New short Mars fiction: "Tourists" by James Patrick Kelly

Eclipse 4: New Science Fiction and Fantasy (Night Shade Books, May 2011), a new international anthology edited by Australian anthologist Jonathan Strahan, has another intriguing new work of short fiction set on the Red Planet: “Tourists” by American author James Patrick Kelly.

I haven’t read “Tourists” but noted SF&F critic Rich Horton provides a summary of this “strong” story in his review of Strahan’s anthology for the May 2011 issue of Locus magazine:

And James Patrick Kelly’s “Tourists” is the latest of his pieces about Mariska Volochkova, the cloned daughter of a starship pilot who keeps trying to escape her mother’s legacy. Now she comes to Mars, and ends up involved with a rebellious Martian boy, whose only wish is to escape his culture and go to the stars – the same fate Mariska has been avoiding. The story, with its Martian setting and adolescent characters, could have fit just as well in Strahan’s new YA anthology, Life on Mars. It nicely depicts yet another Martian culture – and seems to close, perhaps, the first set of Mariska stories (the others appeared in Asimov’s) – pointing, though, to further stories, or perhaps a novel.

Time for me to consider buying Eclipse 4: New Science Fiction and Fantasy!