Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #221 Read online

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  TTA Press

  www.ttapress.com

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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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  CONTENTS

  EDITORIAL—Radical Postures and a Real Challenge

  ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip

  A CLOWN ESCAPES FROM CIRCUS TOWN—Will Mcintosh

  FISHERMEN—Al Robertson

  SAVING DIEGO—Matthew Kressel

  FAR & DEEP—Alaya Dawn Johnson

  HOME AGAIN—Paul M. Berger

  BLACK SWAN—Bruce Sterling

  BOOKZONE—Interview with Bruce Sterling, Various Book Reviews

  LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's DVD/BD Reviews

  MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Film Reviews

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  INTERZONE

  SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

  ISSUE 221

  FEB 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 ] UK ] Warners (t: 01778 392417) ] Central Books (t: 020 8986 4854) ] WWMD (t: 0121 7883112) ] Australia ] Gordon & Gotch (t: 02 9972 8800) ] 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, David Mathew ([email protected]) Book Reviews Editor ] Jim Steel ([email protected]) Story Proofreader ] Peter Tennant Advertising & Publicity ] Roy Gray ([email protected]) Typeshifting ] Andy Cox E-edition (fictionwise.com) & Transmissions From Beyond ] Pete Bullock ([email protected]) Website ] ttapress.com Forum ] ttapress.com/forum 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 big reminder on the insert. Please renew promptly!

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  CONTENTS

  FICTION

  A CLOWN ESCAPES FROM CIRCUS TOWN—Will Mcintosh Illustrator: Warwick Fraser-Coombe

  (warwickfrasercoombe.com)

  FISHERMEN—Al Robertson

  Illustrator: Geoffrey Grisso

  (freewebs.com/houseofgrisso)

  SAVING DIEGO—Matthew Kressel illustrator: David Gentry

  (sixshards.co.uk)

  FAR & DEEP—Alaya Dawn Johnson illustrator: Lisa Konrad

  (arthouse.org/art/index.php)

  HOME AGAIN—Paul M. Berger

  BLACK SWAN—Bruce Sterling illustrator: Paul Drummond

  (pauldrummond.co.uk)

  FEATURES

  EDITORIAL—Radical Postures and a Real Challenge

  ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip

  BOOKZONE—Interview with Bruce Sterling, Various Book Reviews

  LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's DVD/BD Reviews

  MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Film Reviews

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  EDITORIAL—Radical Postures and a Real Challenge

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  There's more to great stories than entertainment and aesthetics: they foster greater understanding of ourselves and the world we inhabit, and they challenge the way we think.

  I discovered anarchism at the same time I dipped my toes in the turbid waters of sf&f. I encountered Christie and Meltzer's The Floodgates of Anarchy while I was reading Spinrad's novel of media manipulation Bug Jack Barron, Sladek's satire of corporate servitude ‘Masterson and the Clerks’ and Moorcock's ironic and anti-authoritarian Jerry Cornelius books.

  It was an epiphany. The fiction clarified the anarchists’ assault on the deadening repression of our society. And the anarchist polemic reinforced an enjoyment of sf&f—a literature that took me beyond the life I led, the places I inhabited and the assumptions that limited my own possibilities.

  I hope others are making a similarly serendipitous, frightening and enjoyable voyage of discovery—wherever it takes them—but believe it's less likely to happen today. This isn't nostalgia for a ‘golden age’ of radical sf&f, but an appalled realisation that artistic dissent has been absorbed and commodified by the cultural mainstream: genuinely mutinous work is increasingly rare.

  The clamour of sanitised and bogus outlaws—pre-packaged by the music business—and the hypocritical campaigns of tax-minimising, self-indulgent rock icons drown out the voices of original and passionate musicians.

  The soi-disant ‘Young British Artists’ claim they explore the morality of art and money, but grab top dollar for their lucrative mock provocations. Their anaemic repetitions of the Dadaist experiments of 1916 aren't merely banal and senseless in a contemporary context—they make it harder for genuinely challenging work to find an audience.

  It's the same in film, TV, theatre and literature: the cultural landscape has never looked shallower or more derivative. But if, as Jung asserted, the psyche creates reality every day, the genuinely resonant and original stories we receive at Interzone constitute a shield against this barrage of mass media crap. Independent publishing must survive the current crisis: any hope our culture can escape its corrupting obsessions with money and celebrity lies in writers like ours, and readers like ours.

  Copyright © 2009 Andrew Hedgecock

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip

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  Encyclopedia cabal: Ron Tiner, Pam Scoville, John Clute, John Grant, Judith Clute and some guy with a camera

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  As Others See Us. ‘Doctor Who ... has ... made sci-fi—once the domain of pizza-faced speccy boys and middle-aged men named Timothy who iron their socks and still live with their mum—acceptable, if not downright glamorous.’ (Daily Mail)

  Stephen King assessed fellow-writers in a USA Weekend interview. Harry Potter vs. Twilight: ‘The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn ... She's not very good.’ Also, Dean Koontz is ‘sometimes ... just awful.'

  Awards. Crawford (best first fantasy): Daryl Gregory, Pandemonium. * Newbery Medal (children's lit): Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book.

  Sector General Lives! Public safety news from the writer of a UK patient information leaflet for hospital oxygen cylinders: the regulator insisted on the words ‘Do not use if you are allergic to oxygen.'

  J.K. Rowling was made a knight of the French Legion of Honour by President Nicolas Sarkozy, and profusely thanked France ‘for not having held a grudge against me for having given a French name to my evil character', Voldemort.

  As Others See Their President. ‘Get ready for the geek-in-chief. / President-elect Barack Obama used to collect comic books, can't part with his BlackBerry, and once flashed Leonard “Mr. Spock” Nimoy the Vulcan “Live Long and Prosper” sign. / That and other evidence has convinced some of Obama's nerdier fans that he'll be the first American president to show distinct signs of geekiness. And that's got them as excited as a Tribble around a Klingon.’ (Boston Globe)


  Magazine Scene. The Magazine of Fantasy and SF went bimonthly from March/April 2009. * Fantastic Stories, which folded with the collapse of Warren Lapine's DNA Publications a couple of years ago, is relaunching as a quarterly edited by Lapine—first issue due September, dated January 2010. * Mad is switching to a quarterly Schedule. * Realms of Fantasy ceased with its April issue. * Starburst has suspended publication ‘for the foreseeable future'.

  John Barrowman, of Doctor Who and Torchwood fame, provoked vast outrage at the Daily Mail by exposing his naughty parts on Radio 1. How does that work, exactly? Pictures were ‘relayed to online listeners via a webcam'. Or not: ‘while Barrowman's genitalia were not actually shown, the crude comments which accompanied the incident made it clear what had happened.’ Now I feel I've been depraved and corrupted just by reading about it.

  Sir Terry Pratchett, made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year honours, could only say: ‘There are times when phrases such as “totally astonished” just don't do the job. I am of course delighted and honoured and, needless to say, flabbergasted.'

  As Others Synopsize Us. The Telegraph ‘100 Novels Everyone Should Read’ list (17 January) begins in 100th and lowest place with ‘Tolkein’ and his ‘tale of fantastic creatures looking for lost jewellery'.

  Edgar Allan Poe's 200th birthday was on 19 January; he appeared on a US postage stamp released that month.

  World SF Convention 2011. This will be in Reno, Nevada, since the rival Seattle bid had to withdraw—too much competition for facilities.

  Thog's Masterclass. Neat Tricks Dept. ‘I tasted the heady loam of the spongy earth beneath my feet ... Nothing seemed amiss.’ (Andre Norton & Jean Rabe, A Taste of Magic, 2006) * Dept of Doublethink. ‘I slammed my chain against the pig, drawing the hooked end across its throat to kill it. I respected all life.’ (Ibid) * Dept of Extraterrestrial Studies. ‘It's coming through the opening now! The most awful thing I've ever seen. Vast! Yellow as a slug and far more horrible’ ... ‘the tentacles are coming for me now. It's not nice. There's a horn on its nose and the longest teeth imaginable. And blue hair! But the tentacles scare me most of all. They seem to come from every part of its body!’ ... ‘The gun doesn't have the slightest effect on it. You might as well shoot an elephant with a catapult. Oh my God, its tentacles! They can touch me now. It stretched them out like rubber, and they end in sharp points.’ ... ‘There are sort of pimples all over it, and slime oozing from its skin. I just can't describe it properly!’ (Ray Barry, Gamma Product, 1952) * Synaesthesia Dept. ‘They seemed to hear Esmer as much with their nostrils as their ears.’ (Stephen R. Donaldson, Fatal Revenant, 2007) * Dept of Method Acting. ‘A smile toyed with Cormac's lips; failed to manifest itself.’ (Andrew J. Offutt, Sign of the Moonbow, 1977) ‘Anticipation lit his cerulean eyes with bloody portents for the guards of Dithorba.’ (Ibid)

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  R.I.P.

  Lino Aldani (1926-2009), leading Italian sf author since the 1960s, died on 31 January; he was 82.

  Hortense Calisher (1911-2009) US mainstream writer whose work includes horror, alternate history (Journal from Ellipsia, 1965) and even spacegoing sf (Mysteries of Motion, 1983), died on 13 January; she was 97. [JC]

  Edd Cartier (1914-2008), US illustrator whose career began in late-1930s pulp magazines—notably The Shadow—and whose ‘combination of whimsy and menace’ (Encyclopedia of SF) made him highly popular in John W. Campbell's Unknown and Astounding, died on 25 December aged 94.

  Hugh Cook (1956-2008), UK-born author of the fantasy series ‘Chronicles of an Age of Darkness'—10 volumes published, opening with The Wizards and the Warriors (1986)—died on 8 November aged 52.

  Leo Frankowski (1943-2008), US author of over a dozen sf novels beginning with The Cross-Time Engineer (1986), died on 25 December; he was 65.

  Stuart Gordon (Richard A.S. Gordon, 1947-2009), Scots-born writer whose 1965 sf debut was in New Worlds and whose novels included Time Story (1972) and the Eyes trilogy beginning with One-Eye (1973), died on 7 February. He was 61.

  Patrick McGoohan (1928-2009), co-creator and star of the unforgettable cult TV series The Prisoner (1967-1968), died on 13 January. He was 80.

  Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008), UK poet whose sf novel was the near-future dystopia The Bodyguard (1970), died on 20 December aged 76.

  Angela Morley (1924-2009), UK-born transsexual composer whose genre work included E.T. and the first two Star Wars films, and who as Wally Stott was musical director and band conductor of The Goon Show, died on 14 January; she was 84.

  John Mortimer (1923-2009), UK author, playwright, barrister and much-loved public figure best known for creating Rumpole of the Bailey, died on 16 January aged 85. Genre link: his script work on The Innocents (1961), a film adaptation of The Turn of the Screw.

  Oliver Postgate (1925-2008), UK creator (usually with Peter Firmin, as ‘Smallfilms') of many beloved animated TV series for children, died on 8 December aged 83. These much-repeated programmes include Ivor the Engine, Noggin the Nog, Pogle's Wood, The Clangers, and Bagpuss. The memories, for whole generations, are indelible.

  Harry Turner (1920-2009), long-time UK fan and artist whose trademark impossible-object drawings appeared both as fanzine covers and in book form—Triad Optical Illusions and How to Design Them (Dover 1978)—died on 11 January. He was 88.

  John Updike (1932-2009), highly respected, Pulitzer-winning US novelist, critic and poet whose first novel The Poorhouse Fair (1959) was sf and whose best-known fantasy is The Witches of Eastwick (1984, filmed 1987), died on 27 January aged 76.

  Donald E. Westlake (1933-2008), prolific, witty and popular US crime writer who won three Edgar awards and the Mystery Writers of America Grand Mastership, died on 31 December; he was 75. His sf/fantasy includes over 30 stories 1954-1984, and three novels.

  Copyright © 2009 David Langford

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  A CLOWN ESCAPES FROM CIRCUS TOWN—Will Mcintosh

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  Illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe

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  This is Will's sixth appearance in Interzone. His stories have also appeared in Asimov's, Strange Horizons, Black Static, Science Fiction: Best of the Year 2008 and 2009, and others. He is at work on a novel based on his Interzone story ‘Soft Apocalypse'.

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  Beaners tied the pillowcase to the end of a fiberglass rod he'd cut from his cot, then slid the rod down the neck of his crepe-collared shirt and into the waistband of his patched, baggy pants, careful not to scrape his ass with the splintered end. The pillowcase held a change of clothes and some clown chow.

  Glancing around to make sure no one from Management had wandered into the tent, he gripped a sharpened butter knife between his teeth, wrapped his arms around the massive tent post, and shimmied upward, toward the billowing folds of the tent roof, striped red and white when sunlight filtered through the silky fabric, but only grey and dark grey now. His grunts of exertion drowned the thunderous snores of his brother clowns.

  From fifty feet up, the vast grid of tiny rectangles was almost beautiful. The pattern was imperfect, however, because the cots closest to the shithouse were not splashed with the bright red and blue and yellow of sleeping clowns. They were empty. They'd been full of clowns last night, but a hundred or so had disappeared around chow time, and, if the past was any gauge, they would never be heard from again.

  Beaners sorely wanted to know where they went—that was why he was climbing a tent pole. Clowns shouldn't just disappear.

  If Beaners had been more introspective, he might have admitted that he also wanted to breathe fresh air, to gaze at landscapes unclotted by clowns. He was so sick of their giant eggplant feet, their chorus of rolling snores and whistled exhales, the cotton-candy stink of their unwashed armpits and sex-starved pillow ejaculations.

  Clutching the post with one white-gloved hand, Beaners pulled the knife from his mouth and stabbed the tent fabric, opening an incision. The mate
rial drooped on either side, exposing a crescent of black sky and moonlight. He sighed with relief that the breach-detector, as he'd guessed, didn't extend to the tent ceiling. He tossed the fiberglass pole up and out, then gripped the edge of the rent fabric with one hand, and swung his balloon-sized foot up through the hole, and rolled onto his back, panting.

  The ride down the outside of the tent was harrowing. His rubbery face flapped in the wind as the ground hurtled toward him. He landed hard, then staggered to his feet, weaving like a punch-drunk strongman. When he had regained his wits, he vaulted over the motion detectors and ran for his life.

  Beaners skidded around the corner of the Snake Charmer's shack, and paused, panting, pressed up against the wall like a knife thrower's assistant. All was quiet. He cut through an animal tent to stay out of sight. Lions and tigers, giraffes and elephants lay sleeping in an indiscriminate tangle. From what Beaners had heard, all of them were somehow grown from pigs, all ate the same chow and had no interest in eating each other.

  The whites of his face red with strain, Beaners shoved a trampoline out of the acrobatics tent and into the moonlight. He scaled a support pole on the tent, surveyed Circus

  Town from on high for a moment, then launched himself at the trampoline. He soared up and over the wall and its defenses, hit the ground at a bad angle. His open mouth cracked shut and he rolled backward, down a brambly ravine and over a bank, landing with a splash in a shallow stream.

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  A town came into view, mounds of debris piled against its wall, evidently tossed from inside. Even from a distance Beaners recognized what the piles were. The smell gave it away, if nothing else. And even from a distance, it was not the least bit beautiful, despite the way the steel helmets and chain mail glistened in the late afternoon sun. Beaners knew which town was behind this wall: Medieval Village.

  He shifted course, planning to skirt around the pile of bodies, and maybe the entire village, but then he noticed a lone figure, sitting up against a tree near the carnage. It was not a knight. In fact—Beaners squinted—it appeared to be a superhero. Judging from the bright green skin-tight outfit, a Green Arrow.