{"id":11666,"date":"2019-12-10T14:38:05","date_gmt":"2019-12-10T14:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=11666"},"modified":"2019-12-10T14:39:04","modified_gmt":"2019-12-10T14:39:04","slug":"clarkesworld-magazine-40-january-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=11666","title":{"rendered":"Clarkesworld #40, January 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ISFDB<\/a>
\nMagazine<\/a><\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nVarious,\u00a0Goodreads<\/a>
\nVarious, Vector Short Story Club<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editors, Neil Clarke & Sean Wallace<\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Things<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Peter Watts \u2217\u2217\u2217<\/strong>+
\nAll the King\u2019s Monsters<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Megan Arkenberg \u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nCover <\/em><\/strong>\u2022 Sergio Rebolledo
\nLucius Shepard: An Expatriate Writer of Exotic Tales<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 interview by Jason S. Ridler
\nVideo Game Sci-Fi Comes of Age<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Brian Trent
\n2009 Reader\u2019s Poll and Contest<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 editorial by Neil Clarke<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

When I researched the previous post (John W. Campbell\u2019s Frozen Hell<\/em>, the recently published longer version of Who Goes There?<\/em>) I came across mention of The Things<\/em><\/strong> by Peter Watts, a story which retells the events of the original piece from the alien\u2019s (rather than the human\u2019s) viewpoint. (I note in passing that Watts references the John Carpenter movie version, The Thing<\/em>, and not Campbell\u2019s story.1<\/sup>)
\nIf you are unfamiliar with any of these, or haven\u2019t read my original review, I\u2019ve cut and pasted the latter into the footnotes below so you can catch up.2<\/sup>
\nWatts\u2019 story gets off to an engrossing start with the thoughts of one of the alien Things:<\/p>\n

I am being Blair. I escape out the back as the world comes in through the front.
\nI am being Copper. I am rising from the dead.
\nI am being Childs. I am guarding the main entrance.
\nThe names don\u2019t matter. They are placeholders, nothing more; all biomass is interchangeable. What matters is that these are all that is left of me. The world has burned everything else.
\nI see myself through the window, loping through the storm, wearing Blair.
\nMacReady has told me to burn Blair if he comes back alone, but MacReady still thinks I am one of him. I am not: I am being Blair, and I am at the door. I am being Childs, and I let myself in. I take brief communion, tendrils writhing forth from my faces, intertwining: I am BlairChilds, exchanging news of the world.
\nThe world has found me out. It has discovered my burrow beneath the tool shed, the half-finished lifeboat cannibalized from the viscera of dead helicopters. The world is busy destroying my means of escape. Then it will come back for me.
\nThere is only one option left. I disintegrate. Being Blair, I go to share the plan with Copper and to feed on the rotting biomass once called Clarke; so many changes in so short a time have dangerously depleted my reserves. Being Childs, I have already consumed what was left of Fuchs and am replenished for the next phase. I sling the flamethrower onto my back and head outside, into the long Antarctic night.
\nI will go into the storm, and never come back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the story alternates between a retelling of events from the Thing’s point of view, and its various epiphanies. One of these is the realisation that its spaceship has been covered in ice for millions of years and that no rescue is coming; another, more important, discovery is that humans are unable to \u201ccommune\u201d, to reach into each other like the aliens do. The Thing finds the inability of humans to do this horrific and later, after discovering the function of the human brain, concludes that is it is sharing its flesh \u201cwith thinking cancer\u201d:<\/p>\n

Those encysted souls. Those tumors. Hiding away in their bony caverns, folded in on themselves.
\nI knew they couldn\u2019t hide forever; this monstrous anatomy had only slowed communion, not stopped it. Every moment I grew a little. I could feel myself twining around Palmer\u2019s motor wiring, sniffing upstream along a million tiny currents. I could sense my infiltration of that dark thinking mass behind Blair\u2019s eyes.
\nImagination, of course. It\u2019s all reflex that far down, unconscious and immune to micromanagement. And yet, a part of me wanted to stop while there was still time. I\u2019m used to incorporating souls, not rooming with them. This, this compartmentalization was unprecedented. I\u2019ve assimilated a thousand worlds stronger than this, but never one so strange. What would happen when I met the spark in the tumor? Who would assimilate who?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is all pretty good stuff, and the story has an appropriately chilling ending (spoiler: the remaining Thing decides to end the isolation that humans experience by infiltrating them all). The story later appeared in at least four of the \u2018Year\u2019s Bests\u2019, as well as winning the Shirley Jackson Award.
\nNevertheless, I have a number of minor criticisms: first, it rambles at points and becomes a little unfocused (which also makes the story slightly overlong); second, the last line is jarring: \u201cI will have to rape it into them.\u201d \u201cRape\u201d seems an odd word choice here for a couple of reasons\u2014not only is it is a sexually charged one which produces a discordant note in a story that features only men at a remote Antarctic station, but it also seems like an inappropriate word for the Thing to use. Even if the Thing (which reproduces in an entirely different way) could comprehend what the word means to humans, it is unlikely that it would misdescribe its act of salvation in this way.
\nThere is only one other story in this issue (Clarkesworld<\/em> was a much slimmer magazine a decade ago), All the King\u2019s Monsters<\/em><\/strong> by Megan Arkenberg. It opens with a woman who is a prisoner in some kind of fantasy tower:<\/p>\n

Before Hunger came, I shared a cell with Grief. Her child was dead. She called his name at night, weeping into her ragged white hair. I could not comfort her. She flinched from my hands, from my voice, from my offers to comb her hair or share my half of the gritty gray bread the guards brought us.
\nI whispered to her sometimes, telling of Uri, but she did not listen\u2014or else she did not hear. I learned long ago that Grief is a monster without ears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is a second woman who comes later for the other prisoners, and who talks of a king and his iron monsters, but I finished the story baffled. It all felt rather pretentious.<\/p>\n

The Cover <\/em><\/strong>for this issue is by Sergio Rebolledo, and it is a striking, if dark and monochromatic one (there is a lot of black and grey there, and I found my eye initially drawn to the light, not the robot or the child).
\nI was looking forward to Lucius Shepard: An Expatriate Writer of Exotic Tales<\/em><\/strong>, the interview by Jason S. Ridler, but ended up finding it a dry and stilted affair (I got the impression that Shepard was responding to a posted or emailed set of questions). Nevertheless, I learned a few useful snippets about an author I really like but don\u2019t read as much of as I should.3<\/sup>
\nVideo Game Sci-Fi Comes of Age<\/em><\/strong> by Brian Trent is an article about a pastime I never managed to get into (my poor coordination limited my progress with the likes of Halo<\/em> and Mass Effect<\/em> (?), and I wasn\u2019t prepared to put in the time to improve my hand-eye coordination). The article is probably quite dated by now, but there is the odd comment I found of interest:<\/p>\n

Sci-fi is speculative fiction rooted in science. It puts society and the human condition through an imaginative filter. It builds structured worlds and histories. We can loosely group its contributions into the Verne and Wells camps; the former wrote optimistic odysseys of techno-exploration, while the latter probed a grimmer (and often dystopian) depth.
\nInterestingly, one of the most notable features of the gaming industry\u2019s growth is the overwhelming adoption of the Wellsian perspective. Societal collapse, war, and the negative consequences of technology feature prominently in today\u2019s story-based sci-fi games.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

2009 Reader\u2019s Poll and Contest<\/em><\/strong> by Neil Clarke is a short editorial\/note about the 2009 Reader\u2019s Poll, and lists the stories published by Clarkesworld<\/em> in the previous year. There are also images of all the covers, some of which seem very dark and monochromatic (July, August, and October for a start):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This issue is worth getting a hold of for Watts\u2019 story.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. I\u2019m curious as to the copyright implications, if any, of Watts using The Thing<\/em> movie as the background for his story (or share-cropping, as I believe this is called).<\/span><\/p>\n

2. My review of John W. Campbell\u2019s Who Goes There?<\/em> (Astounding Science-Fiction<\/em>, August 1938):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWho Goes There?\u201d<\/em><\/strong> by John W. Campbell, Jr.5<\/sup> opens at an Antarctic research station with the crew standing around the tarpaulined body of a frozen alien. One of the main characters, McReady, tells the men that they discovered it at a crashed spaceship near a magnetic anomaly they were investigating. During the process of digging the alien out of the ice they accidentally destroyed the ship.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After this atmospheric but data-dump start the men then discuss whether it is safe to defrost the creature and examine it. The camp physicist, Norris, is vehemently opposed, and his warning telegraphs the arc of the story:<\/p>\n

\u201cHow the hell can these birds tell what they are voting on? They haven\u2019t seen those three red eyes, and that blue hair like crawling worms. Crawling\u2014 damn, it\u2019s crawling there in the ice right now!
\n\u201cNothing Earth ever spawned had the unutterable sublimation of devastating wrath that thing let loose in its face when it looked around his frozen desolation twenty million years ago. Mad? It was mad clear through\u2014searing, blistering mad!
\n\u201cHell, I\u2019ve had bad dreams ever since I looked at those three red eyes. Nightmares. Dreaming the thing thawed out and came to life\u2014that it wasn\u2019t dead, or even wholly unconscious all those twenty million years, but just slowed, waiting\u2014waiting. You\u2019ll dream, too, while that damned thing that Earth wouldn\u2019t own is dripping, dripping in the Cosmos House tonight.
\n\u201cAnd, Connant,\u201d Norris whipped toward the cosmic ray specialist, \u201cwon\u2019t you have fun sitting up all night in the quiet. Wind whining above\u2014and that thing dripping\u2014\u201d He stopped for a moment, and looked round.
\n\u201cI know. That\u2019s not science. But this is, it\u2019s psychology. You\u2019ll have nightmares for a year to come. Every night since I looked at that thing I\u2019ve had \u2019em. That\u2019s why I hate it\u2014sure I do\u2014and don\u2019t want it around. Put it back where it came from and let it freeze for another twenty million years. I had some swell nightmares\u2014that it wasn\u2019t made like we are\u2014which is obvious\u2014but of a different kind of flesh that it can really control. That it can change its shape, and look like a man\u2014 and wait to kill and eat\u2014
\n\u201cThat\u2019s not a logical argument. I know it isn\u2019t. The thing isn\u2019t Earthlogic anyway.\u201d\u00a0 p. 66-67<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After some more discussion the men agree to have Connant babysit the alien\u2019s body overnight, but it isn\u2019t long before he falls asleep and the body goes missing. Then everything kicks off when the Thing is found in the huskies\u2019 enclosure, and the men head there with ice-axes, .45s, and flamethrowers:<\/p>\n

Connant stopped at the bend in the corridor. His breath hissed suddenly through his throat. \u201cGreat God\u2014\u201d
\nThe revolver exploded thunderously; three numbing, palpable waves of sound crashed through the confined corridors. Two more. The revolver dropped to the hard-packed snow of the trail, and Barclay saw the ice-ax shift into defensive position. Connant\u2019s powerful body blocked his vision, but beyond he heard something mewing, and, insanely, chuckling. The dogs were quieter; there was a deadly seriousness in their low snarls. Taloned feet scratched at hard-packed snow, broken chains were clinking and tangling.
\nConnant shifted abruptly, and Barclay could see what lay beyond. For a second he stood frozen, then his breath went out in a gusty curse. The Thing launched itself at Connant, the powerful arms of the man swung the ice-ax flatside first at what might have been a head. It scrunched horribly, and the tattered flesh, ripped by a half-dozen savage huskies, leapt to its feet again. The red eyes blazed with an unearthly hatred, an unearthly, unkillable vitality.\u00a0 p. 73<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I love that \u201cmewing and insanely chucking\u201d description.
\nEven though they finally manage to kill the Thing they note that it has changed shape during the fight to become part-dog. This ability of the alien to change itself down to the cellular level drives the rest of the narrative, as the men no longer know who is human and who is a Thing . . . .
\nThere are a couple of later scenes that rise above the well done paranoia and claustrophobia: one of these is (spoiler) when the men have their blood tested (the theory is that a Thing\u2019s blood will want to \u201clive\u201d); and the other is when McReady and Barclay go to see Blair, who has been isolated in another part of the camp. This last part provides an SFnal finish to the story (in contrast to the movie) when they discover the Thing has built a blue-light emitting atomic reactor to power an anti-gravity device it intends to use to escape.
\nThe best parts of this story are very good but the story as a whole is rather uneven, with some parts that don\u2019t really work (e.g., I didn\u2019t understand the explanation for the failure of the serum samples before they attempted the blood test). A greater problem (and one that I wouldn\u2019t have been able to articulate until I saw it discussed elsewhere) is that the characterisation and point of view is all over the place. If the men were more clearly drawn, and the story told from McReady\u2019s point of view (rather than the semi-omniscient one used), it would have been a much smoother and more effective piece. Overall you get the feeling of a story that needs another draft\u2014but, for all that, it is well worth reading.<\/p>\n

The review of the expanded version of this story, Frozen Hell<\/em>, is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

3. I learned that, among other things, Shepard\u2019s Over Yonder<\/em> has a companion piece, and that Viator Plus<\/em> is a rewritten version of Viator<\/em>, the latter completed as the author suffered a breakdown (clinical depression). There is also mention of a long novel, Piercefields<\/em>, which I presume is unfinished (it\u2019s not listed on ISFDB<\/a>, unless it is the 2013 Beautiful Blood<\/em>).
\nThere are only two comments after the Shepard interview on the Clarkesworld<\/em> website, and one of those is someone who has never heard of Shepard (sigh), a great writer and multiple award winner. (Arkenberg\u2019s story has nine comments and Trent\u2019s article has four; Watts\u2019 story has 153).\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISFDB Magazine Other reviews: Various,\u00a0Goodreads Various, Vector Short Story Club _____________________ Editors, Neil Clarke & Sean Wallace Fiction: The Things \u2022 novelette by Peter Watts \u2217\u2217\u2217+ All the King\u2019s Monsters \u2022 short story by Megan Arkenberg \u2217 Non-fiction: Cover \u2022 Sergio Rebolledo Lucius Shepard: An Expatriate Writer of Exotic Tales \u2022 interview by Jason S. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clarkesworld"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-32a","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11666"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11682,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11666\/revisions\/11682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}