Fantasy & Science Fiction Nov/Dec 2021 (Whole #758)

 

 


 I've been an avid science-fiction fan from childhood. Through the eighties into the early nineties, I subscribed to IASFM. Some truly great stuff was published in that mag, particularly when Gardner Dozois was editor. I became acquainted with some of my favorite authors through that magazine and got caught up in the excitement generated by the Cyberpunk movement, which was prominently represented in its pages.

Around 1994, I dropped my subscription, and fell out of touch with new and upcoming SF writers. Still followed my favorites from the eighties but, besides John Scalzi, really didn't become acquainted with any new SF writers.

About ten years ago, I decided to try to discover some of the new talent, since some of my favorites (e.g., Bruce Sterling) weren't publishing much anymore. So I took a six-month subscription to IASFM in an attempt to educate myself. Good lord, in those six issues I enjoyed the grand total of ONE story! The rest, just dross, pure dross.

Fast forward to start of the Covid pandemic when I decided to have another go. Maybe I Googled "Best SF Magazine" or something, I don't recall. But I ended up taking a one-year, six issue subscription to the venerable Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Wow -- great writing, great stories -- exactly what I was looking for! I would have renewed my subscription, but editor C. C. Finlay was ending his term. I decided to give new editor Sheree Renee Thomas sometime to get her feet wet before renewing.

Just short of one year into Thomas' tenure, I picked this issue up at the newsstand; $10 for 258 pages. It's a mixed bag and doesn't reach the high quality of the end of Finlay's term. Don't know how much is due to editorial decision, since a good number of stories were probably already in the pipeline. Or maybe it's just the general availability of good stories. I'm going to try something else (preferably with more Science Fiction, as opposed to Fantasy) before committing to a subscription.

A couple of standouts in this issue. Megan Lindholm's "A Dime", an excellent, affecting Christmas tale, as a woman attempts to connect with those loved and lost as the Holiday Season approaches. Also, Eleanor Arnason's "Laki", another excellent tale, as Icelandic legends come to life during an historic 18th century volcanic outbreak, as recorded as in a journal of the narrator's five times great-grandma when she was a child.

"Broad Dutty Water: A Sunken Story", by Nalo Hopkinson, is a very good neo-Cyberpunk tale that could have been published in 1985. Just misses a top ranking for invoking global warming, the catastrophe du jour, as a main plot point. How are we able to worry about global warming when all those other historical catastrophes that SF warned us about (overpopulation, nuclear armageddon, environmental collapse) have already ended humanity's tenure on planet Earth, several times over?

Two good stories: "Castellia", by Graham Edwards, a whimsical tale of witch and a traveling castle. "Lajos and His Bees", by Russian author K. A. Teryna, a tale disguised as an old folk legend about a wild boy who lives in the woods with his friends, the titular bees.

The rest of the stories don't pass the bar of mediocrity. "A Vast Silence", by T. R. Napper, a rousing SF tale Mad Maxing across the Nullarbor Plain, would have risen above mediocre but for its closing line.

And the Cartoons still suck. Even when judged by the abysmal level of Fannish humor, they're just not funny.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Astounding -- Alec Nevala-Lee -- 2018

Image
John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction   A history of the early days of modern Science Fiction, centered about the lives of John W. Campbell Jr. and three of his proteges: Robert Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and Isaac Asimov. A sometimes interesting account of a crucial era in the history of Science Fiction, but mainly just biographies of the titular personalities. Most of the interactions among these characters occurred before World War II, long before the lifetimes of anyone likely to be reading. I'm a longtime SF reader who grew up reading Heinlein and Asimov, and started reading Analog intermittently from about the time of Campbell's death.  As invested as I am in the SF of the second half of the 20th Century, the history of the first half didn't interest me that much. Really, if you want to know what was happening in SF way back when, just read the stories! (SPOILER: It mostly sucked, especially Hubbard an...
Read more

S.T.P -- Robert Greenfield -- 1974

Image
  A Journey Through America With the Rolling Stones   Robert Greenfield lived and traveled with the Rolling Stones as they prepared for and executed their 1972 tour of the U.S. and Canada. S.T.P. was an acronym for "Stones Touring Party", which consisted of the band, crew, handlers, PR flacks, security, photographers, film crew, celebrities, groupies, hangers-on ... and Greenfield, pet journalist. Considered to be the first in-depth account of the 1970's traveling circus Rock-and-Roll tour, it was well-regarded at the time, but fell flat with the public. Only 5000 copies were printed. The book is a product of an interesting moment in time. Rock and Roll had survived its teenage Fad period before morphing into a viable artistic vehicle for young adults by the mid-sixties. After that second, short-lived interval (certainly over by Altamont, if not already by 1968) Rock and Roll transformed into a mass-market commercial product performed in 10,000 seat arenas. There's no...
Read more

The Tuloriad -- John Ringo and Tom Kratman -- 2009

Image
  Whence we learn the history of how the Posleen boiled forth to scourge the spaceways. A small surviving band of Posleen are whisked off Earth by the Indowy / Himmit, and sent off to discover the ancient and forgotten origin of their rampage across the galaxy. A team of human clerics chases them in the hope of converting the race, and leading them back to a peaceful existence in Galactic civilization. The designs of the Aldenata are revealed, and it seems that they themselves burst upon a galaxy already ravaged from a genocidal onslaught of unknown origin. This, and the John Ringo novel "Eye of the Storm", the last two published in the series, seem to be setting up a new existential threat to humanity, presumably those responsible for the pre-Aldenata catastrophe. Nothing has been published since 2009, though. This novel, like the rest of the series, is a well-written Space Opera romp -- leave your slide-rule at the door. I've greatly enjoyed this series, and have read a...
Read more