Fantasy & Science Fiction: May/June

This is the fourth issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction that I've read. My review of the prior issue, March/April, is here. Like most of the issues I've read so far, the May/June issue is generally quite successful, filled with well written tales that occasionally manage to prove themselves exceptional. Which is not, of course, to say that there aren't a few weaklings among the bunch.

Chet Williamson's The Final Verse is the first of two stories about music. The tale centers around a hunt for the fabled lost verse of "Mother Come Quickly," a break out classic folk song. The best part of the story is the way Williamson manages to weave Mother Come Quickly into the music scene and history. By the time you're done hearing the first printed verses, don't be surprised if you're searching youtube for a live performance. The supernatural aspect isn't particularly surprising, but it's well done, and the conclusion is a good creepy closer.

Next we get the first of Robert Reed's two pieces, Stock Photos. To be honest, I'm not sure what to think of this story. A man and a woman come up to the protagonist and ask to take his picture a few times. That's about all that happens, and any deeper significance was, even after two readings, totally lost on me. That being said, Reed's writing is strong enough that the dialogue flows naturally and that there's an unmistakable undercurrent of malice throughout. Reed's second story (a hundred or two pages later) gives us the behind the scenes footage of Stock Photo. Though the big questions still aren't answered, everything makes far more sense afterwards. Still, while the second story's the one that brings the clarity, it's the first that's truly memorable. I'm not sure if the two story gimmick is particularly fair play (they read more as part one and two), but Reed pulls it off too well for me to really complain.

Albert E. Cowdrey's The Black Mountain pits a preservationist against a developer when the latter decides to renovate a cult's old cathedral. Like most of the Cowdrey tales I've read, The Black Mountain is enjoyable without being incredible. The supernatural aspect is pleasantly subtle, and the two main characters do have an engaging and natural rapport, but there's no moment that elevates the tale to greatness.

Steven Popkes's Agent of Change is the first of two stories that are about A. climate change, and B. lizards. The mighty Pacific Leviathan has emerged, and it's wreaking havoc. Or something like that. The story is told through articles and transcribed board room meetings, and there are numerous places where Popkes's straight faced characters manage to become laugh out loud funny, such as Toho, LTD.'s statement: Toho has copyright on the look and feel of the Godzilla franchise. […] If this creature is real, it is the property of Toho and a natural resource of Japan (p. 84-5).

Fine Green Dust – by Don Webb, one of the authors involved in last issue's collaboration – focuses on an apocalypse of rising temperatures. Our straight man, math teacher protagonist notices that the people around him are disappearing as it gets hotter and hotter, and lizards are everywhere he looks. He notices one of his students in the yard next door mutating, mainly (p. 100) into a lizard in the family Gekkonidae, I think (p. 100). Unfortunately, the reader's likely to figure everything out long before the protagonist does, and any surprises are few and far between.

Alexandra Duncan's Rampion is the longest story in the issue. It is also fantastic, one of the best tales I've read in F&SF. Scenes alternate between the present, with our protagonist disfigured and blinded, and his past as a prince. The story takes place in a Spain divided between Christians and Muslims, and, though the actual events and characters of the story feel too vibrant to possibly have existed, their every thought and action evokes that time period. The main character's secret love for a Christian woman feels at first like a small story well told, but the rumors and glimpsed conversations of the opening and other sections serve to broaden the story's focus and show the ramifications of seemingly minor acts. To be fair, this is a fantasy story by only the most tenuous of threads – a character is rumored to be a witch – but the quest and characters are as well done as you're ever likely to find.

Carter Scholz's Signs of Life deals with a group of scientists manipulating the seemingly empty information surrounding the meaningful part of DNA, and Scholz manages to make a compelling metaphor for our lives while creating several fascinating lines such as: We want nature to speak our soul's language. When we can no longer bear its silence, we speak for it. tell a story where no story is (p. 159). Or: Mind lays traps for itself, it's capable of anything. Traps simple as habit, devastating as psychosis, elaborate as epistemology, seductive as science. (p. 162) But while the writing and thematic portions of the tale are strong, I found the actual story and characters unsatisfying. This feels more like a story about modern day science than a Science Fiction story. The eventual revelation falls well short of earth shattering – at least to my layman's perspective – and, worse, the main character remains grumblingly but not compellingly unlikable throughout. Signs of Life is, in some ways, an accomplished tale, but it's not one I can say I enjoyed.

Scott Bradfield's Starship Dazzle is evidently one of many tales about Dazzle the talking dog, but no knowledge of the other stories is required. Dazzle manages to get himself sent into space, and, once there, finds himself broadcasting advertisements across the stars. Dazzle's quarrel with his corporate superiors is a bit obvious, but the story is saved by its fantastic and humorous voice. A prime example's Dazzle's initial launch speech:

"I know I haven't been the best company you could wish for on this stupid planet. […] And I'm sure you'll be perfectly happy to see my hairy butt vanish into the Pleiades. But at the same time, I'm not bitter about our past dealings, and I hope you're not bitter about me either. So good luck, try to clean up the mess you've made of this planet, and think about me every so often. By the way, my name is Dazzle, and while you probably can't tell from this crazy space suit I'm wearing, I'm a dog... (p. 179)

S.L. Giblow's contribution, The Old Terrologist's Tale, opens with a conversation between a terrologist, the man he plans to sell his newly-created planet to, a few other elite members of Giblow's futuristic society, and an "old terrologist." (p. 194) The heart of the story-within-a-story is the story told by that last character, the old terrogolist. The man's conclusions about beauty aren't particularly surprising, but both the frame and the narrative are well told and fascinating, and Giblow manages to fill his scenes with both a homely, conversational atmosphere and a futuristic sense of wonder.

In the March/April issue, Ken Liu contributed The Paper Menagerie, a quiet but powerful story about a family and its quiet magic. His story here, Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer, also has a family at its heart. Liu presents a dichotomy between an artificial reality resplendent with freedom and intricacies far beyond our own and, on the other hand, reality. Our viewpoint is the child of a father who – like most of the society – stays immersed in the virtual, but the protagonist's mother is one of the strange folk who seems to prefer the real. Liu imbues his future with enough strangeness – both in style and in concept – and depth to make it seem a compelling place, but the story never took off for me. The ultimate conclusions about the physical world feel obvious, and, where The Paper Menagerie felt quiet and unassuming, Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer feels empty.

Kate Wilhelm's Music Makers closes the magazine and is the second of its two music-focused pieces. Unfortunately, it's also the weakest story here. While Chet Williamson's story that opened the magazine focused on a quest with music as the object, Wilhem focuses on the emotional and familial sides of music. But the performers never come to life, and, without coming to believe in their sound and success, the adoration of the other characters and the tragedy of their deaths just comes off as effusive and saccharine.

Standouts: Rampion, The Old Terrologist's Tale, Stock Photos

Fantasy & Science Fiction: March/April 2011

This is the third issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine that I've read. Of all of them, it's probably got the strongest standouts, though it's also got a few weaker tales.

Albert E. Cowdrey's Scatter My Ashes starts us off, one of the many horror tales in this issue. Cowdrey has been present in each of the three F&SF issues that I've read and seems equally adept at whatever he turns his hand to. The characters and situation are rapidly set up (a mysterious family tragedy, an aging and rich woman, the dark and mysterious sorcerer, and the writer to investigate it all), and Cowdrey is able to flavor his story with brief spurts of Russian dialogue and character quirks without drowning in them. Perhaps best of all, Cowdrey is quite capable at wryly mocking his own set up, leading to several humorous lines such as: [The servant] had the highly suspicious feature of not understanding a word of English, when when spoken by a Hearst reporter in a firm, clear voice. (p. 14) The story's final line is predictable but loses little of its charm for that. And yet, for all the skill of its construction, I wouldn't say that Scatter My Ashes is an excellent tale. The concluding line really sums the story up: familiar, well executed, and enjoyable, but not exceptional in any way.

If Scatter My Ashes is the refreshing and enjoyable cup of coffee that leads you into your day, Paul di Filippo's A Pocketful of Faces is a delicious and disquieting brew had in the alleyways of a city you've never been to before and never will return to. This is a Science Fiction story that manages the rare trick of combining intensity and atmospheric, intriguing setting without letting up on either element. The narrator is a policeman tasked with hunting down criminals that illegally outfit their robot "twists" with stolen faces, replicas of people in their lives. The story is filled with amusing references (The Man of a Thousand Faces, The Face that Must Die, and so on), and is host to enough powerful images and scenes that the rushed-feeling climax fails to detract from its power.

Sophie M. White's Metaversal is a poem that rapidly branches out and, in four verses, manages to launch us through quite a multitude of realities. The poem's amusing, and fits well between A Pocketful of Faces and the story to follow.

Ken Liu's The Paper Menagerie is an affecting modern fantasy tale. The story's opening draws the reader in with sweet and seemingly innocuous imagery:

A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.

I reached out to mom's creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. "Rawrr-sa," it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers. (p. 64-5)

Before long, however, the characters begin to draw apart, and the idyllic opening scenes give way to a melancholy middle. The situation is likely familiar to most readers – and the fantasy content is rather slight – but Liu manages to create character sympathetic enough that they make us feel for them up to and beyond the story's close, and the tale never loses its charm.

Sheila Finch's The Evening and the Morning is the issue's centerpiece and by far the longest tale here. Unfortunately, it's also the issue's weakest piece. This is the concluding tale of Finch's Xenolinguist series of shorts, which I haven't read, but, as it's here published without the benefit of the prior dozen-or-more tales, I think it's fair to judge it on its own merits. The opening scene is a meeting between Crow (the main character) and the alien Tu've. The two are old friends, which does come across, and the setting is interesting, but the scene is smothered with details and information, preventing the newcomer from getting through the door. Compounding the problem, Finch has a habit of drifting off in the middle of her own sentences, seemingly losing her train of thought halfway through and then regaining it, ending up with awkward constructions like: One week later, the Venatixi craft, nameless as all Venatixi ships were – how the Venatixi overcame the resulting confusion was something Crow couldn't image – stepped out of deep space just inside the orbit of Earth's satellite and commenced normal cruising speed. (p. 83)

Once the tale gets moving, things don't much improve. Crow, several humans, and Tu've's daughter travel to the long-lost Earth and are eager to explore. Instead of finding a paradise still functioning (but in isolation), they see nothing whatsoever made by human hands. Now, the backstory seems odd to me, but, fair enough, I haven't the prior knowledge to make sense of it. More damning is the fact that the desolate earth is never felt by the reader, and that the characters – though they're quick to lament the tragedy of earth's fall – never come off as particularly upset, save for a few rather maudlin scenes. In fact, the characters besides Crow are uniformly shallow; Tu've's daughter is the worst of the lot, her every action incomprehensible and illogical. The tale's resolution bears with it a few interesting elements but doesn't manage to justify the story's length or even answer the questions that the story itself raises.

Things get more interesting again with The Night Gauntlet, a round robin Lovecraft mythos tale. The only author I'm familiar with is Pugmire (and even there not first hand), but all the participants must be commended; there are no jarring transitions to be found here, and the atmosphere is carried along throughout. The meat of the story isn't groundbreaking, but the tale is enjoyably seasoned with a commendable knowledge of horror Lovecraftian and otherwise (including a reference to that Ligotti fellow I'm always harping on about), and there are several images here that are quite successful. This isn't an essential story, but it is a capable horror tale rendered all the more impressive by the number of its creators.

Happy Ending 2.0 by James Patrick Kelly loops around the turning point of a happy couple's relationship. Returning to the spot where everything started to go downhill, the two end up out of step with one another with one foot in each time stream. The story's not surprising in the least, but it's concise and emotional enough to pass muster.

The Second Kalandar's Tale, written by Francis Soty, is a bit of an enigma, to say the least. The events, characters, and prose style are larger than life and flashy enough to keep the reader's attention, but it's tough to say, upon turning the last page, what significance – if any – the whole thing has.

Karl Bunker's Bodyguard tries for pathos on a grand scale and doesn't quite manage it. The story's protagonist, a human amidst an alien culture, seems like an interesting figure, but the reader never grasps enough of the culture or the wider world to ever understand his situation. There are well done moments, here, but the story as a whole feels distinctly more like watching someone have an emotional breakdown than it does having one yourself.

Kali Wallace's Botanical Experiments for Curious Girls is a slow building tale, one filled with eerie, small details such as: Miss night used to put Rosalie to bed every evening while snow fell outside the window, but one day her fingers had curled up like brittle twigs and she couldn't unfasten the buttons anymore. (p. 223) The oppressive tone only gets stronger as the tale goes on, and the protagonist soon manages to arouse our sympathies, all culminating in an excellent ending.

After the humorous but brief Ping (two sentences long), we reach the issue's closing tale: James Stoddard's The Ifs of Time. From the first paragraph, Stoddard is quick to invoke the bizarre and the epic: Evenmere is a house of infinite proportions. Within its gabled halls, beneath its countless roofs, are countries and kingdoms, dominions and principalities, walled fields and farmed courtyards. The manor is the mechanism that regulates the universe, and its many servants light the lamps, wind the clocks, repair the walls, polish the doorknobs – a thousand tasks – so light and time and space, the stars and the worlds, continue. (p. 239) Stoddard is able to keep the same vibe throughout the story without having to sacrifice characterization or immediacy for it. The meat of the tale is the four stories-within-a-story told by a strange group of friends. Each is an interesting piece in its own right, and the frame story's climax is powerful and interesting.

The March/April issue of F&SF is a very strong one overall and one I'd recommend to any fan of genre short stories. The highlights here are well worth remembering – in particular I'll be searching out Filippo's prior work and keeping an eye out Wallace's future fiction – and a good majority of the rest is comprised of stories that, if not excellent, were certainly not poor.

Standouts: A Pocketful of Faces, The Paper Menagerie, Botanical Exercises for Curious Girls, and The Ifs of Time