I read speculative and science fiction in addition to literary fiction, to the bemusement of some of my friends. I recently finished an anthology of fantasy fiction (a sub-genre of sci-fi) that led to the discovery of several fine writers, including Michael Swanwick. He has a large presence online and is a master of the short short story. The story by Swanwick included in the anthology, Years Best Fantasy 3, edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, is "Cecil Rhodes in Hell." You can read that wee but wonderful tale here.
About the same time, readerholic me snapped up Kristine Kathryn Rusch's Extremes: A Retrieval Artist Novel from the sci-fi shelf at Fred Meyer, when I was supposed to be buying groceries. (There are always more books in my humble abode than food.) The book is about a specialized kind of detective. In a future world, humans co-exist with equally intelligent aliens. However, their interactions sometimes lead to cultural clashes. The penalty for some of those conflicts, approved by intergalactic law, is death for humans convicted of some crimes against aliens. The role of a retrieval artist is to locate the "disappeared," humans who have assumed new identities to hide from alien justice. The anti-hero of Extremes is Frieda Tey, a brilliant scientist and human terrorist. She challenges the capabilities of three protagonists, Noelle De Ricci, a police detective, Miriam Oliviari, a bounty hunter, and a retrieval artist, Miles Flint. They must cope with the crime she has recently committed, which threatens a colony of thousands on the moon.
Tey's goal is to challenge humans to use their maximum potential so they will excel in comparison to aliens. Her method is to frighten humans into performing better by forcing them to risk death if they don't. Extremes addresses the matter of just how far xenophobic people are willing to go to obtain dominance over the Other. The book also raises questions about what justice is in worlds where different beings have different values. Though the book is set in a sci-fi universe, it invokes issues important to understanding our roles in our own world.
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