Fantasy & Science Fiction - July 2006
Jun 11 '06
The Bottom Line An all around enjoyable issue, though it probably won't knock your socks off.
Fantasy & Science Fiction - July 2006
The Stories
"Kansas, She Says, is the Name of the Star" - by R. Garcia y Robertson (novelet) 25 pages
"Holding Pattern" - by Steven Popkes (short story) 10 pages
"Billy and the Unicorn" - by Terry Bisson (short story) 5 pages
"The Meaning of Luff" - by Matthew Hughes (short story) 11 pages
"The Lineaments of Gratified Desire" - by Ysabeau S. Wilce (novella) 51 pages
"Republic" - by Robert Onopa (short story) 12 pages
"Memory of a Thing that Never Was" - by Jerry Seeger (short story) 12 pages
"Just Do It" - by Heather Lindsley (short story) 14 pages
The July issue is much better than the last issue, though it's still not among the best. All of the stories are interesting in their own way, even if they take a bit of work (Ysabeau Wilce's "The Lineaments of Gratified Desire"). Some are of no consequence but are still enjoyable, while others are enjoyable in a way that masks the important points that the author is making. I really enjoyed this issue, and even the least of the stories involved had something that held my interest.
The stories
"Kansas, She Says, is the Name of the Star" - by R. Garcia y Robertson
An interesting take (not adaptation) on the whole Wizard of Oz thing. Amy is a young girl, just turned thirteen, who runs away to avoid an enforced marriage in a polygamous society. She doesn't know who her husband is to be, but she's to be taken to town and put on the marriage block. So she outfits herself in her family's scarecrow's clothing and gets away, running from the Wheelers and the Bushwhackers who try to catch wayward girls. The day she left, she saw a shooting star, which crashed to earth, and she finds herself at the crash site. There she finds a girl, named Dorothy, and a dead monkey who apparently was piloting the ship. Together with a local robot and a lion-like member of Dorothy's organization, they try to get back to Dorothy's home, off-planet. And Amy learns the truth about her surroundings. There were lots of cool Wizard of Oz riffs in this story, making the story fun, but I found it lacking in some ways as well. The tone was a bit jarring compared to the serious substance of the story. From the enforced polygamy to the final revelation of what Amy's world actually is, it would seem to require a bit more darkness. Still, it is an interesting read, and a good way to start the issue.
"Holding Pattern" - by Steven Popkes
Tomas Coban lives a quiet life in a small room, his only companions the constant stream of small drones that hover outside his window, keeping tabs on him. Tomas has the face of a former dictator of Guatemala, who did horrible things to his people for fifteen years before being deposed by the Americans. Tomas created seven copies of himself, and given his extensive preparation, there was no way to tell which one was the real one. So they are keeping all of them, with many different countries monitoring the copies at any one time. One day, Tomas meets another copy in the local park, and things begin to make sense. Sort of. This is an interesting, yet quiet story with a lot of horrible backstory to it. There's not a lot of characterization in it, partially because the story requires this lack for its possible twist at the end. It doesn't want us to get too close to either of its characters. It's effective all the same, and completely different from every other Popkes story that I've read. While I didn't love it, it held my attention trying to figure out what was really going on, and that's what a story needs to do.
"Billy and the Unicorn" - by Terry Bisson
Yay! It's another Billy story! Some may not care for the weirdness these stories encompass, but I think they're a breath of fresh air. On the other hand, we've been given a lot of them in a short period of time, and another one coming next month, so they may start to wear out their welcome. This time, young Billy finds a unicorn that only he can see. A unicorn who produces a blue jewel when he defecates, a jewel that he says is just as good as money. A unicorn that likes girlie magazines and real girls (except that he doesn't like them in clothes). And a unicorn that kills to protect Billy. Only girls like unicorns, but boys would too if they knew what unicorns were really like. This is another strange one from Bisson. Each Billy story has a rather horrific thought behind it even as its told in a children's story style. The contrast between the two is what really makes them worth reading, the joy and lightness of the storytelling and the nightmarish qualities of what Bisson is actually talking about. Not for everyone, but they are really short and worth reading.
"The Meaning of Luff" - by Matthew Hughes
Matt Hughes has produced another winner in his tales of Old Earth, this time using Luff Imbry, from his wonderful book, Black Brillion. Luff was my favourite character in that book, and I've been anxiously awaiting a promised story about him. Luff is a con-artist and businessman, a man who lives on the fringes of society but makes a good living at it. One day, after finishing one job, he's supposed to meet Welliver Tung so that she can pay him the vast sum she owes him. When she doesn't show, Luff goes looking for her and discovers the reason she hasn't paid him: she has discovered an artifact that can only be described as magical, and she has bought the house where it resides (as it can't be moved). This object can read a name off of a piece of paper and tell the person who holds the paper up to it (you can't do your own, unfortunately) what the meaning of that person's life is. Luff sees great profit in this and horns in, but he may discover that it's not all its cracked up to be. Most people are truly boring, Luff finds, and if you do truly find out what the meaning of your life is, can you take it? This is a fascinating concept from Hughes, who has yet to write a story (at least one I've read) that I haven't liked. It was a joy to see Luff again, and his interactions with Tung are great. Hughes has also created a fascinating twist on the concept of the whole "meaning of life" riff. Told in an engaging style, this is yet another winner from Hughes.
"The Lineaments of Gratified Desire" - by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Hardhands is a magician who puts on a really cool light show in the local club. He's also the husband of Tiny Doom, the heir to the Pontifexa of Califa (also he's her grandson, which is strange in itself). During one show, he's cruelly interrupted by his lover, a man in whose care he has left Tiny Doom during the show. He has lost her, and now Hardhands has to go find her. But finding her will involve a lot more than just tracking her down. He'll also have to handle one of the strongest magicians in Califa, save Tiny Doom from an auction where young girl-flesh is sold, and get her out of her horrible situation. And Tiny Doom may have to repay the favour. It took me a long time to warm to this story, as the language used in the story is very strange and hard to parse at times. It's also told in a weird manner too (each small chapter opens with a sentence that sounds like the narrator is showing you something rather than telling you something, such as "Here is Hardhands striding down the darkened streets…"). The dialogue and narrative language twists words around, creating a style all its own. It takes a lot of getting used to, and I spent the first five to ten pages really hating this story and wondering if I could go on. But as I did, I found that the story had an interesting little charm to it, with a unique world and magic system. Unfortunately, I still didn't care for the characters that much. None of them were very likable, but they did grab my attention enough that I kept reading. It's not the best novella that I've read, and it does tend to drag on a little too long, but it's not as bad as it seems at the beginning. It's worth working your way through the language to finish.
"Republic" - by Robert Onopa
This story is about a first contact, and the dreadful consequences thereof. A ship discovers a planet with an oxygen atmosphere and intelligent life. While the language is almost indecipherable, they can communicate well enough. But some on the ship think it's wrong to interact with this society. Others dive in a little too far. When violence breaks out between the two societies, the ship tries to leave, but they've brought something with them. Something that will keep them off Earth forever, and which killed a large part of the crew. A large part that doesn't include those who went just a little too far in experiencing the primitive culture on the planet. I'm not quite sure what the name of this story is supposed to signify, but the story itself is rather good. Told as a communication from one of the stranded colonists to somebody on Earth, it's a story of the depths that humans can descend to when they really have to. The twist is kind of telegraphed, but Onopa tells an interesting story that kept me turning the pages. The conversational style is what really keeps you going, as it's like the person is telling you the story instead of just a bland narrator. The only small problem is that we don't really learn anything about the storyteller other than the twist at the end, which kind of harms the impact of it. It's still a great story, though.
"Memory of a Thing that Never Was" - by Jerry Seeger
Nash is a young man who joins up with a super-secret government agency to fight an unknown enemy, which appears to be a subtle alien invasion. After a weird interview, he goes to training where he discovers the true nature of the enemy. And then one of his fellow agents discovers the real secret behind the aliens, one which may result in their entire unit getting wiped out. This is a story told in a series of vignettes, beginning with the end and a meeting with one of the last aliens, with Nash trying to live a quiet life. A goes back and forth between this meeting and Nash telling more details of his life as an agent, but we never really hear a lot about it. The beginning of the story hints at a lot of horrible things, but Seeger never shows us any of it. The ending also didn't make a lot of sense to me. I found the idea behind the story fascinating, but I think Seeger left too much to the imagination, painting nothing but outlines and making the reader fill in all the blanks. In a limited way, this can be an effective storytelling technique, but I don't like it when the reader has to do all the work.
"Just Do It" - by Heather Lindsley
In the future, advertising can be quite predatory. Chemicals can give anybody the desire for a certain product, and companies now have the legal ability to go out and actively recruit customers. And by "actively recruit," I mean they can shoot people with darts that produce a craving for a certain item. Alex Monroe knows a lot about these things, but she's become disillusioned enough to join an organization that is actively fighting this. She meets the CEO of one of the biggest advertising firms and begins to date him, all the while planning on getting a job there and undermining it from within (after finding out what they're working on, of course). But she finds herself getting a little too involved, and when it comes time for the plan to be enacted, she finds that she hasn't been as ahead of her prey at all. This is rather a sick world that Lindsley has created, and just when you think she's produced a story that will make everything all right in the end, she rears back and kicks you in the teeth with the twist. But that's not enough for Lindsley. She not only kicks you, but she inserts her foot in your mouth and twists it a little bit. I loved every second of this story. Lindsley's style is kind of light, but not in a bad sense. She is showcasing a serious issue and wrapping it in an intriguing tale. Her prose is very nice, and the story is a perfect way to conclude the issue.
The Articles:
"Books to Look For" - by Charles de Lint
Moon Called - by Patricia Briggs
Shadows in the Starlight - by Elaine Cunningham
"Books" - by James Sallis
River of Gods - by Ian McDonald
"Films" - by Kathi Maio
Nanny McPhee
“Curiosities” – by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre
Davy & the Goblin by Charles Edward Carryl (1884)
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
hist
|
 in Books |
|
Member: David Roy
Location: Vancouver, BC
Reviews written: 721
Trusted by: 218 members
About Me:Thinking of taking Greyhound? Be careful:
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.