved, not me, but in those days free love was in the air like the scent of poppies, and it didn’t matter. Not much, anyway.  p. 93

Woven around this central relationship thread (which eventually ends with Dancer’s premature death) are various other snippets of information and narrative: the Dirac science (or hand-wavium) that enables the time travelling device’s operation; other trips the narrator undertakes (the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, the crucifixion of Christ—where he almost dies); imaginary lectures that answer questions about time paradoxes; and so on.
This plods along until the climax of the story, which sees the narrator in a hotel room the night before he is due to unveil the time travel device to a group of scientists. However, before that can happen (spoiler), he wakes up to find his room is on fire, and we learn that he only has thirty seconds left to live—and that he has been using (and extending) that time by continually travelling to the past. He now has about ten seconds left.
I thought this was okay, and certainly improved by the climactic gimmick, but I don’t think it’s worth an Nebula Award (it won the 1990 award for short story).1 I can only assume that the 1960’s hippie nostalgia vibe did it for some readers.
I also note in passing that it is a gloomy piece, which was fairly typical of Asimov’s SF during this period if I remember correctly.
** (Average). 5,400 words.

1. The story was second in the annual Asimov’s Reader’s Poll, third in the Hugo, and 11th in the Locus list. More information on ISFDB.