Old Mars

One of the most popular and prolific of the new writers of the nineties, Mary Rosenblum made her first sale, to Asimov’s Science Fiction, in 1990, and has since become a mainstay of that magazine and one of its most frequent contributors, with more than thirty sales there to her credit. She has also sold to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, The New Space Opera, The Dragon Book, and to many other magazines and anthologies. Her linked series of “Drylands” stories, about an American Southwest rendered uninhabitable by prolonged droughts, proved to be one of Asimov’s most popular series, and now, alas, seems more germane than ever. Her novella “Gas Fish” won the Asimov’s Readers’ Award Poll in 1996, and was a finalist for that year’s Nebula Award. Her first novel, The Drylands, appeared in 1993, winning the prestigious Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel of the year; it was followed in short order by her second novel, Chimera, and her third, The Stone Garden. Her first short story collection, Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities, was widely hailed by critics as one of the best collections of 1996. She has also written four mystery novels under the name Mary Freeman. Her most recent books include a major new science-fiction novel, Horizons, and a reissued and expanded version of the Drylands novel and novelettes entitled Water Rites. A graduate of Clarion West, Mary Rosenblum lives in Portland, Oregon.

In the poignant story that follows, we learn that living caught between two worlds can be difficult and painful—especially when you’re the only one who can see one of them.