Issue 37 of Ireland's leading SF and Fantasy magazine boasts an extended interview with Greg Egan, Hugo Award winning author of Distress and Quarantine, as well as fiction from the USA, Ireland, and the UK.
Greg Egan
In 1990 Greg Egan became the first Australian author to break into British and American markets in a big way with multiple appearances in Interzone, Asimovs and Gardner Dozois' Year's Best SF series, as well as garnering more than half a dozen Hugo nominations, winning for his novella Oceanic in 1999. Since then, Egan spent three or four years involved with refugee politics in Australia, before returning in 2006. In 'person' he is witty and trenchant, especially on the subject of his supposed 'reclusiveness.'
The seven short stories in this issue use familiar tropes such as parallel universes, vampires and sea serpents just as artist Julian Stein uses found materials for his sculptures, but just as Stein makes something new from those elements, so do the authors.
Robert Reed
The fiction opens with Hugo winner Robert Reed's 'Safe,' an intriguing variation on the parallel worlds sub-genre. An organization known as The Angels transport viable foetuses across a myriad of alternate worlds. Reed is adept at creating unusual concepts and running with them, and his characterization of Bern and her complex relationship with her Mother makes this one of his better stories. Recommended.
'Sing A Seller's Song' by Sara Joan Berniker is a harrowing post-apocalyptic story detailing the lengths the survivors may have to go to to survive. It will be a little too grim for some reader's tastes.
Bram Stoker
Richard Alan Scott's 'Stoker's Benefactor' visits a notable historical literary figure in his Dublin heartland. There will be no surprise about the benefactor's identity, but there is a nice irony to the ending that will resonate with readers. Highly Recommended.
In Gareth Stack's 'Creepdoll' a man uses an android child as a way of meeting women but becomes a victim of his own success when the child doesn't age; the story's brevity makes some of the scene changes a little jumpy, but the story is disturbingly memorable. Recommended.
'Offline' by Gustavo Bondoni revisits territory mined in Asimov's last year, but does it better in a story of a young woman who takes herself out of society in the most literal way. Recommended.
D.T. Neal appears for the second consecutive issue, but this issue's 'Aegis is a very different story from last issue's 'Rotgut.' Both Julian Stein and his fellow sculptor Renee Euryale are bravura characters, and the story's mix of myth and modern, art and legend make it linger well after the story's end. Highly Recommended.
But the editorial team save the best story until last; T D Edge's 'A Most Notorious Woman' may appear to be a fantasy with its mix of pirates, sea serpents and time travel, but it is SF with a moment of fuzziness concerning his mesosphere. Edge creates a marvellously larger than life heroine in Grace O'Malley and the story is one of the best of 2009. Outstanding.
Juliet E McKennaIssue 37 closes with the usual reviews round up by Juliet E McKenna, who takes an in depth look at the latest fantasy releases, as well as some SF titles such as Michael Cobley's Seed of Earth, while David Conyer covers several anthologies, including Gardner Dozois' Year's Best SF.
Artwork this issue comes from Christian Podgorski. In totality it's yet another magazine where the so-called Small Press punch well above their weight.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
