Interzone continues it's record-breaking run with five new stories, three of them by debutants, extending a notable trend - almost half of the stories to appear in the last eighteen months have been by writers new to the pages of the magazine.
Fiction
'Mannikin' by Paul Evanby takes place on a Dutch-owned Carribean Island at about the time the US declared independence. Killian has created a pseudo-man or 'mannikin' and is looking to perfect the technique, while the Dutch West Indies Company is eager to underwrite the venture as a route to a cheaper alternative to slavery. As a scientist, Killian completely overlooks the ethical implications to his research until disaster strikes. Evanby's Dutch perspective adds another layer of strangeness to this exotic secret history blended with pseudo-science fiction. Illustrated by Ben Baldwin, its a terrific start to the issue. Highly Recommended.
Antony Mann's 'Candy Moments' tells of a mystery building where those struggling wth life can shed the memories that trouble them. Becker is an alcoholic who meets Molly Briar, trying to cope with the fact that her sister is a slate, addicted to losing her memories, until there is nothing left of the personality. Their love affair is wrecked by Becker's inability to cope with the death of his wife, so Becker visits The Hub, the mystery building. It has good dialogue and characterization, although the central premise feels more as if it's been crowbarred into place to justify the story than because it really fits.
Toby Litt
Toby Litt's 'The Melancholy' perfectly describes the tone of this fine, poignant piece first performed on BBC Radio 4; sixty years in the future humanity explores the solar system via Applications beamed to hardware that's already been dropped onto its destination. At the end of the tour the Application returns -- until one particular such Application goes AWOL. Recommended, and beautifully illustrated by Paul Drummond.
According to her accompanying bio, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is a Filipina writer and mother living in Holland, and this sense of displacement from the mother country runs through her debut, 'Alternate Girl's Expatriate Life.' The eponymous heroine is a robot housewife without a country who dreams of repatriation, and who is offered the chance to resurrect the mind of her 'Father.' A lovely meditation on homesickness and our society's reliance on built-in obsolescence. Recommended.
Jim Hawkins
In 'Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Matter' by Jim Hawkins, an orchestra aboard a starship doubles as a special forces death squad working for Earth to murder, main and regime change colonies into line. Conceptually it's Starship Troopers (minus Heinlein's absurd politic) crossed with The Stainless Steel Rat and Last Night of the Proms. But it's Mike Alexander and Cherry Rogers' foul-mouthed spot-on narration that lifts it still further above the norm:
I've been teaching Kovak to swear in English, and he's coming on well...swearing is a sforzando mark on the music Swearing is italics. Swearing is bold. If you're one of those tossers who says swearing is a lazy use of language, I say go off into your bland mezzo-forte...
It's one of the best stories of the year.
Ansible Link
Ansible Link by David Langford provides the usual round of obituaries, smattering of general news and bolstering of paranoia toward those outside the genre. Hopefully, in the next issue he will mention the Edge Hill Prize...
In this issue's Book Zone Maureen Kinkaid Speller interviews Jeff VanderMeer and reviews his latest Ambergris novel Finch. Other reviews include Kraken by China Miéville, Michael Cobley's The Orphaned Worlds, New Model Army by Adam Roberts, and first UK releases for Chris Beckett's The Holy Machine and Declare by Tim Powers.
Meanwhile, visual SF is covered by Tony Lee's Laser Fodder, which provides DVD and Blu-ray reviews of Mulan, The Lovely Bones, Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief and Shutter Island among others. Rather surprisingly, Lee likes Warehouse 13: Season 1 and the final series of Ashes to Ashes.
Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe has film reviews of Iron Man 2, Shrek Forever After, and Prince of Persia, as well as several others.
The cover illustration is the fourth panel of six connected images by Warwick Fraser-Coombe which at the end of the year will complete a new, much larger image called 'Playground (Hide and Seek)'.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
