Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #223
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TTA Press
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INTERZONE
SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
ISSUE 223
JULY—AUG 2009
Cover Art
By Adam Tredowski
tredowski.cba.pl
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ISSN 0264-3596—Published bimonthly by TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, UK (t: 01353 777931) Copyright—© 2009 Interzone and its contributors Distribution—Native Publisher Services (t: 0113 290 9509)—Central Books (t: 020 8986 4854)—WWMD (t: 0121 7883112)—If any shop doesn't stock Interzone please ask them to order it for you, or buy it from one of several online mail order distributors such as BBR, Fantastic Literature ... or better yet subscribe direct with us!
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Fiction Editors—Andy Cox, Andy Hedgecock (interzone@ttapress.com) Book Reviews Editor—Jim Steel (jim@ttapress.com) Story Proofreader—Peter Tennant Ad Sales—Roy Gray (roy@ttapress.com) E-edition (download from fictionwise.com) + Transmissions From Beyond Podcast—Pete Bullock (tfb@ttapress.com) Website + Interaction—ttapress.com Subscriptions—The number on your mailing label refers to the final issue of your subscription. If it's due for renewal you'll see a reminder on the insert. Please renew promptly!
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CONTENTS
DOMINIC GREEN
EDITORIAL—Roy Gray On Dominic's History With Interzone
STORY: BUTTERFLY BOMB—Dominic Green
STORY: COAT OF MANY COLOURS—Dominic Green
STORY: GLISTER—Dominic Green
Illustrator: Daniel Bristow-Bailey, With Introductions
(Bristow-Bailey.Deviantart.Com)
INTERVIEW—Magpies And Ravens: Dominic Green
FICTION
THE TRANSMIGRATION OF AISHWARYA DESAI—Eric Gregory
Illustrator: Arthur Wang
(ArthurWangArt.com)
SILENCE AND ROSES—Suzanne Palmer
Illustrator: LeMat
(superego-necropolis.deviantart.com)
FEATURES
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
BOOK ZONE—Joe Abercrombie interviewed by Maureen Kincaid Speller, Various Book Reviews
LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's DVD/BD Reviews
MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Film Reviews
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL—Roy Gray On Dominic's History With Interzone
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
STORY: BUTTERFLY BOMB—Dominic Green
STORY: COAT OF MANY COLOURS—Dominic Green
INTERVIEW—Magpies And Ravens: Dominic Green
STORY: GLISTER—Dominic Green
THE TRANSMIGRATION OF AISHWARYA DESAI—Eric Gregory
SILENCE AND ROSES—Suzanne Palmer
BOOK ZONE—Joe Abercrombie interviewed by Maureen Kincaid Speller, Various Book Reviews
LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's DVD/BD Reviews
MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Film Reviews
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EDITORIAL—Roy Gray On Dominic's History With Interzone
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Dominic Green's story titles make me want to read on, examples being ‘Rude Elves and Dread Norse Reindeer’ (Interzone #162) or ‘The Clockwork Atom Bomb’ (Interzone #198) and his way with words shows in his email name, Demonic Groin.
For me, Interzone discovers authors in generations; so the 80s Interzone brought us from Stephen Baxter to Charles Stross via Eric Brown, Keith Brooke, Greg Egan, and Geoff Ryman. In the 90s we went from Tony Ballantyne to Liz Williams via Chris Beckett, Molly Brown and Alastair Reynolds.
Dominic's first Interzone appearance, ‘Moving Mysteriously', in #108 (1996), puts him firmly in the 90s generation and this issue's three stories propel him to number ten of Interzone's top twenty fiction contributors, between Ian Watson and Zoran Zivkovic, with twenty in total.
'The Clockwork Atom Bomb’ topped the 2005 Interzone readers’ poll, appeared in Gardner Dozois’ The Year's Best Science Fiction and was shortlisted for the 2005 Hugo. Dominic also featured in the previous year's selection with ‘Send Me a Mentagram', from Interzone #192, and in David Hartwell's 1999 The Year's Best SF 4 with ‘That Thing Over There’ from Interzone #132.
All but one of those Interzone 90s generation authors have gone on to achieve success with novels. The odd one out is Dominic Green, but that is not for want of trying. So when you've read this issue you have an extra treat: Dominic has posted three unpublished novels on his website (homepage.ntlworld.com/lumfylomax/) and will soon post ‘Sister Ships and Alastair', the second Ant and Cleo story after ‘Saucerers and Gondoliers'. Dominic says, “I doubt these stories will ever be published, but I like writing them, and like a nude German hiker wandering across the border to frighten little Swiss children, I like to share myself with others."
Dominic's experiences with publishers probably have a ring of familiarity for many writers, but his back catalogue of successful short fiction suggests he is long overdue for a collection. So I'm happy to see this Interzone special issue and I hope it reminds book publishers just how good he is, and what a good selection of stories he has. I'm sure he'd come up with a good title.
Copyright © 2009 Roy Gray
[Back to Table of Contents]
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
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As Others Group Us. ‘Like paedophiles and science fiction fans, the far right were quick to wise up to the internet...’ (Hari Kunzru, Guardian)
Awards. Arthur C. Clarke: Ian R. MacLeod, Song of Time. * Boston Globe—Horn Book (children's fiction): Terry Pratchett, Nation. * Compton Crook (first novel): Paul Melko, Singularity's Ring. * James Tiptree Jr: Patrick Ness, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and Nisi Shawl, Filter House (collection). * Nebula (novel category): Ursula K. Le Guin, Powers. * Philip K. Dick: Adam-Troy Castro, Emissaries from the Dead, and David Walton, Terminal Mind (tie). * Queen's Birthday Honours. Peter Dickinson, author of much classy sf/fantasy, received the OBE for services to literature; Christopher Lee was knighted for services to drama and charity.
J.G. Ballard's passing stimulated the Guardian and New Yorker to publish what seemed to be new Ballard stories rushed straight from the deathbed. Both had appeared in Interzone in 1996 (one reprinted from Ambit, 1984). Meanwhile, Ballard's US editor defended his reputation against a vile slur: ‘His fabulistic style led people to review his work as science fiction. But that's like calling Brave New World science fiction, or 1984.’ (New York Times) Ursula K. Le Guin reacted splendidly: ‘Every time I read this sentence it suggests more parallels: / “But that's like calling Don Quixote a novel.” / “But that's like calling The Lord of the Rings a fantasy.” / “But that's like calling Utopia a utopia ... “’ (Ursulakleguin.com)
As Others See Some Of Us. Apparently the new Star Trek film changed everything: ‘We all know what your typical Trekkie looks like: he wears a rancid, bulging T-shirt over his enormous Comic-Book-Guy-style belly, reeks of Pot Noodles, lives alone, communicates in fluent Kling
on [ ... ] Not any more.’ (Telegraph)
Publishers & Sinners. The latest by Japanese horror author Koji Suzuki deals with deep unpleasantness in a public toilet and is printed on toilet paper. (Telegraph, 25 May) [AIP] Must ... restrain ... comment.
Terry Bisson notes how the world sees sf. ‘News opinionator Keith Olberman on the US torture memos: “Today, Mr President, in acknowledging these science-fiction-like documents, you said that...” etc.'
The Universe Next Door. ‘There's been widespread condemnation of North Yorkshire's decision to carry out an underground nuclear test.’ (BBC Radio 5, reporting on [actually] North Korea) Fear and trembling failed to afflict the ancient enemy, Lancashire.
As Others Remember Us. Question from quizmaster Dale Winton on BBC1's In It To Win It: ‘Which fictional character was also called Lord Greystoke?’ Contestant: ‘Lawrence of Arabia.'
Terry Pratchett unveiled street signs on a new housing estate in Wincanton, Somerset, which by popular local vote had been named for streets in Discworld's Ankh-Morpork. ‘Personally I'd pay good money to live somewhere called Treacle Mine Road.’ (Metro)
Scandal Rocks UK SF! Shocked by our country's present climate of moral squalor, SFX magazine warned all its freelances that henceforth everything must be squeaky-clean. No more expense claims for moats, duck islands, 8000 pound TV sets, paid-off mortgages or zombie servants’ quarters ... oops, wrong script. This teacup-scale storm was triggered by a hapless freelance (Saxon Bullock) giving a rave review to a book he'd previously copy-edited. Hence the SFX directive to avoid seeming conflicts of interest.
Science Corner. A CERN physicist explains Angels & Demons to the Daily Mirror: ‘Would anti-matter really cause an explosive device? Dr Shears: “Yes it could in theory. If you made a Tom Hanks and an anti Tom Hanks you would not be able to tell them apart. But if you put them together we would all be annihilated."’ Having to keep one of them in vacuum to avoid the annihilation reaction with air might offer a clue as to which was which.
Rog Peyton, hero UK sf book dealer—late of Andromeda Book Co and now trading as Replay Books—warns that the End Times are closing in: ‘I'm desperately trying to fully retire at the end of the year (honest!) ... Novacon 39 [November 2009] will be the last convention I sell books at.'
Publicity Savvy. A 15m museum devoted to Hergé's 80-year-old creation Tintin opened in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, on 2 June. Having spent years alienating Tintin readers by legal threats against fan websites, the franchise owners proceeded to enrage the invited media with an unheralded ban on photography.
Thog's Masterclass. Unseen but Evocative Aliens Dept. ‘The alien voices were now a continuous scream of fear without perceptible inter-modulation, but rapidly becoming thinner as though the members of that unholy choir were sinking one by one and drowning in their terrible pool of treacle.’ (Colin Kapp, The Patterns of Chaos, 1972) * Dept of When Things Go Runny. ‘Embarrassment is something I can feel in my flesh, like a handful of sun-warmed mud clapped on my head.... The embarrassment had turned runny. It was horrifying my scalp along a spreading frontier.’ (Neal Stephenson, Anathem, 2008) * Gyropygia Dept. ‘The [aircraft] carrier shuddered. Men sagged, spun on their bottoms.’ (Philip Wylie, The Answer, 1955)
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R.I.P.
John Atkins (1916-2009), UK author of some fantasy and sf including the future-historical Tomorrow Revealed (1955), died on 31 March aged 92.
David Eddings (1931-2009), best-selling author of the Belgariad sequence—beginning with Pawn of Prophecy (1982)—and other very popular fantasy series, died on 2 June; he was 77. Most of his 27 novels were written in collaboration with his wife Leigh, who died in 2007.
John Fairfax (1930-2009), UK poet and editor whose Frontier of Going (1969) was an important early anthology of sf poetry, died on 14 January; he was 78.
Abigail Frost (1951-2009), UK crafts critic responsible for Interzone's design and layout from 1983 to 1985, died at the end of April aged 57.
Hans Holzer (1920-2009), Austrian-born paranormal pundit who studied the ‘Amityville Horror’ case and wrote two novels about it (plus several other supernatural fictions), died on 26 April. He was 89.
James Kirkup (1918-2008), UK-born writer and poet who was long embarrassed by the notoriety and (successful) blasphemy prosecution of his 1976 Gay News poem about Christ, died on 10 May; he was 91. Kirkup published two fantasy plays and an eccentric sf satire, Queens Have Died Young and Fair (1993).
Kaoru Kurimoto (Sumiyo Imaoka, 1953-2009), Japanese author of the 126-volume Guin Saga fantasy sequence plus many other novels, died on 26 May aged 56.
Robert Louit (1944-2009), French sf editor and critic who translated Crash and other Ballard novels (plus Graham Greene, Robert Silverberg and others), died on 13 May aged 64. Authors published by his Dimension SF imprint included Philip K. Dick and Christopher Priest.
Larry Maddock (Jack Jardine, 1931-2009), US author of the 1960s ‘Agent of T.E.R.R.A.’ series beginning with The Flying Saucer Gambit (1966), died on 14 April aged 77. He also wrote as Arthur Farmer and, with his wife Julie Ann Jardine, as Howard L. Cory.
Ken Rand (1946-2009), US author of Phoenix (2004), further genre novels and many shorts, died on 21 April; he was 62.
A. Langley Searles (1920-2009), editor of the respected scholarly fanzine Fantasy Commentator (1943-1953; 1978-2004), died on 7 May aged 88.
Copyright © 2009 David Langford
[Back to Table of Contents]
STORY: BUTTERFLY BOMB—Dominic Green
"'Butterfly Bomb’ is actually the second story I thought of in the Proprietors’ universe, not the first. I needed to introduce that universe before I could write ‘Glister', which is also set there.
"I am used to SF stories where people get into big shiny metal ships, fly up into the air from Earth, and land on another planet inhabited by another intelligent species a couple of days later. Usually the heroine is menaced improbably by an alligator man with a hard-on at some point, and the hero has to wrestle him. This is all good and noble stuff. At the same time, I am guiltily aware that habitable worlds should be rare and separated by interstellar space, FTL should be impossible, and the existence of intelligent alien life has to get round the ‘why aren't they here already?’ paradox.
"Ergo, if you want that sort of SF universe, you need a jolly good reason for it. ‘Butterfly Bomb’ is my story-sized set of reasons."
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Illustrated by Daniel Bristow-Bailey
"This was the first story by Dominic Green I ever read, and on the first reading I was impressed, and mildly overwhelmed, by the sheer amount of stuff in it; I could have filled the whole magazine with illustrations of this one story. After trying out a bunch of different ideas in my sketchbook, I decided to focus on the characters; it's still rare to get such an ethnically-varied cast in space opera, and I wanted to make the most of it. The white guy is based on my mate Oli, who I was visiting when I got the brief for this job. His car dashboard makes a cameo appearance near the top-right corner."
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First off we had to get to the church. Emmie-Lou in her O
ld Krishna was walking home from a solid afternoon's work removing acid tares from the downhill greengarden when he saw the drive flare dropping through the clouds. It was reversed, on braking burn. Whoever's hull it was, it was also glowing red hot, canted at an extreme angle for maximum drag, maximum deceleration, minimum time in atmosphere. The pilot had a job to do which he imagined might get him shot at by the planetary inhabitants. As Old Krishna was, as far as he was aware, the only planetary inhabitant, this did not bode well.
Still, he couldn't run. If he ran, he might fall in the high gravity, catch his stick against one of the outcrops of former civilization that filled the hills, break his glasses and have to grind a new pair, even break a leg. And a broken leg, out here, might mean death. He contented himself with hurrying, helping his stroke-damaged left leg along with his good arm
and the stick, going on three legs in the evening.
The house had been selected as a good fortifiable location not easily visible from outside the valley. He had surrounded it quite deliberately with yellowgarden shrubs. The native xanthophyll-reliant vegetation was usually harmless to Earth life, but the shrubs he had chosen were avoided by the native fauna. The house was mostly made of hand-cut stone blocks—he'd cheated by using as many stones levered out of various ruins in the hills as possible, but still doubted he could repeat the feat without industrial construction gear. That sort of work was for the young man he had once been.
This planet's ruins came in three flavours. First came serene, ancient fractal-patterned structures that merged into the landscape; second came massive, hastily-erected polyhedra that clashed with it. The latter were trademarks of the later Adhaferan empire, the former a matter for future archaeologists. Krishna had had neither the time nor the stomach to research that matter for himself.
The third type of ruin was ramshackle, overgrown, cheerfully constructed of the cheapest possible materials, and clearly identifiable as human. Each ruin had a tidy, identical grave before its front door, and many such ruins surrounded Old Krishna's house.
There was an ornamental greengarden next to the house, where he'd managed to keep a few terrene flowers alive outside the confines of a glasshouse—edelweiss, crocus, Alaskan lupin, heather, all chosen for the cold and rarefied air. He had kept the heather for the colour, and the bees. At this time of day she might be in the garden stealing bee-honey, pinning up wet clothes, cutting back flowers, or even just sitting reading in the single hammock.
The bushes round the garden disintegrated in a welter of flame. Incinerated pine needles blew in his face like furnace sinter. He smelled cheap, low-tech reaction mass. Petrochemicals! They were still burning hydrocarbons!
The ship was the mass-produced swing-boomerang type he had been dreading, capable of furling itself up into a delta for atmospheric exit, or making itself straight as a die for vertical take-off and landing. It had just vertically landed in his garden. The satellite defence system should, of course, have vaporized the ship before it even entered the atmosphere, but it had been a decade before anyone had happened by to maintain the defences. His masters had not sent so much as a radio message for years. There had probably been a coup in the inworlds.