July 2008
14 posts
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Watermark by Michael Greenhut →
In a series of letters from a different timeline, Etinaye beseeches her father to save her from being murdered by her sister.
It says in the author’s bio that this is one story in a series and it certainly reads like that. While there are enough tantalizing hints about multiple timelines and “threadkeepers” to give us a sufficient glimpse of the setting, which looks very...
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Practicing Perfection by Cathy Freeze →
Amber became a giant to free the fallen angels stuck in the Wall and nurse them back to health. Being a giant is painful, as Amber aches with every step she takes and constantly has to tighten the joints between her fragile, long bones with magical ribbons. But she loves being close to the angels. Then one day, one of the angels actually talks to her.
This story is an interesting meditation on...
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Marsh Gods by Ann Leckie →
After Ytine’s husband, Irris, has been gone for more than a year, her neighbour becomes intent on marrying her to take hold of their fishing rights. Armed with a couple of frogs, Voud, Irris’ kid sister, does her best to convince the village’s gods to intervene after she overheard their neighbour talking about his succesful murder plot against her brother. But then Irris returns....
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The Philosopher's Stone by Brian Stableford
When the paranormal fraud Edward Kelley finds a mysterious black stone, he starts hearing the voices of angels. They implore him to seek out and warn scientist/magician John Dee. An alien invasion is about to hit 16th century England, if the country doesn’t tear itself apart before then.
While Stableford’s other two Plurality stories had clear references to the works of Jules Verne...
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26 Monkeys, also the Abyss by Kij Johnson
Aimee’s big trick is that she makes twenty-six monkeys vanish onstage. Well, it’s not really her trick as the monkeys do all the work. Aimee has no idea how they do it. But with the eldest monkey slowly dying, will the trick survive him?
Kij Johnson does a great job at evoking a feeling most of us have probably had at one time or other. Aimee finds herself lost in her own life,...
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Vinegar Peace, or, The Wrong-Way Used-Adult...
One evening, Ms. K— is escorted to the Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage, an involuntary home for parents who’ve lost their children to the War on Worldwide Wickedness. It’s a place full of metaphors, where the only rule is that you may never leave.
Michael Bishop recently lost a son and it’s obvious he’s speaking from experience here. The story is filled with painful,...
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Cascading Violet Hair by R. Neube
With all his savings stuck in a negative equity apartment, Henry is still mourning the loss of his wife, who died when a starship tore through his city’s hull. When he falls for one of the city’s chars, Red Cross wards who are tolerated because they perform menial jobs, he has either found a salve for his heartache or he is about to get his heart broken a lot more.
Though the story...
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The Woman Under the World by Steven Utley
After a time travel transport goes wrong, an electormagnetic echo of Phyllis Lewis wakes up in an abandoned facility, glowing with radiation and able to melt solid rock. With all of Phyllis’ memories, is she human or not? Is she even real?
I haven’t been keeping up with Utley’s Silurian tales, so I don’t know how this fits in, or if Phyllis Lewis is a recurring character....
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Lester Young and the Jupiter's Moons' Blues by...
New York, 1948, the local jazz scene is bustling with great grooves but for musicians who want to earn big money, there are jobs waiting on interstellar cruises, organized by the mysterious, alien Frogs. As long as you don’t play any Monk. Robbie Coolidge wants to take his chance but sometimes, muscians lose part of theirself in outer space.
Gord Sellar obviously knows and loves his jazz. I...
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Marrying the Sun by Rachel Swirsky →
When he torches her wedding dress at the altar, Bridget calls it quits with Helios, the Greek sun god. As Eilethyia, godess of childbirth, takes Bridget out to dinner to comfort her, Helios goes to a bar with Apollo to seek solace in wine and women.
The story’s subject and tone is similar to that of last month’s On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves by Peter M. Ball, also...
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Jimmy's Roadside Cafe by Ramsey Shehadeh →
After a plague has wiped out most of humanity, Jimmy opens up a roadside cafe on the median of I-95, just north of the Fallston exit. There he sits in his lawn chair, surrounded by dead cars, waiting to welcome any survivors or those who haven’t quite succumbed to the plague yet.
This is a quiet, thoughtful story full of humanity. Shehadeh remains vague about the plague, never going into...
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No Leaving New Orleans by Josh Rountree →
In a post-apocalyptic world, New Orleans was spared from nuclear destruction by the sudden appearance of a mysterious dome over the city. Under the safety of the dome, the city’s vampires and zombies have come out from hiding while the general populace is divided into castes. Tired of the world’s woes, many people volunteer to become mindless workers, Drones, who are programmed by the...
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Whatever Shall Grow There, Dear by Erin Hoffman →
Annamarie’s family runs an orange grove that’s becoming less and less profitable as the ground becomes more and more barren. Passing the blame back and forth, her parents are continually fighting. But when their immigrant workers start disapearing, Annemarie’s about to find out that there are darker things going on than just matrimonial strife.
Though the missing workers seem...
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Death Follows Us to Restaurants by Vylar Kaftan →
Maggie’s brother dies on the operating table while the doctors are transferring one of his kidneys to her. She vows to do something worthwile with her life to make up for his sacrifice. But what can she do when Death itself is literally her constant companion?
While I didn’t care much for the story itself with its clichéd ending, the portrayal of Maggie’s (imaginary?) friend,...
June 2008
15 posts
3 tags
The Story So Far . . . And Beyond by Cory Doctorow →
In three connected vignettes, Cory Doctorow descibes the future of books for the next 150 years. It was written for The Bookseller’s 150th anniversary (wow!) and is mainly a thought experiment, but even so, Doctorow manages to squeeze in some great character moments and observations.
He posits that the only way for books to survive into the future is to get new generations of readers...
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Litany by Rand B. Lee
The mysterious, gray-eyed Anderssen arrives in La Llorona in search of something. He’s no ordinary mortal and the thing he seeks is miraculous indeed. But, as prophesied, dark forces are on the move to keep him from his goal.
This is a rather dull story. I got a bit of an attempted Stephen King vibe from it but unfortunately the story failed to engaged me in any way. The characters and plot...
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Monkey See... by P. E. Cunningham
Ji and her nagging soul sword arrive in a backwater village to check out reports of a possible insurrection against the Emperor. What they find instead are a whole lot of monkeys and precious few humans. It doesn’t take long before Ji finds out first-hand what happened there.
This is a fun, light fantasy story which doesn’t take itself too seriously but also doesn’t drown in its...
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The Lodger at Wintertide by E. Catherine Tobler →
Sibley is the only person who can hear in a village of deaf people, though the trauma of a childhood accident and growing up there have made her mute. Every year, the mysterious but generous Silversack visits their village and brings gifts for the children. But when Sibley asks for her voice, Silversack has to abandon his own myth.
This story starts out promising as a look at the friction between...
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My Greedy Plea For Help by Ted Prodromou →
When a genie grants you three wishes, you have to be careful to ask for exactly the right things or they’ll interpret your wishes against you. But when you try to trick the genie, then you’re in real trouble!
This is a very short story, but it’s quite fun. It’s essentially a meta-story about wishing stories where there’s always a hidden price to be paid. Besides the...
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His One True Bride by Darja Malcolm-Clarke →
When Margetta, a vestal dedicant, is visited by the Harper’s holy light before the Harper’s Bride dies her second death, she is slated to become His next Bride. And as His Voice lets her know, he is most eager to receive her. But something’s terribly amiss with the Harper.
Darja Malcolm-Clarke writes some great, disturbing religious imagery. The mystery of the Harper’s...
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In Lieu of a Thank You by Gwynne Garfinkle →
A young lady is kidnapped by a mad scientist and his henchman but events take a turn for the unexpected when she turns out to be anything but the stereotypical damsel in distress.
This story just didn’t click with me at all. The subversion of a pulp story cliché has potential but Gwynne Garfinkle doesn’t really do anything of interest to me with it. The only thing of note is a strong...
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The Secret in the House of Smiles by Paul Jessup →
Alice hunts quantum vampires while her friend Jack, a dime store magician, tries to glue together a mysterious girl from various magazine clippings. Can he fix a magic trick gone wrong long ago?
Paul Jessup wrote a a great story about magic, ghosts and vampires without any faux gothic aspirations or Buffy stand-ins. Instead we get quantum physics, beat rhythms and a reference to a Jim Carrey...
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Clockwork Chickadee by Mary Robinette Kowal →
In a room full of clockwork animals, the clockwork chickadee bears a deep hatred for its arrogant sparrow counterpart. Alone amongst the animals, the sparrow can fly from a wind-up engine in the chandelier. But Chickadee is determined to bring him down to earth.
This is a fun little steampunk parable whose apparent moral lesson (pride comes before the fall) is somewhat subverted by the cold,...
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Running by Benjamin Crowell →
When Joe is thrown out of his 3-way marriage by his wife and husband, he loses his visa and instantly becomes an unemployed, undesirable element on the space station. There’s a shuttle leaving in twelve days but unless he spends them in a coma, his air rations will run out before then.
This story explores a lot of issues in a short timespan: polygamy, the rights of divorced parents,...
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Sorrowbird by Sean Markey →
Built from the physical artifacts of sorrow, locked in a cage of thorny vines and given life by the last of your magic, Sorrowbirds absorb all the grief you wish to feed them. But what if your grief is too much for your sorrowbird to stomach?
There’s some very nice, poetic imagery in this story but not much else. The main purpose of the second person narrative seems to be to camouflage the...
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On the Eyeball Floor by Tina Connolly →
Bill works in a cyborg manufacturing plant. He helps the cyborgs gain consciousness. Some immediately ‘transcend’ while others do so in fits and starts. It’s not the most popular job as the creepiness of the whole process puts a great psychological strain on Bill. But he copes better than most. However, he’s getting frustrated with one of the cyborgs who’s refusing to...
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On the Finding of Photographs of My Former Loves... →
Deacon gets home to find a Dear John letter from his girlfriend. She’s left him after finding a hidden envelope with photos of his ex-girlfriends. Turns out they were all mythical creatures.
There’s an interesting, ambiguous mix of the fantastic and the mundane in this story. Deacon’s casual recollections of the mythical monsters stand in stark contrast to his girlfriend’s...
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No Love for the Middleman by Tony Frazier →
When two superpowered Japanese girls tear up his office building in search of the Chessmaster, Ron’s day goes from bad to worse. He might work in Customer Serivce these days, but before that, Ron was none other than AcroCop, a superhero without superpowers. Will he be able to make sure this day ends without too much casualties or property damage?
As I’ve said before, I usually...
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The Shadow in the Mirror by Mari Ness →
A woman is haunted by the ghost of her dead sister who tries to murder her in her dreams. When her dream sister’s shadow escapes into the real world, things only get worse.
This story just didn’t work for me at all. It’s all too dreamy and ethereal, with a very predictable twist at the end. Just not my cup of tea.
(Fantasy Magazine)
May 2008
18 posts
4 tags
The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D. by Al...
When Clem Crowder becomes haunted by the spectre of the headless Silent Woman, he enlists the help of his buddy Dunky Drinkwater and the rotund parapsychology professor Buck Stebbins. Unfortunately the megalomaniac lighthouse keeper/dark sorceror Mesmeron also gets involved. And then there’s the diminuitive medium Madame Zorla and Chief Louie Poolaw. Though it was a great story with a dark...
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Road Dogs by Norman Partridge →
After his sister is found dead and mauled on a climbing trip, Glen returns home to settle a score with Kale, her no-good boyfriend who he suspects has something to do with her death. This plays out as a very standard, by the book werewolf story. It hits all the familiar notes and thus fails to surprise, or frighten, in any way. The only real interest lies with the characters who feel like...
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Your Collar by Elizabeth Bear →
After 4,000 years of being trapped in its labyrinth, the Cretan Minotaur is taken by steamboat to England. Hung with golden chains, he is presented to the queen as part of the spoils of empire but she quickly finds out he’s more than just an animal. Written in the second person, addressing the minotaur itself, this is a beautiful, thoughtful story about the literal and figurative chains...
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Character Flu by Robert Reed
Imagine a nanomachine which goes into your brain and boosts your cognitive and creative capabilities. Imagine one which creates whole new characters in your mind, to be used in games and entertainment. Now imagine it goes out of control and overflows your mind with endless worlds full of characters… More of a thought experiment than a proper story, this is nonetheless a very entertaining...
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Fergus by Mary Patterson Thornburg
Eileen tells her friend Jill, a fellow teacher, the story of her four year old son’s disappearance many years ago. And of the strange things that happened afterwards. This story starts very much like a lifetime movie, starring Celtic folk singers no less, which sets off all kinds of internal alarms for me. But once the central mystery kicks in, it gets on the right track. And though I...
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The Art of Alchemy by Ted Kosmatka
A brilliant metallurgist and his boss/lover are contacted by a rogue scientist from a small East European company who have developed a revolutionary new material which will mean the end of the steel industry. But will the big steel corporations allow this new technology to see the light of day? Well, obviously not, but how far are they willing to go? And will they succeed? This is a pretty...
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Tell Her by Rachel Kincaid →
After breaking up with his girlfriend a few months ago, a guy starts getting special messages on his ATM receipts. Some are prophetic, some plain gibberish and some just good advice. But will he take the advice if it means going up against months of frozen momentum? I feel like I’ve seen the idea of people receiving special messages from an ATM or other ticketing machine before, but I...
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The Small Door by Holly Phillips →
Carnival’s arrived in town but Sal is staying at home with Macey, her twin sister who’s bedridden with cancer. What little energy Macey has left, she spends spying on their weird old neighbour. He has many small animals locked in pens in his backyard. But whenever he takes one of them inside his house, it’s never seen again. With Macey off to the hospital after another bad...
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The Refutation of Rosemont by Barth Anderson →
In a letter to Antiquities Journal Monthly, John C. Miles refutes the argument of Jeremiah Rosemont (who picks his nose) that Tarot has no occult origin. In fact, he claims, it harkens back to the old Trojan magic over which Romulus slew Remus and founded Rome. As a teaser for Barth Anderson’s new novel The Magician and The Fool, this fictional piece of non-fiction is pretty effective. As a...
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Mirror Images by Rachel Swirsky →
A woman, recently released from a mental hospital, tries return to her normal life. But who’s looking back at her from her reflections? A short, disturbing piece, beautifully written. You can read it as a dark fantasy or a glimpse into the mind of a schizophrenic person, but it works best as a metaphor for all the different roles each of us have to assume in our daily lives. (Fantasy...
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The Gadgey by Alan Campbell →
Two kids are playing in the woods when an alien spacecraft suddenly makes a crash landing. But not to worry, one of the kids has satellite TV at home and knows all about Klingons and Predators. This is a fun, touching story. A lot of the comedy comes from the matter-of-fact way in which all the characters refer to science fiction series (mostly Star Trek) and movies for real-world knowledge about...
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The Stolen Word by Lisa Mantchev →
A young girl has a few fairy tale adventures but manages to stay an insufferable brat throughout. This is an amusing story, told well enough, but the most interesting part are the online comments (more than 140 of them). It’s quickly pointed out that the catalyst of the story (the little girl is sold to peddlers) is an offensive gypsy stereotype. The author was aware of the problem and tried...
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Birdwatcher by Garth Upshaw →
A boy, living alone with his mother, sets a trap for the crows in his backyard with shiny mirror pieces laced with poison. As he waits for them to take the bait, as they’re compelled to, aliens arrive with their own pieces of shiny bait. The story is well written with unflinching characterisations. The parallels between the crows and humans are perhaps a bit too obvious but they do paint a...
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A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica by... →
Through the descriptions of several polar maps up for auction, the story of a lifelong rivalry between two Argentinian cartographers unfolds before our eyes. Nahuel Acuña strives for the utmost precision and realism in his maps while Villalba Maldonado fills his maps with tall tales and fantasies. This is a great story about realism vs fantasy, told in an original style with a perfect ending....
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The Hob Carpet by Ian R. MacLeod
On an alternate earth, humankind is serviced by a slave race of pale humanoids, called hobs. As a result, people have grown lazy and decadent while the hobs, although clearly sentient, are treated worse than animals. This is the memoir of an emotionally detached man whose curiosity makes him see the hobs in a new light. Ian R. MacLeod’s stories are always a slow burn as he gently breathes...
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Gabe's Globster by Lawrence Person
Far away from his former life as a banker, Gabe leads a lazy life on a Caribbean beach, making a living from his driftwood carvings. But his comfortable routine is interrupted when a strange gelatinous creature washes up on his beach. Things only get weirder when the local wildlife start acting strange… This is a very straightforward story but the fun lies in the juxtaposition between the...
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Beneath Sunlit Shallows by Derek Kunsken
On the outpost planet Indi’s Tear, the colonists have been forced over generations to retreat deeper and deeper into the oceans, to escape a constant barrage of space debris. To survive under water they’ve altered their genetic makeup to such a level that they’re no longer homo sapiens. The latest step in this evolution is Vincent, whose genes have been engineered to allow him to...
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A Word Without Ghosts by Paul Jessup →
Wendy wakes up in an abandoned train station, guarded by a bear who might also be the ghost of her dead brother Peter and maybe also something else. Outside, they’re besieged by a horde of birds. When Wendy is kidnapped by the leader of the birds, who might also be the memory of her mother and maybe also something else, she will have to learn the rules of this strange world she finds herself...
April 2008
11 posts
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Five Good Things About Meghan Sheedy by A.M.... →
(part 1) (part 2) The United States are split apart by war. The north is governed by the Kabu, an alien, tentacled race while in the south, The Friends of Liberation are intent on removing all off-worlders from Earth. By collaborating with the Kabu, Dinah has ensured precious housing for herself, her friend Meghan and their kids (their husbands being casualties of war). But it also puts her on the...
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The Hero of Ward 6 by Sandra McDonald →
Jack is the titular hero of Ward 6. Which means that every night a superhero personality takes over his body and patrols the streets with his partner Stan’s alternate personality, Sidekick Kid. Most heroes stay in touch telepathically with their alter egos or communicate by leaving each other messages. Jack however refuses to talk with his superhero. But when the hero of a neighbouring ward...
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The Stamp by Terry Bisson →
A kid gives his brother a very special set of stamps for his birthday. They’re from the future! This is a very short story but it’s also very wonderful, especially when you find out who the brothers really are. (Lone Star Stories, April 2008)