Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 2008

This issue won't hit newsstands for about two more weeks, but here's my advanced review of it.

"The Roberts" (Michael Blumlein)

Sort of like "The Gift of the Magi" meets Multiplicity. Robert is an architect who only excels when he has a muse. However, when he's inspired, he spends all his time at work while neglecting his significant other. Finally, for want of the passion to create, he has a parthenogeneticist (makers of fine, vat-grown humans) make him the perfect girlfriend. And she understands his busy schedule, but he feels bad once he realizes that he's neglecting her. So, he gets her the best birthday present he can think of: another him. Though, she gets him a present too, so he won't feel so bad about neglecting her: another him. Now there are three Roberts, and all the joy and drama associated with that. A strange not-too-distant-futuristic tale whose cover art really didn't match the story (though the cover are was pretty whiz-bang, to overuse such a term). 4/5

"Fullbrim's Finding" (Matthew Hughes)

Hughes' stories used to bore me. This was because I "didn't get" them. Though, after discovering that Penultimate Earth happened some time after Vance's Dying Earth, it all started to make sense. I'm glad that I learned this point, as otherwise, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this story as much. In "Fullbrim's Finding," we follow Hapthorn (a sort of Sherlock Holmes meets Sam Spade, only in the distant future) in his efforts to find a wayward husband. It takes him to a small, lesser known world, where he comes to an inn full of ascetic living. Not to give away the zinger of this story, but I was reminded of So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish by this story. Hughes gradually becomes my favorite F&SF regular contributor. 4/5

"Poison Victory" (Albert E. Cowdrey)

Cowdrey returns to the pages of F&SF, and this time with a story not set in Louisiana. "Poison Victory" is instead an alternate history set in Germany. The alternate bit is that Hitler won the war, and lived until 1949, where he later succumbed to some disease and died. The main character, married to a woman deemed below him, racially speaking, must deal with his existence as a Nazi war hero, and a sympathizer for human rights. A neighboring German on high standing is murdered, and his serfs (and wife) are suspected, and interrogated. He must decide where his loyalties lie, and find a good use for the bounty of poison gas he has access to. Not really sci-fi or fantasy, I thought. I'm not sure why alternate history is liked by the same fans of other specfic (unless it's featuring Oswald Bastable and company), but it is, which is why it didn't surprise me terribly to find it in the pages of this magazine. It was an interesting story, but not my cuppa. 3/5.

"Reader's Guide" (Lisa Goldstein)

There's something to be said of metafiction. I felt like I was reading the diary of someone in a Borges story. There's a library that contains every possible story ever written, and there are a team of people who maintain it. When an author writes a story, they check out a book and make it their own. These books change with the author, and are eventually reshelved by the loyal shelvers. Our hero, a shelver, is tired of hack writers writing hack stories with sappy love storys, heavy-handed simulacrum, and way too much metaphor and similie, so he starts writing Reader's Guides in the front of the books, akin to the reader's guides one would find in book club editions of books. The story is told through one such reader's guide. Wonderful telling. 4/5

"Enfant Terrible" (Scott Dalrymple)

You know those smart kids, those child prodigies? What if their intellect had a draining effect on the intellect of the grownups around them? What if that was due to a parasite, and the only way to keep mankind safe was to remove these children from their surroundings? Written in second person, "Enfant Terrible" (should that be in italics too?) reads like a linear choose-your-own-adventure story (as that genre seems to have the claim on second-person), as well as an interesting use of pronouns. 4/5

"The Dinosaur Train" (James L. Cambias)

Imagine Jurassic Park, only it's run by Barnum & Bailey. That's what the "Dinosaur Train" is all about. Though the circus has fallen on hard times, and now their star dinosaur has become ill. A grandson must decide: save the dinosaur and risk his grandfather's (the owner of the circus) wrath, or let the dino die, and watch his family's business flush down the crapper. He decided to do what's best, and learns a valuable lesson or two in the process. Realistically written alternate history with an element of sci-fi (dinosaurs, duh). 4/5

Plumage From the Pegasus: "Galley Knaves" (Paul Di Filippo)

Di Filippo's Plumage articles are hit or miss for me. This one, though an interesting concept, missed me. A reviewer is given a book to review, only it's delivered in a mock-up corpse. This encourages other publishers to deliver their copies in other equally creative ways, which causes grief for the reviewer, who must dispose of all the packaging material, as well as sift through unimaginative prose. He finds a way to get back at them, though. 3/5

Best in Show: "Reader's Guide"

What can I say? I love books.

Crossposted in The Eventide Knave and The Gangster of L'Oeuf.

Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 2008

"The Art of Alchemy" (Ted Kosmatka)

A metallurgist forms a relationship with a woman who has suspicious ties to powerful people with scientific marvels w.r.t metallurgy. After getting a carbon nanofiber sample, things get deep, and their lives are in danger. It was readable, and enjoyable speculative fiction, even for not having any alien/magic whiz-bang. It felt more like a short technothriller, like something you'd see in future seasons of 24: Mellurgy. Though on the other hand, it really didn't spark my imagination. 3/5

"The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D." (Al Michaud)

Michaud writes delightful, animated, amusing stories about the residents of a fishery village in Maine. I'm almost certain that if these stories were adapted for the screen, silver or otherwise, they would be animated in one way or another (I find myself picturing the characters in a Burton stop-motion). In this story, we return to Clem Crowder, ayuh. While visiting the dentist (or their town's closest equivalent, a clam digger/tooth carpenter), Clem is visited by an apparition: The Silent Worman. She's silent because she has no head, since she lost it in the colonial days to an Indian raid (where Indian here is a member of one of the indiginenous people of North America, particularly, in the Maine area). In his efforts to rid himself of the haunting, he finds himself in such imaginative locales, like Banebridge college (a sort of low-brow Miskatonic), Grey Fog lighthouse (with its multitude of lookalike subservients), and even an Indian burial ground (complete with Indian ghosts). Though this story was painfully predictable, Michaud made the long journey an entertaining one, and didn't once say, "Don't make me turn this car around!" 4/5

"Litany" (Rand B. Lee)

A stranger comes to town. Lee leaves us in doubt whether or not Rafael Anderssen is really who he claims to be, or if there's more too this grey-eyed, tall man who claims to be Anderssen. There is more to Anderssen. He has powers, and he knows Words. That's Words with a capital W. He's looking for people and things in a small New Mexico town, La Llorona, also beginning with capital letters. You sort of get an idea of who he is, more and more, with each page. With a name like Rafael, or a last name that means "son of man", and references to the One, you kinda get the idea that he's some sort of celestial being. And he's just trying to find his way home. His journey is beset, however, with adversaries. The mysterious Seven have sent the Enemy to try to thwart the grey-eyed man's attempts at finding the Door. Maybe this story tried to do too much, or maybe it didn't do enough. I think this story could have made a decent novel, though it would have lost its whiz-bang surprise near the end if they told more backstory. Nevertheless, it's one of the few cover stories that didn't become my favorite. 3/5

"Fergus" (Mary Patterson Thornburg)

Two teachers spend time visiting one another in their respective towns. Each time, they bring their current pet. Upon Jill's bringing a cat named Fergus, we learn a piece of the life of Eileen, and particularly, her son Fergus. She tells a story she has told nobody: about her husband, and about Fergus. She and her husband were once travelling musicians, married young, and playing shows. Then she gave birth to Fergus, and he soon became part of their show, being a cute baby until he started learning how to play the fiddle. Though, one day, while in a hotel, Fergus ran into an open elevator, and was never seen by his parents again. This caused Eileen and her husband to fall apart and separate. Eileen pursued further education and soon became a math teacher while her husban Colum turned to drink and died in an automobile accident. She claimed to have seen Fergus two other times, once in a shopping mall, and once playing by the street. Both times, though several years past the point of losing him, he was the same age as when she last saw him. At least one of the other Ferguses was abandoned as a baby in the same hotel where the original Fergus was lost, and subsequently adopted. No hint is given as to the history of the other Fergus. After the story, Eileen takes ill and soon passes. At her funeral, Jill meets a mysterious old man. Well told yet confusing, and meriting further analysis (see below). Excellent blend of Jill's narration and Eileen's narration. 4/5

Analysis of "Fergus":

In the end (hint: spoiler), Jill meets a very old man who claims to be the twin brother of Fergus. Now, this is strange, and a bit confusing.

Fergus, may be in actuality a metaphor for Oisin of the Fenian cycle. The elevator takes him to Tir na Nog, and though little time seems to pass for him, more time passes on the outside, thus his apparent lack of agining. In the Fenian cycle, once Oisin touches the ground, his age catches up to him. The same thing happens here to Fergus, only not when he touches the ground. He touches something else, perhaps metaphysical, like "the death of his mother touches his heart" and his years catch up to him, with a vengeance, as suddenly, he's older than Eileen, but claiming to be a twin brother, Declan.

Though maybe he's not Oisin, but Lugh, and his father Cian and his mother Ethniu (the first letters of the names of his parents work this way). Lugh is an entity having three faces, hence the three appearances of Fergus. Further, Lugh's avatar is that of a young man (or in this case, a little boy). Though Lugh had two brothers, they were both drowned or turned into seals, which doesn't really help explain Declan.

Maybe, Declan is Fergus' twin brother, yet Declan has progeria, and Fergus has the opposite of progeria (any takers on what this is called?). Or, if you want to fantasy it up a bit, Declan ages for the both of them, leaving Fergus young while Declan appears to be older than his mother.

Maybe Fergus can keep renewing himself, making himself young and adoptable again, and there are actually four instances of Fergus (the cat being the last) who are all the same Fergus, each time newly renewed.

Maybe Fergus looked like Fergus because of a trait of Colum's family. Colum looked like his father, and from that we could assume that within Colum's lineage, sons tended to favor their father's appearances, and thus all looked the same. This similarity, combined with the Irish "clan" could lead one to refer to a kinsman of exact likeness as a "twin brother" meaning "kinsman of exact likeness," and not "womb-mate." Thus, Declan (is the pun of de-clan intentional?) is a kin of Fergus, and assumes Jill knows who Fergus would be since she's the best friend of Eileen.

Eileen may be confused, mistaking Fergus for Colum, and vice versa. In the end, Declan claims to be the twin brother of Fergus, and he's ten years older than Jill. Since Eileen didn't pursue education until after losing Fergus and Colum, she may very well be at least ten years older than Jill (yet younger than Declan), and it's very plausible that she was getting the two names confused, or even Jill got the two names confused when narrating the story. Maybe even Jill was romanticising it up a bit and got caught up in her own lies in the end. We don't know what Jill teaches. She may teach math, but she may very well be a literary teacher, and realize that having a cat named after a child who has mysteriously vanished is more enthralling than having a cat named after an alcoholic estranged husband. Maybe then, the slip at the end was intentional, as meeting the twin brother of an alcoholic estranged husband is less interesting than meeting the twin brother of a boy lost as a child, and-oh-by-the-way-he's-older-than-his-mom. Maybe Jill wants to get caught. We can only trust a narrator so much, and this story has two.

Or maybe Eileen is crazy. She is, after all, close to death in the beginning of the story, and this might be giving her a tenuous grasp on reality.

Or even maybe, it's a little bit of all the above. Or none of the above. I could be way off.

"Character Flu" (Robert Reed)

This was a short piece. It was also the best. It really wasn't more a story as it was a thought-provoking piece of literature. A nanobot has spiraled out of control, and now makes its host hallucinate people who aren't really there. But, these hallucinations gotta have lives, so they get backstories, and such, and try to become the most important person they know (hey, just like real life). But, the brain, though an amazing device, only has so much processing power, and pretty soon, the host is not capable of doing much, other than hosting a world in his or her brain. So, there's a dilemma: Genocide or Extinction. You can destroy the characters in the mind, but they have become like their own people, so it's morally questionable. But if nothing's done, then the human race runs down, so that's morally questionable. You can't balance the needs of the many, as there are more characters than people, but you can't quite say "the needs of the real," because, what is real then? But it's not a story. It's a dilemma. 5/5

"Monkey See..." (P. E. Cunningham)

In some Asian feudal land (or, as they say on Market Pantry marinades: Asian-inspired), a warrior and her sentient soul sword find a village of monkeys. Only two humans reside within: a cook, and a maniacal "lord" whose strongest desire is to take the sword and go to war. Soto (forgive me if I get his name wrong, I don't have the issue with me right now), the lord, manages to turn our heroine into a monkey, taking her now too heavy sword. Needless to say, she's angered at this. In her monkey form, she follows Soto back to his mansion, and there meets a wise old monkey. The two can communicate telepathically, similarly to the way she talks to her sword. The wise old monkey tells her that he's really a wizard, and that Soto actually used to be a monkey. The wizard turned him into a man to have someone to talk to (since he couldn't talk to his servants), and the monkey soon learned the appropriate man-to-monkey transformation spell, and then turned everybody (except the cook) into a monkey. The wizard gives the monkey-to-man spell, in writing, to our heroine, but not before Soto thrashes about the mansion, trying to skewer them with his stolen sword. An interesting story, though at times, I thought, "Man, this would have been a great Elric story, only it would have been much shorter, plotwise, but probably longer descriptionwise." Of course, I'm bound to think that if it involves a sentient sword. It felt like it was part of a larger series, but to be honest, I've never seen the characters before (or at least don't remember them if I did). 4/5

Best in Show: "Character Flu"

Reed, whose other work escapes me (The Brady Bunch? no.. wrong one) does it (again?) with this piece. Maybe it appealed to me because it was short, or because it was interesting, or because it took technology to the next level. Maybe all the above. Nevertheless: wonderful, delightful, intriguing.

Crossposted in The Eventide Knave and The Gangster of L'Oeuf.

Three Reviews

I've done a bit of reading of late. Here are some key points. If I missed one you're interested in, let me know, and I'll try to remember it for next time.

The Zombie Survival Guide

This book is amazing. It's title says it all; it's a guide for surviving a zombie epidemic. Though you'll find it in your bookseller's humor section, this book, were zombies a real threat to humanity, would work just as well in the section of the bookstore reserved for survival guides.

Max Brooks, son of Mel Brooks, former writer for shows such as SNL, introduces us to a world parallel to our own, or maybe even our own, with an ever-present zombie plague. It features helpful hints to avoid, confront, or even withstand an onslaught of the living dead. It also features an abbreviated history of zombie sightings throughout history.

I cannot wait to read his follow-up piece, World War Z.


Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy

This tome, comprised of three complete novels, is a beast to read. The pages are many, and the print is small, but the prose is, well, good.

The story follows the life of Merlin, as told by himself. Born the bastard son of a Welsh princess, he must survive attempts on his life from his wicked uncle, who suspects a great king may be his father. Turns out, yeah.

Merlin of this book is the "real" Merlin, and those Arturian legends are just what happens when peasants try to explain concepts beyond their reckoning. The only supernatural quality to Stewart's Merlin is his gift of Sight, both a foresight and an ability to see things happening in other parts of the land. The rest is due to his skill in engineering, herbology, music, and such.

The first book leads him from Wales to the court of Ambrosious, his true father. The next puts him under the rule of his uncle, Uther Pendragon, and leaves him with the charge of a young baby named Arthur, who he must hide from those who wish to usurp Uther's throne. The third book chronicles Arthur's ascention to the throne, and the subsequent fall of Merlin. There's a fourth book, which I haven't read, but I suppose from that, you may infer that the fall of Merlin does not entail his death.

Stewart's work weaves a tale that is interesting, well written, and more or less believable. Oddly enough: some of her influence from the first book comes from an (admittedly) discredited source.

If you're up for a lengthy good read (It took me a day shy of six weeks, but there were days during which I didn't read, due to time constraints), I'd suggest Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy. It's not the most amazing thing you'll ever read, but you'll dig it if you dig Arthurian Legend, and maybe even if you don't.


The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye

Rick Grimes is a police officer in a small Kentucky town. He and Shane, his partner, are in a shootout with a crazy man (who may be foreshadowing future events), and Rick is shot. Later, he wakes up in a surprisingly empty hospital.

What is it about zombie media and the main character waking up in a hospital? I suppose it's a device to gloss over the gradual spread of the zombie plague and introduce the main character to it after it's hit its stride. But I digress.

The hospital is not as empty as it seems, though. Opening the cafeteria door reveals a room full of zombies. Managing to escape the zombies, he meets Morgan and his son Duane (and his head meets the backside of Duane's shovel), who are squatting in his neighbor's house. Morgan fills him in on what's been going on, and that the radios said for everyone to get to Atlanta, the nearest big city. Rick bids them farewell, travelling to Atlanta, in hopes of finding his wife Lori and son Carl.

His cruiser runs out of gas, but he manages to find a horse to ride the rest of the way. At long last, he gets to Atlanta, which has now been overrun by Zombies. His poor horse meets the zombies first, and while they're busy with him Rick is saved by Glenn, a young man who knows the city well enough to traverse it regularly in order to get supplies for his outpost.

Back at the outpost, just outside of the city, Rick is reunited with Lori and Carl, as well as Shane. Shane watches Rick with a hint of jealousy as he embraces his family, and tensions slowly build after Rick suggests they move their encampment further away from the city. Shane thinks this is a bad idea, as if they're in the middle of nowhere, the government won't be able to find them once they get everything under control.

The rest of the volume deals with life in the outpost, trying to cope with losing their loved ones and their ways of life. It ends with the outpost losing three of its members.

The Walking Dead is more a social drama than it is a horror story, and it does this remarkably. Drawn and shaded in black and white, you see the bleak existence of the outpost. You see the zombies, and they're gross, but not as much as if they were in color. In here, they're just scary. They're sad. Whoever decided to make this black and white made a wonderful decision, as it does not cause the zombies to detract from the actual story.

Coming up next? My review of F&SF June 2008, and then (gasp) July 2008. Yes. I'm one of those bloggers.

Crossposted in The Eventide Knave and The Gangster of L'Oeuf.