SEVEN FOR THE APOCALYPSE

paper 0-8915-6382-X This gathering of the popular SF writer’s recent short fiction includes seven stories and her (originally separately published) 1994 novella “Little Sisters of the Apocalypse”—an agreeably weird fable of feminist empowerment ingeniously yoked to a plaintive account of the slow dying of the narrator’s (and, it becomes clear, the author’s) mother. Newer stories include such pedestrian efforts as a fantasy about a high-school reunion (“Slumber”) and a neo-Gothic satire (“Rajmahal”) on American tourists in India. Much better are a moving study of how Alzheimer’s afflicts a devoted couple (“Voyager”), a highly original ghost story (“The Singing Marine”), and especially the delicious tale (“River”) of a computerized security system attempting to protect “her” family from its own failings. Altogether, interesting work, from one of the most inventive and amusing writers working in the genre.