Maxima Library

First appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 1997. Nominated for Best Short Story.

Judith Berman has spent extended periods of time in Idaho, Vermont, British Columbia, and Alaska, and since 1979 she has lived in Philadelphia.

The author received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1991, and attended Clarion in 1994. Currently she is employed as a guest curator at a Pennsylvania museum. “Lord Stink” is set in her “Mountain Land” universe, which is based on the mythology and traditional culture of the Native Americans of the north Pacific coast. The story (which is her first tale for Asimov’s) was “inspired by the widespread Bear Husband myth, but it does not follow the myth very carefully.”

In her first story for Asimov’s, Emily Devenport takes us on a wild and woolly adventure where the fate of the Earth hinges on the outcome of…

It’s been seven years since we last published a story by the brilliant author Karen Joy Fowler (“Liserl,” July 1990), and we are delighted to welcome her back to our pages. Ms. Fowler has written a highly regarded short story collection, Artificial Things (Bantam 1986), and two novels (which were put out by Holt)— Sarah Canary, a New York Times 1991 notable book, and The Sweetheart Season. The latter novel is a story “packed with history, baseball, and useful housekeeping tips.” Published last fall, it was also listed as a 1996 New York Times notable book. The author is at work on a new novel, but we hope she will continue to find time for her remarkable short fiction as well.

The author lives along the California coast a couple of hours south of Los Angeles, where he works at a local library and sings and plays guitar at a nearby church. He credits two of our earlier stories—“Whinin’ Boy Blues” by Allen Steele (February 1994) and “The Day of Their Coming” by G. David Nordley (March 1994)—with providing inspiration for the following tale. Credit is also awarded to “a plastic M&M dispenser my brother gave me, and, of course, the eggplant, a fruit that is one of the wonders of the world.”

Readers of Mary Rosenblum’s popular novel, The Drylands, have asked her what will become of the forests in that future—does she envision the entire country as a desert? Ms. Rosenblum replies, “Well no, I don’t. So I took a look at the forests of southern Oregon, and what happens to the trees, in ‘The Botanist.’ ” The author has just sold her first mainstream mystery, Blood Work, and she is working on Black Sheep—the second book in the series.