Locus, April 2013

by Locus Publications

  ‘‘The Boy Who Drank from Lovely Women’’, probably one of the last stories we’ll see, alas, from the late Steven Utley, is also, in part, a historical piece, following the life of a rakish, handsome young cad from a campaign to put down a slave rebellion in 18th-century Haiti through his slowly dawning realization that somewhere along the line he’s become immortal – and then to the present day, where he struggles with the moral implications of his staying eternally young. One of the things I like about the story is that the protagonist is conflicted about whether his immortality is a blessing or a curse, and that he really can’t figure out how it happened in the first place, although several theories are advanced. ‘‘What the Red Oaks Knew’’, written by Elizabeth Bourne in collaboration with her husband, the late Mark Bourne, is a backwoods lowlife fantasy, complete with sinister spell-casting Augur Men, rundown trailers, and pot-growers, but shot through with moments of surprising lyricism. The overall effect is something like an Andy Duncan story: high praise. Chet Arthur’s ‘‘The Trouble with Heaven’’ is a slyly comic story about labor troubles on a space station inhabited by millionaires who expect great service for their money, and the resourceful, semi-retired diplomat (put out to pasture in a ‘‘safe posting’’) who has to deal with them, all reminding me a bit of a less openly farcical version of one of Keith Laumer’s Retief stories. The rest of the stories in the issue are less successful.

  –Gardner Dozois

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  LOCUS LOOKS AT SHORT FICTION: RICH HORTON

  Eclipse Online 3/13

  Interzone 1-2/13

  Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2/17/13

  Strange Horizons 2/13

  Apex 2/13

  Lightspeed 3/13

  Shimmer #16

  Cosmos 2-3/13

  Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #55

  Aurealis #57

  Black Gate 2/13

  Futuredaze, Hannah Strom-Martin & Erin Underwood, eds. (Underwords) February 2013.

  In March Eclipse Online presents stories by two rising stars – E. Lily Yu and An Owomoyela. Yu’s ‘‘Loss, with Chalk Diagrams’’ is the stronger, about a woman mourning the suicide of a close friend. Most people in this future avail themselves of ‘‘rewiring’’ after traumatic events, a way of ‘‘burning out’’ neural pathways associated with the grief and trauma of a given event, but Rebekah has refused this treatment throughout her life. The question, then, is why she decides to go in for rewiring after her friend’s death, and the answer, or hints at an answer, is given in a well-written retrospective of the two women’s relationship.

  Owomoyela’s ‘‘In Metal, In Bone’’ is fantasy, about a man who can sense memories from a dead person by holding one of their bones. He ends up at the front lines of a war devastating his country, and in a sense documents the war’s path by recording the memories of as many of the dead as are recovered, while interacting with his Colonel and with a journalist from outside their country. Solid work, with particularly intriguing characters, but never quite brilliant.

  •

  Interzone’s January-February issue leads off with ‘‘The Book Seller’’ by Lavie Tidhar, another Central Station story, this one directly related to ‘‘Strigoi’’ from a couple issues previous. The book seller of the story’s title runs a store near Central Station. One day he rescues Carmel, a ‘‘strigoi,’’ or sort of data vampire, and takes her in, causing some friction with his family and some pain to himself when he is forced to act almost as her pimp.

  These stories are ever more clearly part of an extended mosaic, and in a case like this some of the effect is that of one tile of a larger picture… so it’s not quite a completely free-standing story (a point the author advances in the text) but another strong addition to an impressively realized portrait of a future.

  •

  Both stories at Beneath Ceaseless Skies for February 7 are strong. James L. Sutter’s ‘‘Beheaded by Peasants’’ tells of Alana, a Princess of the Appalachian Empire, which looks like a post-holocaust agglomeration of former US territory, but with one fantastical element added – an Oracle that tells the rulers the means of their dying. Alana does not believe she should inherit the throne from her father. Instead she (with her lower-born lover) is part of a revolutionary group, but then war comes, her father meets his fate, and when Alana visits the Oracle, she faces a choice. It’s a message story, simply but effectively put together. ‘‘The Crimson Kestrel’’ by Leslianne Wilder, is good fun, if not terribly original, about an aristocratic woman in a faux France who relieves the boredom of balls and such by doing adventurous good deeds.

  •

  Erik Amundsen’s ‘‘Live Arcade’’ (Strange Horizons, February 7) is a fine story using an oldish idea – the mysterious video game that seems possibly to be real. The protagonist is unnamed (‘‘the kid’’) and we follow his halting progress in this odd game, which seems to include a sort of moral instruction, as well as a multi-player mode. Interesting and unexpectedly moving, in the end it’s more about the kid’s real life than the video game.

  •

  Lightspeed’s March issue includes a strong Lisa Tuttle story, ‘‘The Dream Detective’’, in which a man meets a woman who claims to investigate crimes committed in dreams. Naturally, he doesn’t believe her – and naturally he finds himself dreaming of committing a terrible crime. Tuttle takes the story in a somewhat unexpected direction from there. I also enjoyed Rich Larson’s ‘‘Let’s Take This Viral’’, a cynical tale of bored immortals in the far future who take up disease as a new fashion.

  •

  Shakespeare is the theme for the February Apex. Merrie Haskell’s ‘‘Zebulon Vance Sings the Alphabet Songs of Love’’ is the enjoyable SF story of a robot programmed to mimic ancient actresses, or, worse, ancient pop princesses. She suddenly decides ‘‘I will not die for love tonight’’ – and escapes to meet the eccentric title character. Patricia C. Wrede offers ‘‘Mad Hamlet’s Mother’’, a look at a Gertrude who clearly sees Hamlet’s insanity – and his ties to his dead father’s nature. An interesting slant on the play.

  •

  Shimmer #16 is a pretty characteristic issue of this always very attractive magazine – if a bit longer than often in the past. The pieces are universally well written and nicely imagined, but perhaps sometimes just a bit too light on, well, ‘‘story,’’ so that while I liked a lot of what I read, it was harder to be really enthusiastic.

  I did particularly enjoy Christie Yant’s ‘‘The Revelation of Morgan Stern’’, a dark story of a woman who finds herself perhaps the lone survivor of an angelic apocalypse, as well as ‘‘Tasting of the Sea’’ by A.C. Wise, about a man who makes new hearts for the broken-hearted – but what of his heart?

  •

  Damien Broderick, formerly fiction editor of the Australian popular science magazine Cosmos, has a story there for February/March. ‘‘Do Unto Others’’ is a bracing story of a multiverse told by a woman working for a somewhat bureaucratic organization that visits parallel worlds, apparently with the intent of evaluating the worthiness of each world to continue existing, by means of talking to a version of themselves in that world. This time she visits a somewhat backward Earth, where the worship of Mithras seems to dominate… with unexpected results.

  •

  Another Australian magazine is Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Issue #55 includes a new story by K.J. Parker, always a cause for celebration. ‘‘Illuminated’’, as with many of Parker’s recent stories, looks cynically at a magic user trying to take advantage of an obscure spell. Here, a man and his younger female partner investigate an ancient watch tower and discover the remnants of the work of an ambitious mad wizard… and, just possibly, a remarkable, if very dangerous, ‘‘form’’ (or spell). Just who, or what, holds the real power in dealing with this discovery is part of the question, darkly answered – the ‘‘form’’ itself is a scary invention as well.

  •
/>   And, again from Australia, Aurealis, a long-time print magazine, has gone online. In #57 I was intrigued by ‘‘Monday’s Child’’, a new story from C.S. McMullen (Sean McMullen’s daughter, who some years ago became one of the youngest writers ever to appear in a professional SF magazine). This story is about a strange family of children named for the day of the week they were born. We slowly gather that a collection of a week’s worth of such children is of some value – certainly to the sinister Ms. Alexander, who provides the family’s food but who also seems to imprison them – and perhaps also to the likewise sinister man Monday encounters at the edge of their property. I found this fascinating, though it seems perhaps part of a larger work, or perhaps the prelude to further tales of Monday.

  •

  Black Gate has also moved online and published a number of impressive adventure-oriented fantasies in the last few months. The occasional piece veers a bit too far in the ‘‘Thud and Blunder’’ direction, but there’s a lot more good stuff to counteract that. The magazine published plenty of series fiction, too, and this continues online. Late last year the site featured the very enjoyable ‘‘Godmother Lizard’’ by C.S.E. Cooney, and in February we see the related story ‘‘Life on the Sun’’. The city of Rok Moris has been under the cruel rule of the Viceroy Eriphet for many years, but now the native Bird People have been able to defeat him, but with the unasked for and perhaps unwelcome help of Fa Izif ban Azur and his Childless Men. And the Fa has a particular objective. His favorite wife is the Roka Momma of the Bird People, and their daughter Kantu, this story’s protagonist, is of particular importance: she was to be sacrificed to forestall a terrible drought. Thus Kantu is given a moral dilemma: her life or the lives of thousands? But is there a better way? Kantu is a believable character and a desperately likable exile, and the Fa and her mother are real-seeming as well, and her terrible Aztec-like fate seems appropriate… Good stuff, this. Another series is a planned trilogy of novelettes by Mark Rigney, about antiquities dealer Gemen and his obsessive search for a set of stones. ‘‘The Find’’ introduces his backstory and the reason for his obsession, as we see Gemen as a child, exploring with his sister, until she disappears through a mysterious stone arch. Much later he and his companions/bodyguards are searching for the pieces of that arch, but in doing so run afoul of a King and his daughter… though we’ll have to wait for the concluding story to see what happens. I’ve also seen strong stories from E.E. Knight, Aaron Bradford Starr (a Black Gate discovery who is contributing an ongoing series about a ‘‘Gallery Hunter’’ and his (perhaps) talking cat), and John Fultz.

  •

  The anthology Futuredaze collects original poetry and fiction aimed at middle grade to YA readers, and the results are mixed but often quite good. For example, I enjoyed Miri Kim’s ‘‘Not With You But With You’’, with its view of a future in which some people are chosen to be Civil Servants – which involves rebuilding your body – and an ambiguous protest movement in which the protagonist and a friend become involved – dark and original.

  Even better is Alex Dally MacFarlane’s ‘‘Unwritten in Green’’, an uncompromising look at a tribal people on a world which seems to be in danger from an unexplained environmental menace. Tal-Seq faces an arranged marriage with a woman from an enemy group, and pressure to take vengeance on the city people who are investigating the ‘‘orange sky’’ that seems to be destroying their land. But his real passion is to find the real roots of the environmental damage. That’s a traditional SF setup, but the story is more interested in Tal-Seq’s character and in his culture, and that works very well. I also liked Katrina Nicholson’s amusing ‘‘Me and My Army of Me’’, aimed perhaps at a younger age group, about a smart kid’s plots to defend himself from a bully. There is more nice work here from Camille Alexa, Danika Dinsmore, Leah Thomas, and the team of Sandra McDonald & Stephen D. Covey.

  Recommended Stories:

  ‘‘Live Arcade’’, Erik Amundsen (Strange Horizons 2/7/13)

  ‘‘Do Unto Others’’, Damien Broderick (Cosmos 1-2/13)

  ‘‘Life on the Sun’’, C.S.E. Cooney (Black Gate 2/10/13)

  ‘‘Unwritten in Green’’, Alex Dally MacFarlane (Futuredaze)

  ‘‘Illuminated’’, K.J. Parker (Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #55)

  ‘‘The Book Seller’’, Lavie Tidhar (Interzone 1-2/13)

  ‘‘The Dream Detective’’, Lisa Tuttle (Lightspeed 3/13)

  ‘‘Mad Hamlet’s Mother’’, Patricia C. Wrede (Apex 2/13)

  ‘‘Loss, with Chalk Diagrams’’, E. Lily Yu (Eclipse Online 3/13)

  –Rich Horton

  Semiprofessional magazines, fiction fanzines, original collections, original anthologies, plus new stories in outside sources should be sent to Rich Horton, 653 Yeddo Ave., Webster Groves MO 63119, , for review.

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  LOCUS LOOKS AT BOOKS: GARY K. WOLFE

  River of Stars, Guy Gavriel Kay (Roc 978-0-45146497-2, $26.95, 636pp, hc), April 2013.

  A Stranger in Olondria (Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevick of Tyom), Sofia Samatar (Small Beer 978-1-931520-76-8, $16.00, 285pp, tp) April 2013. [Order from Small Beer Press, 150 Pleasant Street #306, Easthampton MA 01027; .]

  The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Night Shade 978-1597804592, $19.99, 600pp, tp) March 2013. [Order from Night Shade Books, 1661 Tennessee Street, #3H, San Francisco CA 94107; .]

  SHORT TAKE

  Benchmarks Continued: The F&SF ‘‘Books’’ Columns, Volume 1, 1975-1982, Algis Budrys (Ansible Editions 978-1-300-34659-3, $20.00, 267pp, tp), November 2012. [Order from Ansible Editions; .]

  I’ve never entirely understood the amount of discussion generated by Guy Gavriel Kay’s decision, pretty much throughout his career, to closely model his fantasy novels on historical nations, eras, and figures, and then to invent new names for them (such as turning China into Kitai in Under Heaven). It’s not as though this sort of thing is without plenty of tradition, from James Branch Cabell turning southern France into Poictesme to Thomas Wolfe turning North Carolina into Catawba to Joan Didion calling El Salvador Boca Grande, or even to Ursula K. Le Guin inserting Orsinia and Malafrena into the real map of central Europe, or China Miéville doing much the same with his city-states of Besźel and Ul Qoma. What Kay has done, never more successfully than in his new novel River of Stars, is to show how this technique can be used to explore and interrogate the tensions between fantasy and history, or more specifically between the fantasy novel and the historical novel, which have been squaring off like suspicious cats for some decades anyway. In a sense, each genre provides a cage for the other: fantasy provides a kind of boundary for what historical fiction can do and still call itself historical, while history (or at least a credible presentation of historical processes) can provide a kind of real-world gravitas for fantastic invention.

  Kay understands historical processes very well, and much of the appeal of River of Stars derives from the clarity and economy with which he dramatizes them. I know that ‘‘judicious’’ may seem a pale word to describe what may be the finest work of a major novelist – and a pretty thrilling adventure tale to boot – but it’s one that kept coming to mind: Kay is precise and judicious in his selection of scenes to dramatize, in his skill at finding the key moments that define a character or a culture, and in his carefully restrained yet crucial deployment of fantastic elements. There are a few ghosts, a harrowing exorcism, some shamans who seem to know what they are doing, and a crucial central encounter with a fox-woman, but the fantasy never remotely shows signs of spiraling out of control or being called on for deus ex machine duty, and there’s a growing sense throughout the novel that, between history and desire, history always wins. River of Stars is not a sequel to Under Heaven, which was set in Kay’s equivalent of the Tang Dynasty, but instead move
s the action up a few centuries to his version of the Song Dynasty, which (as a few moments of Googling can tell us) was not in line for a particularly happy ending. There are a few references to characters and events from the earlier novel, but this is very much its own tale, and I found it more immediately engaging than Under Heaven.