No
introduction this time around, we’re diving right into the stories with some of
the best science fiction published in 2010, as collected in Year’s Best SF 16.
“Petopia” by Benjamin Crowell
Read in Year’s Best SF 16 (2011), edited by
David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer
Originally
published in Asimov’s Science Fiction
(June 2010), edited by Sheila Williams
Two
young teens living on the West Coast of Africa discover a technologically
advanced teddy bear in the near future. It made its way from California to
Africa with a shipment of used and discarded computers which one of the teens,
Aminata Diallo, disassembles as her day job. The teddy bear is a toy for rich
kids, kind of like a future version of a Tamagotchi mixed with a cellphone.
Aminata’s brother uses the bear (named Jelly) to become a chess hustler. The
kids are put in a situation where they have to use Jelly to steal money from
other people’s bank accounts in order to help their drunken father get out of a
pinch.
