{"id":1643,"date":"2016-07-19T15:23:02","date_gmt":"2016-07-19T15:23:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2016-10-29T19:17:26","modified_gmt":"2016-10-29T19:17:26","slug":"galaxys-edge-18-january-february-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/?p=1643","title":{"rendered":"Galaxy’s Edge #18, January-February 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GE#18x600\"<\/p>\n

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

Other reviews:
\nSam\u00a0Tomaino, SF Revu<\/a>
\nChuck Rothman, Tangent Online<\/a>
\nVarious, Goodreads<\/a><\/p>\n

Fiction:
\nThe Bone-Runner<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nWiping Out<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Robert J. Sawyer
\nFull Skies, No Water<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Lou J Berger \u2665
\nThe Press of the Infinite Black<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Rene Sears \u2665\u2665
\nSecond Person Unmasked<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Janis Ian \u2665
\nThe Little Robot\u2019s Bedtime Prayer<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Robert T. Jeschonek \u2665\u2665\u2665+
\nLife on the Preservation<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Jack Skillingstead \u2665\u2665
\nLove, Your Wolpertinger<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Dantzel Cherry \u2665
\nThundergod in Therapy<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Effie Seiberg
\nCoward<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint short story by Todd McCaffrey
\nConfidence Game<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 short story by Laurie Tom \u2665\u2665\u2665
\nThe Long Tomorrow<\/em><\/strong> (Part 1 of ?) \u2022 reprint serial by Leigh Brackett \u2665\u2665\u2665+<\/p>\n

Non-fiction:
\nThe Editor\u2019s Word<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Mike Resnick
\nBook Reviews<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye
\nScandals: Being True to Our Own Imaginations<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 reprint essay by Gregory Benford
\nFrom the Heart\u2019s Basement: Fifty Miles of Bad Road<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 essay by Barry N. Malzberg
\nThe Galaxy\u2019s Edge Interview: Joe Haldeman<\/em><\/strong> \u2022 by Joy Ward<\/p>\n

Galaxy\u2019s Edge<\/em>, edited by the well-known writer Mike Resnick, is another of the \u2018new\u2019 magazines I have been meaning to get around to (new to me is anything that started after 2003). I noticed the print copy was relatively inexpensive on Amazon, so I ordered a copy of that as I was curious to see what it was like. I also got a six issue electronic PDF subscription for issue #19 onwards.1<\/sup>
\nThe physical magazine is described as \u2018quarto\u2019 on ISFDB: it is a large-size, square-ish publication, as tall as a pulp copy of Astounding<\/em> but wider. It measures 7\u00bd by 9\u00be inches (approx. 190x245mm) and runs to 108pp. (there is a further page with Lightning Source printing information on it). The cover stock is matt card and the paper looks like that high-quality laser printer paper you get in POD publications. The pages have two columns and the material runs continuously, with various book covers filling the empty space at the end of partial\u00a0pages of text.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

The cover is a generic pro effort and uncredited. There is far, far too much type over the artwork; the bottom half of the cover is just a mess. The last time I can remember seeing something as bad as this was when Sol Cohen forced\u00a0Ted White to use a letraset shotgun on the 1970\u2019s covers of Amazing<\/em> and Fantastic<\/em>.3<\/sup>
\nThe fiction, however, gets off to a reasonable start. The Bone-Runner<\/em><\/strong> by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks is a post holocaust tale about a brother and sister who scavenge in a decayed city that is still affected by a gas which affects humans but not animals. The humans that are exposed to the gas become shambling creatures who are drawn to blood. This description probably gives entirely the wrong idea about the story: it is nicely done old school SF whose story partially parallels the Orpheus and Eurydice myth.
\nI may as well take the opportunity to talk about the other two stories I liked. Best of the issue is probably The Little Robot\u2019s Bedtime Prayer<\/em><\/strong> by Robert T. Jeschonek. This is a fascinating story about a near-future world where personal robots have been programmed to treat their owners as God:<\/p>\n

\u201cGood morning, God.\u201d Occam-657 smiles up at me when I emerge from my bedchamber the next morning. He has been waiting outside my door like a good little household robot, prohibited from doing chores until now lest he wake me prematurely.<\/em>
\nI respond to his greeting as if God, and not Sean, is my given name. As if I am an omnipotent deity and not a thirty-seven-year-old self-employed ge\u00adnetic engineer specializing in novelty bio-apps. (Re\u00admember Thumbo, the elephant who fits in the palm of your hand?) As if I am more than a slightly over\u00adweight mere mortal whose wife left him six weeks ago for another man.<\/em> p.38<\/p>\n

We head over to my friend Pander\u2019s place in Oathtown in a drone-palanquin, a purple velvet-lined coach carried by four built-in robotic bearers. Occam-657 prays during the entire trip. I tell him to keep it down, but I still hear the soft sibilance of whispered words aspirating from his artificial lips.<\/em>
\nSometimes, I wish the robot manufacturers had never come up with the bright idea of making all the robots worship their owners as gods. It was the best way, the programmers say, to ensure that flesh-and- blood owners never come to harm at the hands of mechanical servitors (though I\u2019m pretty sure human\u00a0<\/em>ego might have had more than a little to do with it, as well). But the constant, obsequious worship does tend to get old after a while. For me, at least.<\/em>
\nFor example, as our palanquin slows to a stop at a busy intersection, a choir of robots on the curb de\u00adtects my human presence and sings a cyber-hymn in our direction. They chant the sonorous words with great gravity, upraising their folded hands in blissful praise.<\/em>
\nI am so not in the mood for it right now, and that makes me wonder. Does the real God, if He exists, ever feel the same way? And is it possible, now that we\u2019ve managed to create our own flock of worship\u00adpers, that humanity is finally getting a taste of its own medicine?<\/em> p.39<\/p>\n

Sean has illicitly spied on his robot during the latter\u2019s Private Time and is perturbed about what he has seen. The rest of the story works up to the reveal and along the way provides a thought provoking look at both sides of religious belief.
\nThe third of the stories I liked is Confidence Game<\/em><\/strong> by Laurie Tom. This is labelled as a \u2018Sargasso Containment\u2019, story, which initially made my heart sink as I thought I was in for a sub-standard space opera and one that was mid-series to boot.
\nThe story concerns Darren Nishimura, a con-artist working as a magician on Dubai Outpost, a colony planet. He is detained by security, but they are less interested in his previous crimes than getting him to pose as a Blockade pilot to steal a piece of alien \u2018Caretaker\u2019 tech from one of the cartels. The device is a probe from the Sargasso Grid, a containment area set up by aliens for humanity….
\nWhile this is fairly standard stuff, it is an entertaining enough page-turner and has an ending that suggests the author has sequels in mind.<\/p>\n

And now to the other side of the coin. There were a number of stories in this issue that I didn\u2019t particularly care for and a few that I really disliked. The first of the latter is by Hugo and Nebula winner Robert J. Sawyer. Wiping Out<\/em><\/strong> (Guardsmen of<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Tomorrow<\/em>\u00a0ed. by Larry Segriff & Marty Greenberg, 2000) is a reprint that is set five hundred years in the future. Three spaceships arrive at the Altarian alien home planet to drop a massive bomb on it. After their arrival there is a space battle, populated with one dimensional characters using makey-up science that makes Star Trek<\/em> seem the height of sophistication:<\/p>\n

Now, victory was at hand. That was the only thing I could think about today.<\/em>
\nThe captains of the <\/em>Rhamphorhynchus and <\/em>Quet-zalcoatlus were both good soldiers, too, but only one of our names would be immortalized by history\u2014the one of us who actually got through the defenses surrounding the Altairian homeworld, and\u2014<\/em>
\nAnd that one was going to be me, Ambrose Donner, Star Guard. A thousand years from now, nay, ten thousand years hence, humans would know who their savior had been. They would\u2014<\/em>
\n\u201cIncoming ships,\u201d said Kalsi. \u201cThree\u2014no, four\u2014Nidichar-class attack cruisers.\u201d<\/em>
\nI didn\u2019t have to look where Kalsi was pointing; the holographic sphere instantly changed orientation, the ships appearing directly in front of me. \u201cForce screens to maximum,\u201d I said.<\/em>
\n\u201cDone,\u201d said Nguyen, my tactical officer.<\/em>
\nIn addition to my six bridge officers, I could see two other faces: small holograms floating in front of me. One was Heidi Davinski, captain of the <\/em>Quet-zalcoatlus, the other, Peter Chin, captain of the <\/em>Rhamphorhynchus. \u201cI\u2019ll take the nearest ship,\u201d Heidi said.<\/em>
\nPeter looked like he was going to object; his ship was closer to the nearest Nidichar than Heidi\u2019s was. But then he seemed to realize the same thing I did: there would be plenty to go around. Heidi had lost her husband Craig in an Altairian attack on Epsilon IndiII; she was itching for a kill.<\/em><\/p>\n

Eventually, this wends its way through several other space battle cliches to drop a\u00a0bomb called the Annihilator on the alien planet\u2014but only after a singularly unconvincing info-dump:<\/p>\n

But our special cargo, the Annihilator, was more\u2014much more. It was a planet killer, a destroyer of whole worlds. We\u2019d said when Garo Alexanian in\u00advented the technology that we\u2019d never, ever use it.<\/em>
\nBut, of course, we were going to. We were going to use it right now.<\/em>
\nIt could have gone either way. Humans certainly weren\u2019t more clever than Altairians; the technology we\u2019d recovered from wrecked ships proved that. But sometimes you get a lucky break.<\/em>
\nOur scientists were always working to develop new weapons; there was no reason to think that Altairian scientists weren\u2019t doing the same thing. Atomic nuclei are held together by the strong nuclear force; without it, the positively charged protons would re\u00adpel each other, preventing atoms from forming. The Annihilator translates the strong nuclear force into electromagnetism for a fraction of a second, causing atoms to instantly fling apart.<\/em> p.19<\/p>\n

It is\u00a0painfully obvious to me that this is a trunk story that was palmed off on the editors of the original anthology. Why this magazine\u2019s editor thought it worth reprinting is entirely beyond me.
\nAnother one that I really didn\u2019t like was Thundergod in Therapy<\/em><\/strong> by Effie Seiberg. This fantasy starts with the god Zeus banished to Earth and in therapy\/anger management. After a session the story moves on to his decision to disconnect himself from the grid because of a huge electricity bill. Enter Tekhno, the god of Technology, to destroy Zeus\u2019s jerry-built battery system, which he had been\u00a0charging with his own lightning bolts.\u00a0Zeus subsequently challenges Tekhno to a duel as he can\u2019t be bothered filling in the complicated\u00a0complaint paperwork. Tekhno chooses the internet as a venue.
\nThis is as bad as it sounds, and is not improved by Zeus repeatedly using various suspension-of-disbelief busting colloquialisms such as \u2018bitches\u2019, \u2018assholes\u2019, etc., to describe other people or gods.
\nThe third story that manages to squeeze into this dismal group is Coward<\/em><\/strong> by Todd McCaffrey (2011). A lieutenant waits for a General to disembark a dropship on a colony world. The general is to be arrested for his supposed cowardice in surrendering a wormhole to the Imperial Army after a short battle. It is full of passages like this:<\/p>\n

The honor guard marched clear of the ramp, ex\u00adecuted a textbook rear-march and halted, bagpipes still skirling, colors raised high as another troop formed up and marched out of the dropship.<\/em>
\n\u201cAre they disembarking by <\/em>platoons?\u201d Monet cried; the words surprised out of him.<\/em>
\n\u201cBy battalions,\u201d the Imperial general behind him growled. Contempt for Monet was evident in his tone.<\/em>
\nThe Star Ranger division consisted of three inde\u00adpendent brigades, each composed of three battalions. A spaceforce battalion numbered between six hun\u00addred and seven hundred and fifty combatants.<\/em> p.67<\/p>\n

It is a slight piece and reads like something out of a dreary 1940 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As for the rest of the short fiction there are a couple that are OK, but the majority are stories that you don\u2019t hate, you just don\u2019t care for\u00a0them. The Press of the Infinite Black<\/em><\/strong> by Rene Sears is about a daughter and her father who live on an alien planet. Both provide bioware modifications for organised crime as well as the locals. The story then jumps forward in time to her being held hostage\u00a0on a spaceship. A number of things happen during this section, such as the ship being intercepted by a police patrol and questioned. Also, the captain\u2019s hibernation pod starts malfunctioning and she has to revive him.\u00a0The conclusion involves characters from the initial segment.
\nThis is a pleasant enough read but at the end the plot doesn\u2019t convince as you are left with too many questions: (spoiler) why didn\u2019t the crime boss kill her father quickly if they wanted rid of him, why didn\u2019t she tell the police she was kidnapped when her\u00a0ship was intercepted, etc.
\nThe second of the OK stories is Life on the Preservation<\/em><\/strong> by Jack Skillingstead (Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, June 2006). This story is set on an Earth that has been all but destroyed by aliens arriving from another dimension through a rift. The exception to this is the city of Seattle, which is encased in a preservation sphere that continuously loops a single day in 2004. A young woman penetrates the sphere with a locator and a bomb. Her mission is to destroy the preservation sphere. Shortly after arriving she becomes involved with a young man who helps her escape the alien\u00a0\u2018Tourists\u2019. The rest of the story is pretty much a girl meets boy piece with an open-ended finish.<\/p>\n

The final three are the stories by Lou J. Berger, Janis Ian and Dantzel Cherry. Full Skies, No Water<\/em><\/strong> by Lou J. Berger is a notional short-short about a rain projection system on a terraformed planet. A technician is dismantling the system because the colony hasn\u2019t paid its bill when a kid invites him over for dinner. After a meal at the house he looks out on a field of apple trees that have been cut down and (spoiler) he has a change of heart. Apart from the slightness of this, I don\u2019t understand why he changes his mind: presumably the trees died when the water projector system was still in operation?
\nSecond Person Unmasked<\/em><\/strong> by Janis Ian (Stars: Original Stories based on the Songs of Janis Ian<\/em>, edited by Janis Ian & Mike Resnick, 2003) appears to be about an\u00a0off-world serial killer who is sent to a slave planet before (spoiler) ending up back where he was captured as bait for people like his previous self. I was not convinced.
\nFinally, Love, Your Wolpertinger<\/em><\/strong> by Dantzel Cherry is about an imaginary German creature (flying bunny, antlers, sharp teeth) writing letters to a man who observed\u00a0it on holiday. The letters come sporadically and complain about how the recipient\u2019s lack of belief is causing its demise. There is a Harlan Ellison story that did this a lot better.<\/p>\n

The last piece of fiction is the first part of Leigh Brackett\u2019s novel The Long Tomorrow<\/em><\/strong>. I question the wisdom of serialising a 1955 novel in a current day magazine, especially in what looks like six bimonthly parts. This novel is set in a future post-holocaust America where the thirtieth amendment states \u2018No city, no town, no community of more than one thousand people or two hundred buildings to the square mile shall be built or permitted to exist anywhere in the United States of America\u2019.
\nThe story is told from the viewpoint of Len Colter, a teenager in a rural New Mennonite (an Anabaptist group like the Amish) community. In the first chapter his friend Esau is trying to get him to go to a preaching, something that his father has prohibited. The next chapter details their night-time adventure and the barbaric stoning they witness when they attend the meeting. The third chapter has Len\u2019s grandmother telling him what life was like in the cities before the war. His father angrily interrupts her and takes Len away for a beating. He later changes his mind but implores Len to forget about cities and the idea of them, for practical if not for religious reasons. After their talk Len goes into the woods for peace but hears a sound that leads him to his friend Esau, who has the object causing the noise in his hands\u2026.
\nThis is promising stuff, as one would expect of a 1956 Hugo finalist, and its rural American setting and characters reminded me of Zenna Henderson\u2019s \u2018The People\u2019 stories\u2014material that would have been at home in that period\u2019s The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There are also a handful of non-fiction pieces. The Editor\u2019s Word<\/em><\/strong> by Mike Resnick has a short section about the magazine\u2019s third anniversary before going on to give a list of classic SF book recommendations of which, demoralisingly, I think I\u2019ve read only a couple (this part of the editorial is a reprint of Forgotten Treasures<\/em>, F&SF<\/em> October-November 1997). Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye contribute half a dozen Book Reviews<\/em><\/strong>\u2014it would be nice if they stated the length of the books covered so I can ignore the doorstops. Scandals: Being True to Our Own Imaginations<\/em><\/strong> by Gregory Benford (Jim Baen\u2019s Universe<\/em>, June 2007) is about why the Big Bang theory took so long to succeed the Steady State one, and also discusses cultural, political and intellectual bias in the conduct of scientific research. From the Heart\u2019s Basement: Fifty Miles of Bad Road<\/em><\/strong> by Barry N. Malzberg is an interesting retrospective about the fiftieth anniversary of his first fiction sale, and keeping the faith. Finally, The Galaxy\u2019s Edge Interview: Joe Haldeman<\/em><\/strong> by Joy Ward didn\u2019t really tell me anything about Joe Haldeman I didn\u2019t know already, but it may be useful to any newcomers.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, I didn\u2019t really know what to make of this magazine as it is a very mixed bag in more ways than one. My first observation would be about the uneven quality of the fiction: it is not enough to have three or more worthwhile stories in an issue\u2014ideally, you also have a minimum quality level as well. The good stories are soon forgotten if your readers strongly dislike a substantial amount of the other material. Secondly, reprints can be a good thing but most of the ones used here drag down the quality level. Also, why would you also reprint a 2006 story from Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, or a 2007 essay from Jim Baen\u2019s Universe<\/em>? I\u2019ve already mentioned Leigh Brackett\u2019s 1955 novel. I can see the point of these if you think a large part\u00a0of your readership is brand new to the field, e.g.\u00a0if you had just launched Isaac Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction Magazine<\/em>, but it is more than likely that Galaxy\u2019s Edge<\/em>\u2019 readers are long-time core SF fans, so why bother presenting material they may have already read?
\nI\u2019ll be interested to see what the next six issues bring.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The cost of the print issue was \u00a35.99 from Amazon. The cost of my 6-issue electronic PDF subscription was $14.99 (which even at post-Brexit exchange rates gives a competitive per issue cost of just under a couple of quid). I was going to also get an electronic copy of this issue (my sub started too late for #18) from Weightless Books<\/a> for ease of reviewing. However, the single e-issue cost is $4.99, twice that of the subscription e-issues. By comparison, a subscription e-issue of Asimov\u2019s Science Fiction<\/em> is \u00a31.99 and a single e-issue \u00a32.49, if I recall correctly. I think the single issue price\u00a0will put off potential readers and\/or casual buyers.<\/li>\n
  2. This is what I mean about material running continuously (this is from issue #19, to save me the trouble of scanning something from this one):\"GE#18pgx600\"<\/li>\n
  3. A\u00a0lovely Stephen Fabian cover sprayed\u00a0with Letraset:\"fan197608x600b\"<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\"rss\"<\/a>\"rss\"<\/a><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ISFDB listing Other reviews: Sam\u00a0Tomaino, SF Revu Chuck Rothman, Tangent Online Various, Goodreads Fiction: The Bone-Runner \u2022 short story by Jennifer Campbell-Hicks \u2665\u2665\u2665 Wiping Out \u2022 reprint short story by Robert J. Sawyer Full Skies, No Water \u2022 short story by Lou J Berger \u2665 The Press of the Infinite Black \u2022 short story by […]<\/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":true,"_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":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-galaxys-edge"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Pcj7-qv","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","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=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/2185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfmagazines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}