This edition of Fantasy and Science Fiction is a little longer than normal at around 78k words. Before starting this commentary, I have already read this edition. To be honest, I was not all that pleased with this edition. I found it to be quite average. There was too much sub-par science fiction that went no where. It's made up of five novelettes and seven short stories.Electrica, Sean McMullen
This story is set several centuries back. However, it's kind of a science fiction story wrapped up in a distant past. Think back to the conflict between Europe and Napoleon's France. The story is told in first person. The character is an ingenious code breaker.
He is on a mission to investigate a potential technology which would allow England to send messages to the battlefield without having the enemy be able to see what it is that England is communicating. The method of flashing from a light source a message encrypted in a code meant that both the intended recipient and the enemy could receive the message. If the enemy could then break the encryption, it then knew what the enemy was up to.
There is a machine which a scientist is trying to use to send invisible signals to devices so that the enemy cannot read the messages. While the experiment is something of a success, it comes with a rather heavy price.
A long time ago there roamed a predatory species which was on the brink of extinction. In an effort to preserve itself, it embedded its intelligence within amber. The scientist, when using the amber, was able to connect to this intelligence. That intelligence malignantly wanted to live again and escape the confines of this amber world.
This mad scientist is stopped by the protagonist. But not before the malignant entity manages to insert its intelligence into a raven and escape.
I didn't particularly enjoy this story. Maybe a part of it is that most stories told about super smart, dashing, and physically strong characters, are told in first person. Just like when I read the Barsoom series and the super hero traits of John Carter sort of drive me crazy, so too do these types of stories. I think stories told from perfect individuals are just a cheap thrill for the author to live a fantasy life. Perhaps that is because they themselves are rather dull, boring, and unintelligent. Sort of the hot car=small Mr. Happy. First person perspective would be far more interesting from characters built from less heroic/superhuman models.
Twenty-Two and You from The Doctor Diaries, Michael Blumlein
Actually, I should say that this was a good bit of science fiction. Of the stories in this volume, this was probably one of the more interesting. A part of my moaning and groaning is that I didn't get my Fantasy fix from this edition. This edition should have been plainly labelled 'Science Fiction Magazine' to avoid the confusion that the 'fantasy' part might cause.
In any case, this story is set in a future where doctors can manipulate DNA in living people. This is particularly useful if you've got a hereditary disease. In the case of the protagonist, Ellen, will almost certainly become sick with cancer and die if she ever has kids. Her husband and her want kids very badly. So, she goes to one of the clinics which can change her genes just enough to allow for her to have children without triggering the diseases.
It works. She no longer has the bad genes. However, those genes have changed her slightly: she no longer wants kids. She's no longer really the same person.
I think this has an intriguing thing to say: that our personalities, our preferences, and what we are, is programmed within us rather than formulae of personality, history, and spirit. How similar can twins be? Those who are nearly identical in their genes might also be nearly identical in their looks and personality. However, monozygotic twins (twins of the same DNA), are known to have individual personalities and exhibit differences. Some cursory research suggests that a person's genetic makeup can actually change as time goes on, which can cause differentiation between twins.
Greed, Albert E. Cowdrey
Greed and the Green Goblin share a few similarities. In Spiderman's Green Goblin stories, the Green Goblin gets his start because he is sick with something that lizards have no problem with. He therefore tries to make himself more like a lizard to overcome that sickness. However, it also perverts his personality and imbues him with super powers so that he becomes a super villain. Cowdrey's lizard man is extremely rich. He doesn't want to die, so he has himself turned into a lizard. Unlike the Green Goblin, though, he does not really retain his human intellect. But he does gain the animal instinct.
The story is told from the perspective of Vern. Vern is your typical southern idiot. He has been left nominally in charge of a castle after his uncle passed. Well, he hasn't died. He's just been converted into the lizard. He is legally dead. The nephew had hoped that the estate would have been left to him. Instead, it was left to a company which was responsible for letting tourists in to tour the castle.
A friend of his seeks asylum, as he has committed a crime. He has embezzled, and he's looking to escape authorities. He goes to his friend to escape authorities. His friend, the caretaker of the castle, demands $2,000/day for that right. He also hacks and installs a keylogger onto his computer so that he can spy on his friend. He does that successfully. He discovers where Mojo, the criminal, had kept his embezzled funds and manages to steal it. However, the guy who helped him spy and get that information had been able to spy on Vern, and steal those funds from him.
I guess it was kind of funny. There was a touch of science fiction to it, right? Because of the giant lizard, right? This story was pretty lame, in my humble opinion. I don't really like fiction that pretends to be something that it's not, which is what this is.
Gnarly Times at Nana'ite Beach, KJ Kabza
Punk fiction meets the beach. Hence we have 'beach punk.' Sand becomes nanites. Ads are everywhere. The thoughts of all the folks in this cyberworld affects everything around them. At times it's hard to know if this is the real world blended in with a cyberworld, or if it's a cyberworld altogether.
A geek and his geeky friend are keen to become popular. They manage to score a great surf board from a legend who wants to test his latest invention. It ends badly, though, as the geeks screw it up and get caught with a sort-of illegal board and humiliate themselves. Well, really it's just the one character who does all that. His friend just sort of watches all of that nastiness happen.
It was a kind of sci fi, I guess. At least the author wrote this for that sake and tried to be original.
Olfert Dapper's Day, Peter S. Beagle
Dr. Dapper is a con artist. He's not really a doctor. When he's caught in his nefarious endeavour, he high tails it to the high seas. He goes to an island and begins a life as a real doctor. He learns the trade of medicine, and is actually helpful to the settlers and indigenous.
While there, he sees a unicorn with one of the indigenous people. He's overwhelmed, wants to see it again, and manages to bring someone out who is a virgin. It works. He sees it again. The virgin and himself have sex.
Soon he has to leave the island, however. The girl hates her life and her husband and leaves her husband the priest. The Dr isn't blamed for it, but he's chased off the island nonetheless.
Is Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine really having such a hard time finding good stories?
Repairmen, Tim Sullivan
This is another piece of science fiction. A man kills himself. Except that he's no regular man, he's a time shifter repair man! He fell in love with the girl, and the girl's sad. His coworker tries to explain everything to her.
Lame story...
One Year of Fame, Robert Reed
Actually, this short story was OK.
The setting is in a small town during the evolution and revolution of artificial intelligence. Robots are everywhere. They come to have a will of their own, and are emancipated from slavery. They really like one particular author. All of them like him, and he becomes a celebrity. He even begins to write a new book as his fame grows.
Then, they get an upgrade, and find his work to be childish. They grow bored of his works, man, and earth, then leave the world to men and disappear.
Funny story.
The Tortoise Grows Elate, Steven Utley
Once upon a time, there were these animals called eurypterids. They were the predecessor to the spider. They were quite large, capable of reaching lengths of 2.5 meters. These are the creatures that begin the tale. They are extinct, so I'm not certain why he chose those animals in particular. Perhaps that's the part that makes it sci fi...?
The rest of the story is a sort of romantic blah blah blah.
One of these days I'll have to dig into an old 'golden age' rag to see if they were all this bad and that's the real reason the golden age tarnished and vanished, or if they were better and that's why they excited more readers.
The Queen and the Cambion, Richard Bowes
I actually enjoyed this story. However, it was following on the heels of some sub par fiction. So, maybe the stark contrast between blah and not bad makes it look better than it really was.
In any case, this is another pseudo history story set in Queen Victoria's day, with Queen Victoria and her relationship with Merlin. She calls him on a few occasions when she needs guidance. In the end, she even rescues him from his prison. Then he kills himself. Pretty grim end to the story.
Considering how all over the place Merlin is throughout this story along the time line, it's a little odd to think in terms of aging, beginnings, and ends. In my opinion, beginnings and ends are constructs of time that ought not apply to someone who lives in reverse to the rest of humanity and spans several centuries.
Meh, whatever. It was an entertaining story, a bit o'magic and fun. A little tiny bit of fantasy in an otherwise anemic edition.
Demiurge, Geoffrey A. Landis
One of the great things about writing a story is that it's your own world. You are like a god: with the ability to create and annihilate; to give one character love and another hate; to make love, or to make war. The power is in your hand. When folks read it, they get to experience the same world that you created. If it's really popular, there's a chance it might be picked up and made into a movie with actors and eye candy. Or, maybe it'll inspire a voyage to the moon, under the sea, or an invention. Fiction is really great like that.
That's what happens here, but the world that Erdemacher created, called Werldwright. Werldwright becomes real to the author, who disappears. Some of his fans disappear allegedly into his own world. The author makes a point to show that sometimes he takes in kids and can talk the pants off of a statue.
This is another story that I feel wasn't really worth reading.
The Man Who Murdered Mozart, Robert Walton and Barry N. Malzberg
This story is set both in the not too distant future and the somewhat distant past: a rich man with access to a time machine in the distant future wants to grab Mozart from the past so that Mozart can finish his Requiem for the rich man's board meeting.
But, doing so broke some rules, and his mind gets scrambled.
I must be in a fussy/bad mood these days. I didn't get a kick out of this story, either. *yawn*
Perfect Day, C.S. Friedman
Actually, this story wasn't so bad. It's a dystopian world where computer AI dictate to us our choices and consequences. For instance, if you do something that's bad for your health, you have to pay extra for insurance. Cars drive themselves, but offer a choice of taking one route that costs more than the other.
In terms of this world, the main character is poor. He lives in a crowded house where he tries to avoid contact with his family. Everyone tries to avoid everyone. So, they take turns in different rooms and have programs to tell them where they can go to achieve that end. Quite frankly, I'm not sure why he goes into a small storage room rather than his bedroom. The author might have done better to explain the reason for that. Another interesting thing is how he's hounded by ads everywhere he turns. Watching ads reduces the cost of many things. Being poor, he often has to make the ad choices. Back to the route to work, the cheapest route is the one with big ads that try to sell him things.
For sci-fi, this was one of the better stories. He could certainly play a lot more in this setting for some interesting results.
Conclusion
I thought this magazine overall lacked the quality it normally has. The longer works weren't all that good. The best stories were the short stories. So, I don't feel I got a lot of value. In other words, this volume had plenty of quantitative value going for it, but not so much qualitative. I really hate fiction that sinks into a genre because of some weak link that is manufactured. For example, the story "Greed."
The last edition was really, really good with some great stories. So, I was a bit surprised to find this one under the table. Hopefully they'll pick it up again in the next edition. Coincidentally, I got it today.
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