Asimov's - May, 2002

This cover illustration, a piece that Gardner Dozois found in France, is used to evoke the mood of Ian R. MacLeod's "Breathmoss," although it was not explicitly painted for that purpose.
On first examination, I thought it could be one of the micro-warriors described in Purdom's "A Champion of Democracy" -- some tiny automated bot seen in extreme close-up. But if that were true then Earth should be in the background.
With regard to the fiction in this issue, there were some interesting themes of political and corporate ethics, with Gregory Frost's "Madonna of the Maquiladora" truly standing out as an exceptional work, and my pick for best of issue.

Madonna of the Maquiladora ( by Gregory Frost)

I wish this were science fiction.

Gregory Frost takes globalization on mano a mano in this near future tale of corporate manipulation of the factory workforce. Frost spares no detail, pulls no punches.

There are a few nods at sci-fi: the workers are laboring to put together the parts that will ultimately contribute to an advanced pattern recognition system, not entirely distinguishable from pure AI. Towards the end, there is a brief fantasy that the AI itself might have a hand in the matter.

But we are talking about right here, right now. A brutal not-future present in which corporations keep the illusion of happiness propped up in America, while using every tool from ancient religion to speculative technology to keep the workers hard at work for $22.50 a week. In Mexico. And Mexico is by no means the worst of it.

Frost tells a brutal, but plausible story. Oh, not all the technical details were plausible. I could quibble a bit over his implementation. But that would be disingenuous. Frost has the story so close to right, that he might as well be producing a documentary. In fact, he is producing a documentary; a documentary of the psychology behind corporate evil. There are two psychologies worth noting, and Frost gets them both right.

First is the psychology of the American Citizen. I can't really simplify Frost's accomplishment here. To explain the ways in which anglo Americans are shielded from, and shield ourselves from, the atrocities that our corporations perpetrate abroad would require an entire treatise -- or Frost's delicate presentation.

Secondly, Frost teases up the edges around the corporate psychology itself. A lesser approach would characterize this as some demonic evil, something resonant with the pulp tradition of the would-be global dictator. Frost, however, gets it exactly right. Evil institutionalized is as banal, as ordinary, as human, as another friendly face at the company picnic.

Kudos to Gregory Frost for writing, and also to Gardner Dozois for publishing the most important sci fi story I have read in some time. If only it were fiction.

I would like to add that the illustration is for this story is particularly compelling. The black and white pulp sketches that accompany Asimov's stories usually fly by without a second thought. The first page illustration for this one, however, really caught my attention, and meshed perfectly with a chilling, haunting concluding illustration. Stories, assembled like this, make me think that while I may be living in the last days of civilization, I am at least living in they heyday of intelligent sci-fi.