Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #212
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TTA Press
www.ttapress.com
Copyright ©
First published in 2007
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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INTERZONE
SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
ISSUE 212
SEP-OCT 2007
Cover Art
Light In The Dark
By Osvaldo Gonzalez
pixelium-art.com
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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: © 2007 Interzone and its contributors Distribution: UK: Warners (t: 01778 392417) Central Books (t: 020 8986 4854) WWMD (t: 0121 7883112) USA/Canada: Ubiquity (t: 718-875-5491) Disticor (t: 905-619-6565) Australia: Gordon & Gotch (t: 02 9972 8800) If any shop doesn't stock Interzone please ask them to order it, or buy it from one of several online mail order distributors ... or subscribe!
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Editors: Andrew Hedgecock, Jetse de Vries, Andy Cox (editorial@ttapress.demon.co.uk) Assistant Editors: Liz Williams, David Mathew Book Reviews Editor: Paul Raven Proofreader: Peter Tennant Advertising and Publicity: Roy Gray (roy@ttapress.demon.co.uk) Typefondler: Andy Cox E-IZ: Pete Bullock Website & Forum: ttapress.com Subscriptions: The number on your mailing label refers to the last issue of your subscription. If it is due for renewal you will see a reminder on the centre pages pullout. Please renew promptly!
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CONTENTS
INTERFACE (EDITORIAL, NEWS)
EDITORIAL—Paul Raven On Book Reviews
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF INTERZONE—Various Contributors
INTERMISSION (STORIES)
FEELINGS OF THE FLESH—Douglas Elliott Cohen
Illustrator: Warwick Fraser-Coombe
ACK-ACK MACAQUE—Gareth Lyn Powell
Illustrator: SMS
A HANDFUL OF PEARLS—Beth Bernobich
Illustrator: Jesse Speak (pikzel.co.uk)
DADA JIHAD—Will McIntosh
Illustrator: Chris Nurse (blackengine.co.uk)
THE ALGORITHM—Tim Akers
Illustrator: Warwick Fraser-Coombe
INTERLOCUTIONS (REVIEWS)
MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Regular Review of the Latest Films laser fodder—Tony Lee's Regular Review of DVD Releases
SCORES—John Clute's Regular Review of the Latest Books
CHARLES STROSS—Talks About His Work to Kevin Stone
BOOKZONE—More of the Latest Books Reviewed
PODZONE—Paul S. Jenkins's Regular Review of Podcasts
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL—Paul Raven On Book Reviews
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF INTERZONE—Various Contributors
FEELINGS OF THE FLESH—Douglas Elliott Cohen
ACK-ACK MACAQUE—Gareth Lyn Powell
A HANDFUL OF PEARLS—Beth Bernobich
DADA JIHAD—Will McIntosh
THE ALGORITHM—Tim Akers
MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Regular Review of the Latest Films
LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's Regular Review of DVD Releases
SCORES—John Clute's Regular Review of the Latest Books
CHARLES STROSS—Talks About His Work to Kevin Stone
BOOKZONE—More of the Latest Books Reviewed
PODZONE—Paul S. Jenkins's Regular Review of Podcasts
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EDITORIAL—Paul Raven On Book Reviews
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What the hell are book reviews good for anyway?
There's a question that's been asked far and wide in the last few years, in print and on the internet—and, as far as I can tell, has yet to be settled to everyone's satisfaction.
So, as I prepare to take over from the wonderful Sandy Auden as Interzone's book reviews editor, what am I looking for in the content I deliver for the magazine? To answer that, I'm going to shamelessly paraphrase Paul Kincaid, one of the team of superb writers I have inherited:
A book review should be honest, defensible, and well written.
Those properties overlap and interlink, of course—especially honesty and defensibility.
There's an argument that says all fiction is a dialogue between the writer and the reader.
I think we can extrapolate to say that science fiction—as a body of work—is a dialogue between authors and fans, but also between authors and authors, and between fans and fans. Neither group can survive without the other.
So where do reviewers fit into the picture? To the side, perhaps? Squeezed into the middle? I believe they're scattered throughout the mass: some reviewers are authors; some are fans; some are both. Science fiction has always thrived on the discourse produced.
With fiction, as with all art, one person's meat is another person's poison. That applies to reviewers, too—because they are readers first.
But they are writing for readers—readers like you, readers whom I believe are smart and informed and passionate enough about their reading to treat a book review as what it is: one person's informed and reasoned opinion.
That's why we don't mark books out of five. That's why we don't regurgitate plot synopses and press releases. We believe you desire—and deserve—better than that. And that the books, and the genre that nurtures them, deserve it too.
And I'm looking forward to continuing the Interzone tradition of delivering intelligent and critical reviews. But I'd like you to drop into the website forum (ttapress.com/forum) to tell us how you think we're doing—after all, it's your magazine too.
Copyright © 2007 Paul Raven
[Back to Table of Contents]
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
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Did You Notice? ‘...science fiction, the genre that lit the way for a nervous mankind as it crept through the shadows of the 20th century, has suddenly and entirely ceased to matter.’ (Discover, July)
J.G. Ballard featured in the Popbitch celeb-gossip mailing for ‘...The Drowned World, a fictional account of a flooded London, “a garbage filled swamp". This week London has been under flood alert, with the water full of with [sic] human sewage and bacteria. / Coincidentally, Ballard's own street in Shepperton is under threat...’ Our author remained high and dry.
SF Science Masterclass. ‘As Breeders Test DNA, Dogs Become Guinea Pigs.’ (New York Times, June)
Hugo Gernsback (1884-1967) was more of a prophet than we suspected. His (ghosted?) autobiography, Hugo Gernsback: A Man Well Ahead of His Time, anticipates trends ten years after his death: ‘Today's eight-year old, with his black plastic Darth Vader Starwars style helmet and his Light Saber...’ It seems that editor/publisher Larry Steckler helpfully inserted that bit.
J.K. Rowling mania even infected virus writers. The ‘Hairy-A’ worm spread via tainted USB memory drives, tempting the unwary with the document HarryPotter-TheDeathlyHallows.doc—containing only the phrase ‘Harry Potter is dead'.
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Awards Miscellany
Campbell Memorial: Ben Bova, Titan.
Cordwainer Smith Redi
scovery: Daniel F. Galouye.
International Horror Guild Living Legend: Ramsey Campbell.
Mythopoeic (fantasy). Adult fiction: Patricia A. McKillip, Solstice Wood. Children's fiction: Catherine Fisher, Corbenic. Scholarship/Inklings: Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond, The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. Scholarship/Other: G. Ronald Murphy, SJ, Gemstone of Paradise: The Holy Grail in Wolfram's Parzival.
Sidewise (alternate history). Long: Charles Stross, The Family Trade, The Hidden Family, and The Clan Corporate ('Merchant Princes’ series 1-3). Short: Gardner Dozois, ‘Counterfactual’ (F&SF 6/06).
Sturgeon (short story): Robert Charles Wilson, ‘The Cartesian Theater’ (Futureshocks).
Salman Rushdie was knighted in the Queen's Birthday honours. Some easily outraged pundits made predictable noises of outrage.
Squidnight's Children. Margaret Atwood's favourite sf theme returns in Umbrella Academy, a comic scripted by rock singer Gerard Way: ‘Basically, it starts off with a wrestler. And the wrestler, he knocks out this space squid. And when he does that—and it's completely a matter of coincidence—extraordinary children are born, on Earth, instantly.’ (Entertainment Weekly, June)
Clive James strayed away from his topic of J.K. Rowling Envy: ‘I still haven't forgiven C.S. Lewis for going on all those long walks with J.R.R. Tolkien and failing to strangle him, thus to save us from hundreds of pages dripping with the wizardly wisdom of Gandalf and from the kind of movie in which Orlando Bloom defiantly flexes his delicate jaw at thousands of computer-generated orcs. / In fact it would have been even better if C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien could have strangled each other, so that we could also have been saved from the Chronicles of Narnia...’ (Radio 4, A Point of View, July)
There Can Be Only One. Sunshine director Danny Boyle on making sf films: ‘They are really tough, they're very tough [ ... ] I would recommend it to everybody. You should do one. But nobody does more than one—unless they're doing a Star Wars or something like that—no director goes back into space.’ (ABC News Australia, July)
Robert Ludlum (1927-2001) ‘is solidly among the most prolific of dead authors,’ says the Publishers Lunch newsletter, with 12 new books released since he died and more coming. Eric Van Lustbader writes new Jason Bourne adventures: ‘Now a “veteran science-fiction writer” is resuscitating another Ludlum character, Peter Chancellor...’ Who could this be?
Harlan Ellison's 2006 defamation claim against Fantagraphics was settled in June. ‘The parties are not at liberty to discuss the terms of the resolution at this time.'
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Thog's Masterclass
Literary Similes Dept. ‘His dust-iced skin zebraed by the sharp stripes of winter light which gushed apologetically—like hordes of white-frocked debutantes flashing their foaming silk petticoats in eager curtsies—between the regimented slats of his hand-built shutters.’ ‘A fierce blush—like two clumsily upended measures of sweet cherry brandy—slowly stained the immaculate cotton tablecloth of her soft complexion.’ (both Nicola Barker, Behindlings, 2002)
Dept of Sentient Cabbage. ‘She walked on to the grocery store to see if there were any vegetables left from the day's farmer's market thinking furiously.’ (Kim Stanley Robinson, Sixty Days and Counting, 2007)
Senior Citizen Ailments Dept. ‘...a ghastly old crone, withered with age, eaten away by malice, disease, and invertebrates, glowing red with fire.’ (David Bilsborough, The Wanderer's Tale, 2007)
Freak Accident Dept. ‘Ten minutes later he was in a cab heading through the deserted streets for the Savoy. The cab was driving past Paddington Station when it hit him.’ (Clive Cussler & Craig Dirko, Sacred Stone, 2004)
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R.I.P.
Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007), legendary Swedish film director, died on 30 July; he was 89. The symbolic chess game with Death in The Seventh Seal (1957) may be the most famous and frequently homaged fantasy sequence in cinema.
Alice Borchardt (1939-2007), US nurse and author of historical fantasy novels—notably the werewolf sequence beginning with The Silver Wolf (1998), died on 24 July aged 67. She was Anne Rice's sister.
Roger P. Elwood (1943-2007), editor or co-editor of nearly 70 sf anthologies from 1964 to 1968, died on 2 February; he was 64. He was sf editor for Laser Books and other publishers, and wrote several religious fantasy novels 1988-1994.
Douglas Hill (1935-2007), Canadian-born sf author, reviewer and editor long resident in the UK, died on 21 June after being run over by a bus in Palmers Green, London; he was 72. Most of his sf novels were for children (he'd just completed a new trilogy); anthologies included Window on the Future (1966), The Devil His Due (1967), and The Shape of Sex to Come (1978).
Sterling E. Lanier (1928-2007), US author best known for Hiero's Journey (1974) and the stories collected in The Peculiar Exploits of Brigadier Ffellowes (1972) and its sequel, died on 28 June; he was 79. While editor at Chilton Books in the 1960s, Lanier succesfully urged the publication of Frank Herbert's Dune.
Fred Saberhagen (1930-2007), US author and editor famed for his ‘Berserker’ killer-machine sequence, died on 29 June aged 77. Also of note are his ‘Empire of the East’ (science fantasy) and ‘Swords’ (fantasy) series. As an Encyclopedia Britannica editor (1967-73), he wrote the original Britannica sf entry.
John Gardner (1926-2007), UK author of many thrillers—some of them sf—died on 3 August; he was 80. His best-known spy creation Boysie Oakes goes into space in Founder Member (1969). Gardner produced 14 official James Bond continuations and two Bond film novelizations, including the sf GoldenEye (1995); he also wrote Holmesian novels centred on Professor Moriarty.
Copyright © 2007 David Langford
[Back to Table of Contents]
CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF INTERZONE—Various Contributors
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JAMES LOVEGROVE
I've reviewed for Interzone. I've interviewed for Interzone. I've had many short stories published in Interzone. I've been to the Friday-night Interzone drinks at The Mitre in Brighton, back when that was a regular fixture. Interzone has been an integral part of my career since the early 1990s. It's been a stepping stone, and a shoulder to lean on, and a home from home, and a fount of friendly advice and recommendations, and the source of praise, encouragement and an occasional, avuncular clip round the ear, and more besides. Through all its evolutions, whether floppy or glossy, smudgy or slick, the magazine has kept steady, being what it is, which is something nothing else can be: a safe haven for the best of not just British SF but all SF. Here's to the next quarter century!
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MIKE ASHLEY
I went through a period when every magazine I subscribed to seemed to fold almost immediately afterwards. This was mostly American magazines, of course, because Britain had very few at that time in the sixties and seventies, or at least none that lasted very long. It's a trait that goes back to the very first magazine I subscribed to, Magazine of Horror in 1965. No sooner had I subscribed than it had problems and saw only one issue in the following year. Thankfully it survived a bit longer than that. But Famous SF didn't when I subscribed to that, nor Weird Terror Tales. Nor, moving on to the seventies, did Cosmos or Odyssey or Questar or Skyworlds or the Canadian Stardust or, in Britain, Spacewise or Ad Astra or Other Times or Something Else. And I contributed to Science Fiction Monthly so that was doubly-doomed. So it was with some trepidation that I sent in my first subscription to Interzone and was mildly surprised when it survived its first year. I was even more surprised when it went bimonthly and then monthly. Something was bucking the trend here. A magazine that could cope with me subscribing. And, of course, it got better. Much better. Other magazines I subscribed to still crashed pretty rapidly—Beyond, R.E.M., The Gate, Rigel—but Interzone went from strength to strength. It was soon the backbone of British sf and doing something to revive hard sf. Good god. Now, of course, I realise the curse has reversed itself. I'm doomed to subscribe forever. Maybe if I h
ad taken out one of those lifetime subscriptions I might just have got away with it. But no, Interzone and I are now locked for eternity.
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SEAN McMULLEN
I suspect that the librarians in Brighton and Moorabbin municipal libraries were British, because from the time I started reading SF until I went to university I seemed to read mostly British books. This was not entirely bad, because while the Americans were good at adventure and far-off, exotic worlds, one had the feeling that the British stories were not far from reality, and just might come true. The down side was that a fair number of them were seriously weird, however, so if they indeed reflect reality it was time to start worrying. I started buying Interzone when it first came out, partly to keep in contact with good, old-fashioned British weirdness, and partly in the hope that some of it would rub off on my writing. Finally I managed to sell to Interzone, and my second story began ‘As I was walking through Westbury Forest, I met a man with a ring or green fire around his penis'. As I stood there by the postbox, flipping through my author's copy, I was so happy. I had finally achieved the British gold standard of weirdness. Thank you Interzone, long may you prosper.
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CHRIS ROBERSON
Growing up in Texas, Interzone always seemed to be the product of some other world. Which it was, I suppose, in a very real sense. It was years before I ever saw a copy of it—the newsstands in the Texas town of Duncanville not well-known for stocking a wide variety of international genre magazines—but the name kept popping up in indicia as having been the original home of stories I loved in anthologies and short story collections. And when I studied the bibliographies of writers I admired, I found that invariably they had a listing for Interzone hiding in amongst their credits. In time, a kind of congruence developed, and the name itself became for me a kind of imprimatur of quality; when I encountered a writer with whom I wasn't familiar, if I saw that they had published in Interzone, I knew they would be worth checking out. It's a rule I've followed ever since, and I've yet to be steered wrong.