Interzone Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine #226
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TTA Press
www.ttapress.com
Copyright ©2010
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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—A Testing Time for the Test of Time
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
INTO THE DEPTHS OF ILLUMINATED SEAS—Jason Sanford
HIBAKUSHA—Tyler Keevil
IN THE HARSH GLOW OF ITS INCANDESCENT BEAUTY—Mercurio D. Rivera
HUMAN ERROR—Jay Lake
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN—Rachel Swirsky
AQUESTRIA—Stephen Gaskell
BOOK ZONE—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 226
JAN—FEB 2010
Cover Art
By Warwick Fraser-Coombe
warwickfrasercoombe.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 ] (C) 2010 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 Book Reviews Editor ] Jim Steel Story Proofreader ] Peter Tennant Ad Sales ] Roy Gray E-edition (download from fictionwise.com) + Transmissions From Beyond Podcast (download from transmissionsfrombeyond.com) ] Pete Bullock Website + Forum ] ttapress.com Email ] interzone@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 big reminder on the insert. Please renew promptly!
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CONTENTS
STORIES
INTO THE DEPTHS OF ILLUMINATED SEAS—Jason Sanford
Illustrator: Ben Baldwin
(benbaldwin.co.uk)
HIBAKUSHA—Tyler Keevil
Illustrator: Mark Pexton
(superego-necropolis.deviantart.com)
IN THE HARSH GLOW OF ITS INCANDESCENT BEAUTY—Mercurio D. Rivera
Illustrator: Jim Burns
(alisoneldred.com/artistJimBurns.html)
HUMAN ERROR—Jay Lake
Illustrator: Daniel Bristow-Bailey
(dbbcreative.co.uk)
AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN—rachel swirsky
AQUESTRIA—Stephen Gaskell
Illustrator: Jim Burns
(alisoneldred.com/artistJimBurns.html)
FEATURES
EDITORIAL—A Testing Time for the Test of Time
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
READERS’ POLL—Vote for your favourite (and not so favourite) stories of 2009
BOOK ZONE—Various Book Reviews
LASER FODDER—Tony Lee's DVD/BD Reviews
MUTANT POPCORN—Nick Lowe's Film Reviews
EDITORIAL—A Testing Time for the Test of Time
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Fantasy author Mark Charan Newton recently sparked a passionate blog discussion on the viability of sf and fantasy, concluding that sf is in terminal commercial decline while fantasy flourishes. Sf, he suggests, is falling victim to a positive feedback loop in which declining sales leave publishers unwilling to take risks.
Novelist Mark Chadbourn took issue with Newton's thesis, suggesting a definable ‘community’ makes sf more likely to stand the test of time. He lamented the fragmentation of audiences into ‘tiny tribes': in order to flourish, he argued, both fields need writers willing to cross the boundaries of micro genres.
It is dangerous to write off entire genres. They tend to flourish, decline, and re-emerge—consider the fortunes of crime and horror over the years. Modern publishers react rapidly to instantly available and detailed sales information, but that doesn't mean their indicators are reliable in the longer term.
In an era defined by corrosive anxiety, profound unease and free floating anger you'd expect a significant readership for fiction offering spiritual truth and new ways of understanding the world.
Alan Garner's celebrated essay ‘The Voice in the Shadow’ relates the true story of an artist caught up in the siege of Stalingrad. As winter stung and people starved he was asked to draw the witches, trolls, ogres and goblins of folk memory. Fantasy offered spiritual truth.
And so too does sf. I don't know much about the science in science fiction but I know what I like: at its best, contemporary sf is profound and mysterious; one of the few forms that deals with the unknown and offers possibilities for coping with a mutable world.
I enjoyed Newton's provocative piece, but he may have jumped the gun with this theory. We saw plenty of sf at its best in 2009, from writers such as Suzanne Palmer, Jason Sanford, Will McIntosh and Nina Allen. Sf free of the tiny tribe mentality. Sf offering new myths; conjuring fresh and provocative images; and helping us cope with a world of disaffection, transience and loss. Sf, we hope, that resists premature burial.
Copyright (C) 2010 Andrew Hedgecock
[Back to Table of Contents]
ANSIBLE LINK—David Langford's News & Gossip
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Langford in his natural habitat
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Tell Me The Old, Old Story. Morena Baccarin, playing the lead alien in the new V, has a unique insight: ‘"V” is not necessarily a science-fiction show. It's more about relationships, drama and everyday stuff...’ (Boston Herald) Likewise BBC1's Paradox, featuring Dick-style efforts to avert future disasters displayed by a precognitive computer: Tamzin Outhwaite, playing one would-be averter, says ‘It's not sci-fi; it's more a police drama with a mad twist.’ (Total TV Guide) [MPJ] She did not reach this conclusion lightly: ‘Initially I thought it was a sci-fi project... Then I read the script and realised it wasn't. It's about police officers trying to work out whether there is a worm hole between two time zones.’ (Teletext TV Plus)
Frank Frazetta's son Alfonso was caught red-handed removing $20m worth of parental paintings from the Frazetta museum in Pennsylvania, after an accomplice ripped off its door with a mechanical excavator (or backhoe, as they say over there). Alfonso informed police that his father told him to do this; Frazetta Senior says he didn't. (BBC)
Court Circular. B.C. Bamber (who?) self-published a dystopian sf novel snappily titled The Vast and Gruesome Clutch of Our Law. When his father is bumped off by secret police, the hero ‘escapes and sets out to halt the vile purges of Intrum and Justica ...’ Could Bamber have a grudge against the feared UK debt collection agency Intrum Justitia? ‘The firm is consulting its legal advisers.’ Vile purges may follow. (Times)
Awards. Booktrust Teenage Prize: Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book. World Fantasy Award for novel (tie): Jeffrey Ford, The Shadow Year; Margo Lanagan, Tender Morsels.
Terry Goodkind has been cruelly misjudged: ‘First of all, I don't write fantasy. I w
rite stories that have important human themes. They have elements of romance, history, adventure, mystery and philosophy. Most fantasy is one-dimensional. It's either about magic or a world-building. I don't do either.’ (USA Today)
Roland Emmerich, purveyor of filmic holocaust, destroys many world landmarks in 2012—with one tactical exception, the holy Kaaba at the heart of Mecca. ‘Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit [...] But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said, “I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie.” And he was right. [...] so I kind of left it out.’ (Scifiwire.com)
The Weakest Link. Anne Robinson: ‘In Winnie-the-Pooh, what type of animal is Tigger?’ Contestant: ‘A rabbit.’ (BBC1)
As Others See Some Of Us. Praise for a non-fantasy bestseller: The Help is ‘...a beacon in the darkness of contemporary book publishing—in a time when a vampire is the main character in a young adult novel responsible for four out of every twenty-five books sold...’ (Huffington Post)
James Cameron's film Avatar seems strangely reminiscent of a Poul Anderson classic (Astounding, 1957): ‘Like Avatar, Call Me Joe centers on a paraplegic—Ed Anglesey—who telepathically connects with an artificially created life form in order to explore a harsh planet (in this case, Jupiter). Anglesey, like Avatar's Jake Sully, revels in the freedom and strength of his artificial created body, battles predators on the surface of Jupiter, and gradually goes native as he spends more time connected to his artificial body.’ (io9.com)
Contrast. When ‘Ms Marmite Lover’ staged a Marmite-themed dinner at her home restaurant, the Marmite people sent product freebies. When she planned a (non-profit) Harry Potter dinner whose guests would dress as wizards, Warner Bros sent a cease-and-desist letter: ‘your proposed use of the Harry Potter properties [...] would amount to an infringement of Warner's rights.’ (Telegraph)
Thog's Masterclass. Dept of Geography: The War on Canada. ‘To relieve even more of the population stress, the United States had invaded the much smaller country.’ (Junius Podrug, Feathered Serpent 2012, 2010) * Simile Dept. ‘A swirling lava lamp of colors boiled on the screen like a hallucination that the cat had dragged in.’ (Alexander Besher, Rim, 1994) ‘...white sideburns that grew like a pair of moccasins at the sides of his head. His greying hair was slicked back carelessly to reveal a furrowed brow with a long bridged nose and brown eyes that dogged you like a pair of English spaniels.’ (Ibid) ‘Her eyes were like glass vacuum tubes, lit.’ (Ibid) ‘He looked up at Gobi with eyes like charcoal briquettes waiting to be lit.’ (Ibid) ‘They saw two matching crew cuts and eyes as dead as pool cues.’ (Ibid) ‘Looming just ahead of them on the maglev grid was an intersecting skyway ramp that looked like it would rip them off the truck as if they were medicated plasters of Salonpas.’ (Ibid) ‘It revealed Selinda as painfully young. Her nipples were still pink like goldfish snouts...’ (Robert Wells, Right-Handed Wilderness, 1973)
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R.I.P.
Christopher Anvil (Harry C. Crosby, Jr, 1925—2009), US author of many magazine stories—mostly in John W. Campbell's Astounding and Analog—died on 30 November aged 84. The first of his eight novels was The Day the Machines Stopped (1964).
I.F. Clarke (1918—2009), UK sf bibliographer, anthologist and scholar of future-war fiction whose books included The Tale of the Future (1961; revised 1972, 1978), Voices Prophesying War (1966; 1992) and The Pattern of Expectation (1979), died on 5 November. He received the SF Research Association's Pilgrim Award in 1974.
Don Congdon (1918—2009), US literary agent and anthologist who represented Ray Bradbury's for over 50 years from 1947, died on 30 November. He was 91. (NY Times)
Louise Cooper (1952—2009), UK fantasy author whose debut novel was The Book of Paradox (1973), died suddenly on 21 October. Her scores of fantasy and supernatural novels include the popular Time Master and Indigo series, plus much work for younger readers.
Lionel Davidson (1922—2009), UK writer of well-regarded thrillers whose sf/fantasy includes The Sun Chemist (1976) and the YA Under Plum Lake (1980, also as by David Line), died on 21 October aged 87.
Raymond Federman (1928—2009), French-born author long resident in the USA, whose The Twofold Vibration (1982) is dystopian sf, died on 6 October; he was 81.
Janet Fox (1940—2009), US author of short stories—also sf novels under the house name Alex McDonough—died on 21 October aged 68. She was best known for her writers’ market report Scavenger's Newsletter (1984—2003).
Robert Holdstock (1948—2009), UK author of many notable sf, fantasy and horror novels, died on 29 November after a brief and shockingly unexpected illness. He was only 61. Most of his finest work is part of or linked to the Mythago cycle, opening with Mythago Wood (1984)—a World Fantasy and BSFA Award winner—and dealing with powerfully re-imagined mythic archetypes inhabiting an English heartwood infinitely larger inside than out. Losing Rob leaves a huge, aching hole in the British sf scene.
Karl Kroeber (1926—2009), US literary academic who wrote the nonfiction Romantic Fantasy and Science Fiction (1988), died on 8 November. He was Ursula K. Le Guin's brother.
Buddy Martinez, co-founding editor of Iniquities magazine, sometime co-publisher at Gauntlet Press, and author of short horror stories, hanged himself on 30 November.
William Miller (1934—2009), UK publisher in the 1960s/1970s and later a Japan-based literary agent, died on 5 November aged 75. He was responsible for publishing much sf, including J.G. Ballard, while he ran Panther Books (later Granada).
David C. Smith, US scholar in several disciplines including the life of H.G. Wells—of whom his Desperately Mortal (1986) is a notable biography—died on 7 November.
Ed Valigursky (1926—2009), US artist who in the 1950s and 1960s painted many sf covers for Amazing, Fantastic, Ace Books (especially Doubles) and other publishers, died on 7 September; he was 82.
Copyright (C) 2010 David Langford
[Back to Table of Contents]
INTO THE DEPTHS OF ILLUMINATED SEAS—Jason Sanford
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Illustrated by Ben Baldwin
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Jason Sanford seems to be publishing quite a few stories in Interzone these days, which makes him very happy. His website is www.jasonsanford.com. ‘Into the Depths of Illuminated Seas’ was originally published in a very different form in a small press zine edited by Pete S. Allen. Jason would like to thank Pete for publishing that version—he prevented the author from doing the incredibly stupid thing of removing all daguerreotypes from the tale—and to thank the Interzone editors for taking a chance on this reworking of the story.
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The names of dying sailors washed across Amber Tolester in a sea of rainbow-lit letters. When the ships of Windspur languished in port during the doldrums of summer, the names lay cold-blue and exhausted on her skin. When autumn's gales churned the seas to crash and foam, the names burned red in response. And when a sailor on any of Windspur's ships was washed away, or crushed by tackle, or drowned in the endless depths, Amber screamed as that sailor's white-hot name burned into her body, leaving the other names to wonder which would next fall for the sea's slippery embrace.
No one in Windspur could explain Amber's fate. The port's more pious citizens proclaimed Amber a warning to sinners that life was short and damnation eternal. The less pious whispered that Amber paid for the sins of her parents, who had been shop keeps until their untimely deaths a decade before. Depending on the tale, Amber's mother had either spurned a sailor's true love—cheating on him even as he drowned in a great hurricane—or Amber's father had jumped ship at the last minute. For want of a full crew, his ship was lost.
Once every month, Amber walked to the church rectory, where she disrobed in front of Mrs Andercoust, the town's oldest widow. Mrs Andercoust wrote down the names on Amber's skin, compared those names with previous lists, and noted with sadness any missing names. Ship owners and captains used the widow's lists to balance their crews, never wanting too many na
med sailors on one ship. And woe be to any sailor who asked for his true love's hand in marriage without first confessing that he was among the named.
And so Amber Tolester grew to hate her life. She covered herself in long dresses and gloves and prayed every day for the names to disappear. More than once she walked to the harbor breakwater and considered jumping into the churning ocean waves. All that stopped her was the ironic knowledge that without being named on her skin, she wasn't fated to die at sea.
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Shortly after Amber turned twenty-five, a new name appeared on her skin: David Sahr. Mrs Andercoust discovered the name glowing in cold blue light across the middle of Amber's back. As Amber pulled her clothes back on, shivering from the rectory's chilly drafts, Mrs Andercoust cackled about the discovery.
"No David Sahr has been born in the last month,” Mrs Andercoust said, leafing through the church's baptismal record. “And the only David Sahr I remember left Windspur when he was a child."
Amber buttoned the front of her dress, smiling as the name of Billy Martin swam across her right breast. As a teenager she'd often dreamed of Billy caressing her breasts, although not in this manner. She watched Billy's name for another moment until a cough from Mrs Andercoust brought her back to the issue at hand. “Perhaps this David Sahr changed his name,” Amber suggested.
"Doesn't work like that. Change their name all they want. If they're on your skin, the sea will take them."
Amber frowned. While she understood the fervor the widow devoted to the names—like most widows in town, Mrs Andercoust had lost her husband to the sea—Amber hated it when Mrs Andercoust saw her as nothing but an empty canvas for the sailors’ deaths. Still, Amber figured Mrs Andercoust's work tracking the names helped people, so she bit her tongue to keep from saying anything nasty.
When Amber left the rectory, she walked the long way home, enjoying the cool spring breeze blowing from the bay and the morning sunshine bouncing off the damp cobblestones and slate-roof buildings. Outside a boutique, Amber stopped and gazed longingly at a collection of popular sun dresses newly arrived from London. Amber glanced at her reflection in the window—at her hideously brown old maid's dress, at the long sleeves and gloves she wore to hide the names. She wished she could wear sun dresses without attracting attention.