{"id":14561,"date":"2022-08-08T17:38:32","date_gmt":"2022-08-08T17:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=14561"},"modified":"2022-08-08T21:14:55","modified_gmt":"2022-08-08T21:14:55","slug":"the-magazine-of-fantasy-science-fiction-533-534-october-november-1995","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=14561","title":{"rendered":"The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction #533-534, October-November 1995"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Summary:
\nA less than stellar line-up for F&SF\u2019<\/em>s 1995 Anniversary double issue\u2014and a less than stellar performance. That said, this decidedly mixed bag of stories has a good to very good story by Dale Bailey, Sheep\u2019s Clothing<\/em>, which blends the preparation for a hi-tech assassination of a politician with a character study of the veteran who will carry out the task. There are also two good stories by Marc Laidlaw (Dankden<\/em>, the first of his fantasy series featuring Gorlen Vizenfirth, a bard with the hand of a gargoyle) and the triple collaborators Jonathan Lethem & John Kessel & James Patrick Kelly (The True History of the End of the World<\/em>, which concerns a group of refuseniks in a world where the rest of humanity is uplifted).
\nI also found the book review column by Robert K. J. Killheffer instructive.
\nThe first story, Lifeboat on a Burning Sea<\/em> by Bruce Holland Rogers, won a Nebula Award.
\n[ISFDB<\/a>] [Archive.org<\/a>] [Subscriptions<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Other reviews:
\nJohn Loyd, There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch<\/a>
\nVarious, Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Editor: Kristine Kathryn Rusch; Assistant Editor, Robin O’Connor<\/p>\n

Lifeboat on a Burning Sea<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Bruce Holland Rogers \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nAt Darlington\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Richard Bowes –
\nThe Singing Marine<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Kit Reed \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nBut Now Am Found<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Nina Kiriki Hoffman \u2217<\/strong>
\nCount on Me<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Ray Vukcevich \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nSheep\u2019s Clothing<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Dale Bailey \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+
\nPulling Hard Time<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Harlan Ellison \u2217<\/strong>
\nThe True History of the End of the World<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novelette by Jonathan Lethem & John Kessel & James Patrick Kelly \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>
\nNest Egg<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by John Morressy \u2217<\/strong>
\nDankden<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 novella by Marc Laidlaw \u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong><\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nDankden<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 cover by Bob Eggleton
\nEditorial<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
\nCartoons<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Joseph Farris, Ed Arno, Bill Long (x2), Joseph Farris, Danny Shanahan (x2), Henry Martin,
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Robert K. J. Killheffer
\nBooks to Look For<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Charles de Lint
\nAn Odyssey Galactic<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Gregory Benford
\nF&SF Competition: Report on Competition 64<\/em><\/strong>
\nF&SF Competition: Competition 65<\/em><\/strong>
\nComing Attractions<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

This issue comes from the period where the magazine was still monthly but issued an anniversary double issue dated October-November. These double issues usually had an All-Star line-up, but this one seems rather lacking in names.<\/p>\n

The fiction leads off with Bruce Holland Rogers\u2019 (Nebula award winning) Lifeboat on a Burning Sea<\/em><\/strong>, which begins\u00a0with the narrator\/scientist, Elliot Maas, and his two business partners (Bierley, the PR man, and Richardson, the other scientist) at a press conference. They tell the press that have created a \u201cmulti-cameral multi-phasic analog information processor\u201d, or what they prefer to call a TOS (\u201cThe Other Side\u201d), a device which can store a machine consciousness and which they hope will eventually enable humans to cheat death.
\nShortly after this, Bierley dies, and their funding vanishes, so Maas and Richardson use the TOS to build a copy of him:<\/p>\n

\u201cBierley, regrettably, is dead,\u201d said Bierley\u2019s image. He was responding to the first question after his prepared statement. \u201cThere\u2019s no bringing him back, and I regret that.\u201d Warm smile.
\nThe press corps laughed uncertainly.
\n\u201cBut you\u2019re his memories?\u201d asked a reporter.
\n\u201cNot in the sense that you mean it,\u201d Bierley said. \u201cNobody dumped Bierley\u2019s mind into a machine. We can\u2019t do that.\u201d Dramatic pause. \u201cYet.\u201d
\nSmile. \u201cWhat I am is a personality construct of other people\u2019s memories. Over one hundred of Bierley\u2019s closest associates were interviewed by TOS. Their impressions of Bierley, specific examples of things he had said and done, along with digital recordings of the man in action, were processed to create me. I may not be Jackson Bierley as he saw himself, but I\u2019m Jackson Bierley as he was seen by others.\u00a0 p. 23-24<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After the press conference there is a long conversation between Maas and Richardson, where they discuss possible uses of constructs like Bierley (bringing back dead actors and singers, etc.) before the conversation touches on other (and odder) matters: Richardson starts talking about Shiva and reincarnation, and suggests building a simulacrum of Maas to help work on the project.
\nShortly after this Richardson is apparently killed in a terrorist attack on the underground (the story is set in a world where there are constant terrorist bombings) so, of course, a Richardson construct is created with the help of the Bierley one.
\nAfter this the story becomes ever more existential: the Richardson construct talks to Maas (whose obsession with cheating his own death is a thread that runs through the story):<\/p>\n

Irritatingly, TOS started to suffer again from hurricanes. Those chaos storms in the information flow started to shut down the Richardson construct around one in the morning, regularly.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s like you\u2019re too much contradiction for TOS to handle,\u201d [Maas] told the construct late one night. \u201cA scientist and a mystic.\u201d
\n\u201cNo mystic,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cI\u2019m more scientist than you are, Maas. You\u2019re in a contest with the universe. You want to beat it. If someone gave you the fountain of youth, guaranteed to keep you alive forever with the proviso that you\u2019d never understand how it worked, you\u2019d jump at the chance. Science is a means to you. You want results. You\u2019re a mere technologist.\u201d
\n\u201cI have a focus. You could never keep yourself on track.\u201d
\n\u201cYou have an obsession,\u201d the construct countered. \u201cYou\u2019re right that I can never resist the temptation of the more interesting questions. But that\u2019s what matters to me. What does all of this\u2014\u201d He swept his hand wide to encompass the universe with his gesture, and his hand came to rest on his own chest. \u201cWhat does it all mean? That\u2019s my question, Maas. I never stop asking it.\u201d
\n\u201cYou sound like him. Sometimes I forget what you are.\u201d\u00a0 p. 34<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maas then starts to have suspicions about what is causing the information storms, and tricks the machine to make it think he has left the building. He hides beside the Richardson TOS, and then later that night (spoiler) the real Richardson (who has faked his own death\u2014even to the point his wife is fooled) visits his own construct. When Maas challenges Richardson, it sounds as if he has had some sort of breakdown, and keeps saying he is dead and is going to start another life. This baffling exchange pretty much ends the story, and is followed by a repeat of the opening image, a dream Maas has of a man in a lifeboat watching a ship on fire with trapped sailors (him surviving death while the rest of humanity doesn\u2019t, I suppose).
\nFor the first half or so the story is reasonably interesting, but towards the end it takes a deep dive into its own navel. I have no idea what point the story is trying to make and am baffled as to how it won a Nebula award.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 10,100 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

At Darlington\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> by Richard Bowes1<\/sup>\u00a0is the seventh published story in the \u201cKevin Grierson\u201d series, and begins with his \u201cShadow\u201d, a doppelg\u00e4nger, or perhaps more accurately a secret double who normally exists inside Kevin, getting dressed and going to work instead of him. Most of the rest of the story involves the scrapes and encounters that the drug-using Shadow has with the other people at his place of employment (his boss warns the Shadow not to come in late again; he goes to an outdoor fashion shoot with Les; he meets a woman called Sarah who has a boozer\/druggie husband, etc.)
\nDropped into all of this mostly scene setting description and verbal back and forth, is a short flashback scene where we see Kevin working as a male prostitute (I think) and waking up to find his drill sergeant client is dead.
\nAt the end of the story the Shadow returns from a drug deal to find Kevin has been drafted.
\nIt was hard to keep track of what was going on in this slice-of-life, and I have little memory of what I did read. I\u2019ve no idea what the editor saw in this (at best) borderline fantasy story, and wonder if it got taken on the strength of its prequels.
\n\u2013 (Awful). 6,750 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The Singing Marine<\/em><\/strong> by Kit Reed\u00a0is a surreal fantasy (i.e. it ultimately makes no sense whatsoever) that begins with the titular marine reflecting that he may be singing to take his mind off a recent accident involving his platoon where lives were lost. The marine observes that, if he is court martialled, he cannot now hope to love the General\u2019s daughter.
\nWhen the marine goes into a drugstore he is unaware that a woman is following him. She tells him to sit down and, after initially resisting, he does so. The marine then then tells her the story of his childhood, or maybe of the song he is singing, about how he was murdered by his stepmother but rose after being buried under a linden tree.
\nThe next part of the story sees the pair go on a bus to a place she says he will know, and they eventually end up, after a further hour\u2019s walk in the woods, at a cavern. The woman tells the marine she wants him to go in and retrieve a tinderbox, for which she will give him enough money to sort all of his problems:<\/p>\n

It is as she told him. At the widest point he finds three little niches opening off the tunnel like side chapels in a subterranean place of worship, but instead of religious statuary or mummified corpses they contain bits of blackness that stalk back and forth inside like furred furies; when the animals see the Marine they lunge for him and are hurled back into their niches as if by invisible barriers. Glowering, they mount their mahogany chests like reluctant plaster saints returning to their pedestals.\u00a0 p. 85<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The first dog tries to tempt the marine with a pile of pennies, and the second with shredded dollar bills, but he ignores them and goes onto the third dog. There, he goes into its alcove and tells the dog that he \u201cdidn\u2019t want to come back from the dead\u201d and that \u201cbeing dead is easier\u201d. The dog approaches him:<\/p>\n

Huge and silent, the dog surges into the space between them. Still he does not move. He does not move even when the massive brute pads the last two steps and presses its bearlike head against him. Startled by the warmth, the weight, the singing Marine feels everything bad rush out of him: the violent death and burial, the strange reincarnation that finds him both victim and murderer, song and singer, still in the thrall of the linden tree and the spirits that surround it. The great dog\u2019s jaws are wide; its mouth is a fiery chasm, but he doesn\u2019t shrink from it.
\nWhen you have been dead and buried, many things worry you, but nothing frightens you.\u00a0 p. 86<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The marine opens the chest to retrieve the tinderbox but, once he leaves the cavern, he kills the woman and returns to his base, sneaking through the fence and hiding in the grounds. Later, when he is hungry, he strikes the tinderbox three times, and the dog appears with food. Then, as he thinks about how only a goddess can save him now, the dog appears once more with the general\u2019s sleeping daughter on its back. The marine wants her, but leaves her unmolested.
\nFinally, when the daughter is once again taken by the dog, the General notices her absence and the military police eventually come for the marine. The General later questions him, and then the marine attacks the general so the latter will shoot and kill him.
\nThe writing and the dreamlike progression of this make for an initially intriguing read but, as I said above, it ultimately makes no sense at all. If you don\u2019t mind the inexplicable there may be something in this for you.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 5,300 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

But Now Am Found<\/em><\/strong> by Nina Kiriki Hoffman\u00a0sees a woman wake up in her bed to find two other bodies beside her. She realises that they are versions of herself, Fat Self and Little Self. They subsequently keep her captive in her apartment and force feed her:<\/p>\n

\u201cEat,\u201d said Little Self, and it and Fat Self worked together to get her out of bed and into the kitchen. Little Self tied her to a chair with clothesline, and Fat Self cooked pancakes. The kitchen smelled of sizzling butter, and flour marrying eggs and milk. Little Self got out the ice cream Iris had hidden in the tiny freezer compartment, the secret shame she couldn\u2019t resist, even though she had been dieting and exercising rigorously for five years. She still cheated some nights when the loneliness overwhelmed her. Mornings after those nights, she adjusted her exercise regimen to work off the extra calories.
\nNow Little Self was holding out a spoonful of chocolate chocolate mint. Iris heard her stomach growl. She opened her mouth.\u00a0 p. 95<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later, when the woman is allowed to exercise, she sees Little Self grows larger; this cycle of eating and exercising goes on for some time (the woman is trapped in her apartment, and realises that someone else must be doing her job).
\nThen, at the end of the story, she wakes up one morning to find they have been joined by a scrawny and starved and crying version of her: the final line is \u201cOvernight, the population of the city expanded. Trails of crumbs led the lost home.\u201d
\nI have no idea what these final lines have to do with the rest of the story (and, even if I did, I don\u2019t have much interest in surreal fantasy stories about first world problems like dieting or body image).
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 2,150 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Count on Me<\/em><\/strong> by Ray Vukcevich gets off to a very clever start with this:<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t confuse me that the new occupant of apartment 29A was a woman. The Father of Lies is nothing if not inventive. The number 29A is, of course, the Number of the Beast in base 16, and 16 is the atomic number of Sulfur. Base 16 is commonly called \u201chex.\u201d It was all too obvious.
\nCelia Strafford looked to be in her early thirties\u2014 32, to be precise, since 2,3, and 37 are the prime factors of 666, and she looked too old to be 23, and I\u2019m 37, and she looked younger than me, so ergo, as they say, 32. I\u2019m speaking of the age of her body; I couldn\u2019t know the age of the creature inside. She wore her long red hair loose down her back. I watched her closely as she stooped to pick up a box to lug up the stairs to her new apartment. She wore cut-off jeans and an abbreviated yellow halter top. Her legs were that strange golden tan you only see on women. I\u2019ve never been able to figure how they achieve that color. She wore no shoes.\u00a0 p. 100<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the beginning of the story sees some conversational sparring between the narrator, Palmer (actually Brother Palmer of the Secret Order of Morse), and Celia, the new neighbour, as well as more numerology (at one point she says, when told that he used to be in the Army, that \u201cthere are probably 820 things worse\u201d, which Palmer identifies as 666 in Base 9). Eventually Palmer becomes more and more convinced that she belongs to the Army of the Night, something that is repeatedly confirmed by numerology when they meet later on in her apartment. Then, at a climactic moment (spoiler), he leaps away from her and tries to make the sign of the cross. After a couple more fumbled attempts, Celia giggles and makes the sign herself\u2014and reveals that she is Sister Celia of the Divine Order of Symmetry!
\nAt this point the story almost completely deflates, and the second half of the story is a wodge of number and Morse code crunching that leads them to the message, \u201cONE GOD\u201d, and the realisation that all is well with the world.
\nA game of two halves (two in any Base from 3 to Infinity).
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Average). 3,350 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Sheep\u2019s Clothing<\/em><\/strong> by Dale Bailey opens with Stern, the narrator, thinking about different types of assassin before he himself is recruited by a wheelchair-bound man called Thrale to kill a Senator Philip Hanson.
\nWe later learn that the reason for the proposed killing is that Hanson intends to vote for legislation enabling a biowar facility, an action that links to Stern\u2019s own past as he was a spider drone operator in the Brazilian conflict and was exposed to a cocktail of tailored viruses and pathogens, but never fell ill. His family, however, were not so lucky:<\/p>\n

After the war, Anna and I remained in her native Brazil. We did not return to the States until several years later, when black pustulant sores began to erupt in our five-year-old daughter\u2019s flesh.
\nI can never forget the stench of the hospital room where she died\u2014a noxious odor compounded of the sterile smell of the hospital corridors and a fulsome reek of decay, like rotting peaches, inside the room itself. At the last, my eyes watered with that smell; Anna could barely bring herself to enter the room. My daughter died alone, walled away from us by the surgical masks we wore over our noses and mouths.\u00a0 p. 115<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the next part of the story we see (the now widowed) Stern learn how to operate a marionette-like bodysuit that will enable him to control Hanson\u2019s daughter after she has been injected with nanotechnology. The nanotech will give Stern twenty minutes of control and will than decompose, leaving no trace of external involvement\u2014so the daughter will take the blame for the murder which, apart from the obvious benefits to Thrale, Stern & co., will also prevent her, a politician in her own right, from continuing with her father\u2019s legislative agenda. To be honest, the suit\/nanotech gimmick is probably the weakest part of the story, but little time is spent on the tech stuff and the bulk of the piece is mostly a series of scenes where we get a character study of Stern, or learn more about Thrale and his two employees: Pangborn is a female assistant, and Truman is the scientist who developed the system that Stern will be using to control the daughter.
\nAt one point Stern is given a video disc from Pangborn that shows Hanson\u2019s daughter and her female lover in a hotel room, and he later has a disturbing dream:<\/p>\n

I was riding the spider, chasing the beacon of an intelligence comsat through the labyrinthine jungle. Luminescent tactical data flickered at the periphery of my vision. Antediluvian vegetation blurred by on either side. Small terrified creatures flashed through the tangled scrub. The forest reverberated with the raucous complaints of brightly plumed birds, the thrash of contused undergrowth.
\nHow I loved the hunt.
\nI had always loved it.
\nRazored mandibles snapped the humid air as I drove the spider through the shadowy depths, emerging at last through a wall of steaming vegetation into a hotel room, dropped whole into the tangled Mato Grosso.
\nI stopped the spider short. Servos whirred. High resolution cameras scanned the area.
\nThe sun penetrated the clearing in luminous shards. The jungle symphony swelled into the stillness. Two women writhed on the bed, oblivious to everything but one another.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s time,\u201d said the voice of Napoleon Thrale.
\nI urged the spider forward. Whiskered steel legs clawed the moist earth, the bed-sheets. Just as the mandibles closed about their fragile bodies, one of the women turned to look at me, her features contorted in the involuntary rictus of orgasm.
\nShe wore my daughter\u2019s face.
\nI screamed myself awake, sitting upright in the soured sheets, my penis like a stiffened rod against my belly.\u00a0 p. 126<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After this Stern (a) talks to Truman about scientists like Oppenheimer and the guilt they bear for the inventions they create and (b) sleeps with Pangborn, learning that her fianc\u00e9 died in Brazil.
\nEventually (spoiler), the day of the assassination arrives and Stern, Pangborn and Truman set off to complete the mission. The daughter, Amanda, is shot with a long range hypodermic dart while out on a regular run and the nanotechnology enters her body. Stern takes control of Amanda and takes her back to the house, quickly finding Hanson in his office. Then, when the nanotech starts to break down, Amanda manages to reassert enough control to say \u201cDad?\u201d just before Stern breaks a mug on the desk and kills Hanson by repeatedly slashing his throat.
\nThere is a final postscript which sees Stern in the Caymans, where he still dreaming of his wife and daughter. Stern says that he has written a letter to Amanda\u2019s attorneys explaining what happened and why she is not guilty of the murder (\u201cthe daughters have suffered enough\u201d he adds to himself). After he sends the letter Stern says he will swim off towards the horizon to join his wife and daughter.
\nIf you are looking for the assassination adventure suggested by the beginning of the piece you are probably going to be disappointed\u2014however, if you are looking for a complex and involving psychodrama, then this will be well worth your time.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>+ (Good To Very Good). 11,100 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Pulling Hard Time<\/em><\/strong> by Harlan Ellison opens with a short introductory passage about New Alcatraz, a prison that keeps its prisoners in zero-gee VR.
\nThe story then cuts to Charlie, who kills four bikers attempting to rape his wife in the couple\u2019s restaurant. After this he is imprisoned for their murders, and then he kills another prisoner and cripples a guard. He is transferred to New Alcatraz.
\nThe penultimate section sees a Senator visiting the Warden, who explains to the politician what happens to the prisoners:<\/p>\n

Well, they just float there till they die, but it\u2019s in no way \u2018cruel and unusual punishment\u2019 because we do absolutely nothing to them. No corporal punishment, no denial of the basics to sustain life. We just leave them locked in their own heads, cortically tapped to relive one scene from their past, over and over.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd how is it, again, that you do that\u2026?\u201d
\n\u201cThe technicians call it a moebius memory [. . . we] select the one moment from their past that most frightens or horrifies or saddens them. Then, boom, into a null-g suite, with a proleptic copula imbedded in theirgliomas. It\u2019s all like a dream. A very very bad dream that goes on forever. Punishment to fit the crime.\u201d
\n\u201cWe are a nation in balance.\u201d
\n\u201cKindlier. Gentler. More humane.\u201d\u00a0 p. 142<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The subsequent kicker scene (spoiler) sees Charlie as a boy, involved in a car accident and trapped with his dead mother for four days. The story finishes with the \u201cnation in balance\u201d refrain.
\nThis is more a political opinion column than a short story, and one which makes the fairly obvious point that the cruel and unusual punishment of prisoners is a Bad Thing. A squib, not a story, and editor Rusch\u2019s gushing introduction doesn\u2019t improve matters.2<\/sup>
\n\u2217<\/strong> (Mediocre). 1,800 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The True History of the End of the World<\/em><\/strong> by Jonathan Lethem, John Kessel, & James Patrick Kelly opens with Chester Drummond, an ex-politician, taking a train to a \u201crefusenik\u201d farm for those that have not had the Carcopino-Koster treatments (these are never really explained in any detail, but have given the vast majority of the near-future human race an emotional stability and intellectual uplift that has radically changed society).
\nWhen Drummond arrives at his station he is picked by Roberta, a woman from the farm who has had the C-K treatment, and travels to their destination along with another new inmate, the charismatic Brother Emil Sangar.
\nAfter they arrive, Sangar, who wants society back the way it was, goes to see Drummond, who has similar plans. Sangar tells Drummond that there is a woman called Elizabeth Wiley at the farm who, after an accident, reverted to pre C-K state and did not want to undergo the process again. Sangar wants to recruit her as he thinks her perspective will prove useful (he describes her as \u201cthe Holy Grail\u201d). Later, the pair meet Elizabeth, who says she is in communication with the Virgin Mary (she says she gets messages in the veins of leaves), as well the farm\u2019s other inmates (one is an SF writer \u201cwho predicted this\u201d but \u201cmy books never sold\u201d).
\nFurther on in the story Drummond learns from Roberta, to his surprise, that he isn\u2019t a prisoner at the camp and can leave any time he wants (she adds that there are only two C-K people at the camp and that they are there as helpers, not as guards). Roberta also tells him about a therapy class, and Drummond\u2019s subsequent visit there (most of chapter 5) is the highlight of the story, as it consists of some entertainingly demented one-liners and exchanges:<\/p>\n

Roberta opened the session by focussing immediately on the new arrivals. \u201cLet\u2019s start with you, Brother Emil,\u201d she said. \u201cYou were saying this morning that you wanted to be cured.\u201d
\n\u201cCured, yes,\u201d said Brother Emil. \u201cOf the coercion of the state. Of the tyranny of reason.\u201d
\nRoberta raised her eyebrows expectantly.
\nAllan Fence, the writer, quickly rose to the occasion. \u201cWhat coercion?\u201d he said. \u201cYou checked yourself in here voluntarily, Brother Emil. Of your own free will.\u201d
\n\u201cWhen we were neanderthals,\u201d replied Brother Emil, \u201cwe developed a taste for mastodon. You know how we hunted them, my friend? We\u2019d form a hunting line and drive the herd toward the edge of a cliff. Within the bounds of that line each mastodon exercised free will, yet today\u201d\u2014he waved at the window, which looked out over the fields\u2014\u201cone very rarely sees a mastodon.\u201d
\n\u201cNo, no, that\u2019s terribly wrong.\u201d Linda Bartly was upset. \u201cWe\u2019re not all mastodons, we\u2019re not all the same. They\u2019re like a hunting line, but what they\u2019ve crowded together is a flock of creatures: sloths, butterflies, leopards, loons, platypusses\u2014\u201d
\nLoons indeed, thought Chester.
\n\u201cthey want us all to be the same, but we\u2019re not\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cLinda,\u201d said Roberta, \u201cwould you like to tell the group what you see in Brother Emil and Chester\u2019s auras?\u201d She turned and explained to Chester: \u201cLinda sees auras. But not around those of us who\u2019ve undergone Carcopino. We\u2019ve lost ours.\u201d
\nBrother Emil held up his hand. \u201cIt will avail us nothing to become mastodons, certainly. But if we all grew wings together, the onrushing cliff would become an opportunity.\u201d
\n\u201cOr arm the mastodons with machine guns,\u201d said Allan Fence thoughtfully. \u201cSuitably adapted for physiological differences, of course. Trunk triggered, air-cooled fifty calibers with cermet stocks.\u201d
\n\u201cMr. Drummond\u2019s aura is huge,\u201d Linda Bartly stage-whispered. \u201cBig enough for all of us. But it\u2019s gray\u2014\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019m interested in what the group thinks of Brother Emil\u2019s image of the wings,\u201d said Roberta. \u201cImplicitly, he\u2019s proposing to lead you, to turn you into his followers. He\u2019s not a man who gives up easily\u2014only last year he was preaching the end of the world to his cult on Mt. Shasta.\u201d
\n\u201cIt was postponed,\u201d said Sanger.\u00a0 p. 155-156<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The rest of the story (such as it is) concerns the manoeuvrings of Sangar and Drummond in their attempt to recruit the enigmatic Sister Wiley to their cause. During this, Drummond walks to Roberta\u2019s nearby house and ends up sleeping with her when she arrives to find him inside. At the end of this encounter she tells him that he can\u2019t change the world (and Drummond also later discovers that the explosive he has hidden in a bust in his room has been taken away).
\nFinally (spoiler), Elizabeth converts Drummond and Sangar to the C-K treatment (Sangar is told that he must take the treatment so he can save C-K souls), and we find that she intends taking the treatment herself, but only once she has convinced the last of the unconverted to do so.
\nThis piece doesn\u2019t have the strongest story arc\u2014the ending, where the unreasonable are converted into the reasonable, seems rather unlikely\u2014but it works on an ironic level, I suppose. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining read, sometimes very much so.
\nI\u2019d add that it seems a remarkably uniform work given that it has three writers involved.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Good). 10,900 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Nest Egg<\/em><\/strong> by John Morressy\u00a0is one of his \u201cKedrigern the Wizard\u201d series, and this one sees him receive a summons from a \u201cfriend and comrade\u201d called Lord Tyasan to de-spell his household griffin, Cecil. After Kedrigern complains at some length to his wife, Princess, about how it isn\u2019t a job for a wizard, and that he doesn\u2019t like Tysan\u2019s tone, etc., she eventually convinces him to take the job, and tells him she is coming too.
\nWhen they finally arrive at the castle, Kedrigern and Lord Tyasan catch up (in what is probably the best passage in a weak story):<\/p>\n

\u201cHow old are [your children], Tyasan? They weren\u2019t even born when I was here last.\u201d
\nThe king beamed upon them. \u201cI remember the occasion well. I had only recently wed my fair queen Thrymm. She was sorely afflicted, but you came to her aid, old friend.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat was her problem?\u201d Princess asked.
\n\u201cSpiders.\u201d
\n\u201cIsn\u2019t it customary to call an exterminator?\u201d
\n\u201cThese spiders popped out of Thrymm\u2019s mouth every time she spoke,\u201d Kedrigem explained.
\n\u201cIt was especially unpleasant when she talked in her sleep,\u201d Tyasan said with a slight shudder of distaste. \u201cA single oversight in drawing up the guest list, and it caused us no end of inconvenience and distress. You can imagine how punctilious we were in sending out invitations to the royal christenings.\u201d\u00a0 p. 190<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seven pages in (about half way through the story), Kedrigern finally inspects the cantankerous griffin and finds it hasn\u2019t been spelled but he still cannot work out what ails the creature. Then, when Princess starts stroking the griffin\u2019s neck feathers, the creature starts to recover and asks for some broth. Kedrigern realises that (spoiler), while Princess was stroking the griffin, her gold necklace was touching its skin.
\nThe story ends with Kedrigern giving Tyasan some blather about griffins needing gold for their nests before realising that Cecil must now be old enough to mate. Tyasan doubts he can find enough gold for the griffin (and doesn\u2019t want to give what he has) but Kedrigern points out that his gold will still be there in the nest, and that griffins are good at finding the material for themselves\u2014so Tyasan and his family will be rich.
\nThis piece is typical of the other series stories in that it is pleasant enough light reading, but is also contrived and padded, and has a weak plot (which, when it finally gets going here, pivots on Kedrigern noticing something and then explaining the solution based on information only he could know).
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u00a0(Mediocre). 6,050 words.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

Dankden<\/em><\/strong> by Marc Laidlaw is the first of a series about Gorlen Vizenfirth, a bard with a difference:<\/p>\n

His musical deficiency owed much to the fact that his right hand was made entirely out of polished black stone, carved in perfect replication of a human hand, so detailed that one could see the slight reliefwork of veins and moles, the knolls of knuckles, even peeling cuticles captured in the hard glossy rock. Most of the fine hairs had snapped from the delicately rendered diamond-shaped pores, but you could feel where they had been, like adamantine stubble. His left hand was more dexterous than most, and his calloused fingers hammered the strings as best they could to make up for the other hand\u2019s disability; but his rock-solid right hand was good for nothing more than brutal strumming and whacking. He couldn\u2019t pinch a plectrum. The soundbox was scarred and showed the signs of much abuse, the thin wood having been patched many times over.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a gargoyle affliction,\u201d he said to most who asked. \u201cComes and goes. I\u2019m looking for the treacherous slab who did it to me and disappeared before he could undo it.\u201d \u00a0p. 202-3<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If you read on through the series you will discover that Gorlen and a gargoyle called Spar, who is introduced later, were cursed by a wizard who swapped their hands for reasons connected to a virgin sacrifice gone wrong. None of this backstory is particularly germane to this particular story, however, which has Gorlen arrive at the town of Dankden, a place located in a swamp and whose streets are (literally, as it turns out later) rivers of mud. We subsequently discover that the town is populated by human inhabitants and by creatures that are half-human, half-phib (the phibs are amphibious creatures that live in the swamps).
\nGorlen falls into the company of a woman and her brother, and soon encounters their phib hunting father. Then, shortly after this meeting, there is a commotion in the street when a number of half-phibs gather to complain about the killing of one of their young and, during an altercation, the hunter\u2019s son is taken hostage. The rest of the story concerns his rescue, and Gorlen\u2019s dawning realisation that the hunting community has been killing half-breed phibs rather than taking the wild (and non-intelligent) ones.
\nThis story doesn\u2019t entirely work, partly because of the odd and unlikely interbreeding, and partly because of the depressing genocide subplot. There are also a couple of loose ends, and one of these (spoiler) is why one of the phibs would give Gorlen an underwater kiss of life to save him from drowning when he is in the process of trying to escape from them:<\/p>\n

The water, black until now, began to fill with streaming lights. A distant liquid music swelled in his ears as though an operatic riverboat were passing overhead. This developed into a rich, throaty vibration, a catfish purr. According to those who had been revived from the edge of watery death, drowning was almost peaceful once you gave in and inhaled the waters, once the body surrendered and let the soul drift free. Gorlen clung to this last hope as he opened his mouth and inhaled\u2014
\nWarm, fishy air.
\nHe nearly choked. Cold lips out of nowhere pressed tight to his own. Opening his eyes in disbelieving terror, he saw nothing. Nor could he move, something powerful bound his arms to his sides, albeit without hurting him. Reflexively he breathed in deep, then deeper still, unable to believe that there was air enough to fill him. There was a rich taste in his lungs, an undercurrent to the clammy essence, some perfume that flooded his brain and seeped down his nerves like a whisper, nudging him with secret knowledge, eking out revelation on such a fine level that he felt his atoms3<\/sup>\u00a0were conversing with a stranger\u2019s atoms. The mouth sealed to his own began a slight suction, encouraging his exhalation, he gave up the stale air gladly. On the second inhalation\u2014shallower, less desperate\u2014his blinded eyes lit up with a vision of the swamp, all its tangled waterways cast through him like a glowing net whose intricacies were as homey and familiar as the sound of his own pulse. He knew his location: near the sea, not far from Dankden.\u00a0Dankden! Human town!<\/em>\u00a0At the thought of the place, he felt a violent urge to flee at any cost, to swim and keep swimming until he had put that loathsome blot far behind him. An evil paradox posed itself in the same instant: there was literally nowhere left to run. The swamps, once vast enough to remain uncharted even by their most ancient inhabitants, had dwindled alarmingly within the span of several generations; encroached on by human dwellings, drained and poisoned and tamed by air-breathers, the swamps had been reduced to a few last drops. \u00a0p. 228-9<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Notwithstanding my reservations above, the atmosphere and setting in this story are pretty good, and it\u2019s also an entertaining piece.
\n\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong>\u2217<\/strong> (Good). 14,300 words.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

The Cover<\/em><\/strong> for this issue is a pretty good piece by Bob Eggleton for Marc Laidlaw\u2019s Dankden<\/em>, but it\u2019s a pity that the person doing the cover design didn\u2019t think about a different name order to minimise overprinting the artwork (swapping Reed\u2019s name for Laidlaw\u2019s would not affect the man in the boat\u2019s head, for instance). Better still, just put two lines of names under the title banner and leave the bottom of the image unmolested. The only other artwork in the issue are the Cartoons<\/em><\/strong> by Joseph Farris, Ed Arno, Bill Long, Joseph Farris, Danny Shanahan, and Henry Martin. I didn\u2019t think any of them were particularly funny; they are just odd.
\nKristine Kathryn Rusch\u2019s Editorial<\/em><\/strong> is about her, her husband, and two friends stumbling upon a virtual golf game in a store. The rest of the piece is about technological innovations (one of those mentioned, the fax machine, is probably extinct by now).
\nBooks<\/em><\/strong> by Robert K. J. Killheffer is an interesting, illuminating, and instructive review of two \u201cgender wars\u201d novels, Waking the Moon<\/em> by Elizabeth Hand, and The Furies<\/em> by Suzy McKee Charnas.
\nThe other book review column, Books to Look For<\/em><\/strong>, is by Charles de Lint, who reviews novels by Patricia A. McKillip and Vivian Vande Velde, and Dark Earth Dreams<\/em> by Candas Jane Dorsey and Roger Deegan, a CD containing readings of two stories. The final review is of The Ultimate Evil<\/em> by Andrew Vachss, a Batman novel written by crime writer Vachss to provide a new forum for \u201chis battle against child abuse\u201d, particularly in the Far East. De Lint finishes his review by exhorting the F&SF<\/em> readership to join a \u201cDon\u2019t! Buy! Thai!\u201d campaign (in an effort to combat this scourge). I have mixed feelings about SF magazines being used for this kind of naked activism, never mind blanket embargoes that may hurt those not remotely involved in child exploitation.
\nAn Odyssey Galactic<\/em><\/strong> by Gregory Benford is one of his A Scientist\u2019s Notebook<\/em> essays, although it isn\u2019t about a science topic but rather his involvement with NHK (Japanese National Broadcasting) and a TV production called A Galactic Odyssey<\/em>. Benford gives an account of how he acted as a consultant, then a writer, and ultimately as a presenter. The latter involved, at one point, standing on in a traffic island in Times Square being bothered by a bag lady and then being pestered by a Puerto Rican gang who wanted to become more famous by dancing in the background of his shot.
\nIt\u2019s an interesting enough account but, as with other reports I\u2019ve read about SF writer involvement in Hollywood, etc., this activity seems to involve the investment of huge amounts of time and energy for very little return (either in terms of money or fame):<\/p>\n

What did I learn from the fully three year involvement, finally?
\nFirst, novelists don\u2019t fit well in intensely committee-dominated projects. Decisions about showing aliens, or even categorizing civilizations by their energy consumption (somehow, not an ecologically virtuous point of view), were made by faceless executives\u2014most of whom had no scientific training whatever. And who don\u2019t think that\u2019s important.
\nNovelists think in larger chunks.
\nHard sf novelists probably don\u2019t make the best diplomats, either, about scientific facts. Or at least, this novelist didn\u2019t.
\nSecond, don\u2019t let the scientific content get compromised for schedule or convenience. Realize that just about nobody else has the same commitment to the material that scientists do\u2014but apply pressure at the essential points.
\nThird, use a particular rhythm in presenting science, to draw out its human aspects. This rhythm runs, philosophy\u2014>science\u2014philosophy.
\n[. . .]
\nLastly, have some input in editing. Much of A Galactic Odyssey<\/em> got rearranged, slanted and cut by people who knew little or nothing of the technical material. Such power is hard to get, but essential.\u00a0 pp. 182-183<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

F&SF Competition: Report on Competition 64<\/em><\/strong> describes the entries for \u201ca rejection letter for any well-known SF or Fantasy work\u201d. My favourite is probably the winner:<\/p>\n

RICHARD MATHESON \u2014
\nX\u2014This day when it had light editor called me a first reader. You first reader she said. I wonder what it is a first reader.
\nIn my desk place with cold walls all around I have paper things publisher says is slush. He chained me tight. He made me read BORNOFMANANDWOMAN.
\nXX\u2014I am not so glad. All day it is slush in here. And I have bad anger. If they try to make me read your stories again I\u2019ll hurt them. I will.
\nR.\u2014
\n\u2014James Williamson
\nOmaha, NE\u00a0 p. 237<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

F&SF Competition: Competition 65<\/em><\/strong> (suggested by Harlan Ellison) asks for cover quotes from SF writers who have been sent the proofs of a friend\u2019s awful novel from their publishers. The example given is \u201cThis book is as good, as readable, as Tolkien!\u201d from a writer known by his friends to loathe Tolkien.
\nComing Attractions<\/em><\/strong> trails stories by Robert Reed, Ian MacLeod, etc., and mentions that Janet Asimov will be joining the magazine to \u201cassist with our science columns\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n

This issue would be a decent enough effort for a \u201cnormal\u201d F&SF<\/em> but, for an anniversary\/All-Star one, it is a bit of a disappointment. Apart from the lack of stellar names, the better material by Dale Bailey, Jonathan Lethem & John Kessel & James Patrick Kelly, and Marc Laidlaw isn\u2019t as fully formed as one might like. More generally, nearly all the stories feel like material a writer-editor would pick for other writers because of their particular facets\u2014complexity, or characterisation, or writing, etc. The Marc Laidlaw story does most of these well or well enough, but it is the only one in the entire issue that feels like a conventional genre story.
\nI\u2019d also note that putting one surreal fantasy (the Hoffman) immediately after another (the Reed) seems like an odd running-order choice to me.\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

1. The ISFDB\u00a0page<\/a>\u00a0for the Richard Bowes\u2019 \u201cKevin Grierson\u201d series.<\/p>\n

2. Rusch\u2019s gushing introduction to the Ellison story:<\/p>\n

I have an editorial confession to make: I stole this story.
\nWell I didn\u2019t steal it exactly. You see, occasionally Harlan Ellison calls me to read a story he has just finished. He wants instant feedback, which I usually give him. Not this time. When he finished reading \u201cPulling Hard Time,\u201d I couldn\u2019t breathe. Literally. The story had knocked the wind from me.
\nAs soon as my breath returned, I did my editorial duty. I begged, wheedled, pleaded and so sufficiently debased myself that Harlan sent the story to\u00a0F&SF<\/em>\u00a0instead of the other magazine he had promised it to.
\nBut Harlan said we could publish the story only on the condition that I confess. And now I have. Gleefully.\u00a0 p. 139<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

3. \u201cAtoms\u201d is not a good fantasy word for Marc Laidlaw\u2019s Dankden<\/em>.<\/p>\n

4. Dankden<\/em> is listed in the magazine as a novella, but it isn\u2019t even close (14,300 words).\u00a0 \u25cf<\/p>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: A less than stellar line-up for F&SF\u2019s 1995 Anniversary double issue\u2014and a less than stellar performance. That said, this decidedly mixed bag of stories has a good to very good story by Dale Bailey, Sheep\u2019s Clothing, which blends the preparation for a hi-tech assassination of a politician with a character study of the veteran […]<\/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":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy-and-science-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-3MR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561","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=14561"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14589,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14561\/revisions\/14589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}