I Remember the Future: The Award-Nominated Stories of Michael A. Burstein by Michael A. Burstein
Apex, $21.95, 444pp, tp, 9780981639062. Science fiction collection.
Michael A. Burstein is a good friend of mine. He has been ever since Charles Ardai dragged him along to my birthday party when I was a young assistant editor for Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction magazines (and just starting out as a science fiction writer, too). Michael (then a not-yet-published author) seemed almost sychophantically pleased to meet me (or maybe that’s just my ego rewriting the scene). Since then, I’ve watched his career as a science fiction writer grow much larger and faster than my own, and though I’ll frequently (jokingly) tell him I hate him for his success, while my own writing languishes, in truth (and he knows it), I couldn’t be happier for him. And perhaps hate is too strong a word: I envy him. I envy his ability to turn words into evocative stories; it’s an ability I’m still trying to develop, and for him it seems to have taken no effort. I still remember the young Michael at my birthday party, and I still want to be the one farther along the career curve. Yet I know he’s worked hard at his craft, and succeeded. He’s gotten what he’s achieved through his own efforts, and he deserves to be a well-known, well-liked, admired science fiction writer. Let’s face it: he’s good.
That’s a far more personal introduction for a book review than I’ve ever written, or than I expect to read, but Michael’s stories engender that personal kind of feeling. Every story in this collection, whether implicitly or explicitly, truly or not, seems to be about him, his relatives, and the people he knows (or would like to). They aren’t, of course, but they feel just that intimate. Here, he’s collected sixteen stories, most of which appeared first in Analog Science Fiction and Fact and were subsequently nominated for major awards in the science fiction field (Hugos, Nebulas, and several others), and written new afterwords discussing their geneses.
Most of these are quiet, thoughtful stories, rather than gosh-wow slam-bang action stories. In the afterword to “Broken Symmetry”, he writes about an early rejection for the story, asking him to add more “zing”, and how, by moving the explosion up to the very beginning of the story (and coincidentally killing off my namesake character in the second line), he achieved that, selling the story. But these aren’t “zing” stories. They’re stories of people in sometimes difficult situations trying to improve their lot in life, or just improve life in general. They’re frequently (though not always) religious people, as Michael himself is, but their religion isn’t their raison
d’être, it’s simply a part of who they are (though strict adherence to a religion is sometimes a cause of difficulty in a largely secular world).
His stories are quiet, often moving explorations of life and loss and memory. He writes eloquently about the need to remember horrible events after all the survivors have died (“Kaddish for the Last Survivor”, “Time Ablaze”), about overcoming barriers not to happiness, but to fulfillment (“TeleAbsence”, the “Broken Symmetry” series), time travel and memory (“Spaceships”, “I Remember the Future”, “Cosmic Corkscrew”), aging and science and some of the classical science fictional tropes (“Decisions”, “Seventy-Five Years”, “Paying It Forward”), and occasionally, outright, religion (“Sanctuary”). He isn’t a splashy writer, probably not exciting enough to be best-seller material. But neither is he a flash-in-the-pan, here-today-and-gone-tomorrow writer. His stories have staying power because they’re quietly moving. They may not stick with you word for word, but their ideas will remain.
Michael is a heart-on-his-sleeve kind of guy; after finishing this collection (whether you read the afterwords or not), you’ll know pretty clearly who his heroes are, who he hopes to emulate, and what his writing career means to him. It’s kind of refreshing to such emotional work and know that the emotion isn’t a put-on meant to grab the reader, but rather something that’s there because it’s honest.
I still “hate” Michael for having managed to fill such a gorgeous collection so chuck-full of good reads, but I’m glad to be able to read the fruits of his labors.
[Contents: Introduction by Stanley Schmidt; “Kaddish for the Last Survivor”; “TeleAbsence”; “TelePresence”; “Broken Symmetry”; “Absent Friends”; “Reality Check”; “Empty Spaces”; “Spaceships”; “Decisions”; “Time Ablaze”; “Seventy-Five Years”; “Sanctuary”; “I Remember the Future”; “Cosmic Corkscrew”; and “Paying It Forward”. Cover by Bob Eggleton.]
[Edited 9 December 2008: Hour of the Wolf hosts Jim Freund writes to remind us that his interview with Burstein, which was originally broadcast 29 November, is available at this link. The broadcast includes Burstein’s reading of the title story. He also has an interview with Ardai, which originally aired 15 November, at this link.]