August 13th, 2007 admin
Kevin Haw, the author of Requirements for the Mythology Merit Badge, commented on this post*; he made a few points which I figured I would reiterate here. Also, reading over my coverage, I realized I missed a few things.
I didn’t notice it at first, but there is a serious lack of ads in the magazine. I counted about a dozen pages with ads on them, and that includes the backcover, the classifieds (easter egg and all), and the ads for the magazine (website, order form, etc). The ads that are present are all relevant; they all appear to be for books.
The editorial content in the magazine is pretty good. I remember I used to always find the “Curiosities” column on the back page interesting, and this one was no different. As someone who hasn’t picked up a sci-fi or fantasy novel in quite a while, the book reviews were interesting, if not terribly useful. I would suspect that I am in the minority in that case. The film column started out as a diatribe against the Hollywood treatment of sci-fi (which I typically agree with) and jumped into a few reviews. Again, it was fairly interesting, but I didn’t find it very useful.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading and reviewing this issue; I’ve gotten the next issue already, and I will be publishing reviews of it over the next few weeks.
*Very cool. This blog has seemed more an echo-chamber than a public forum. Any feedback is cool, but to receive it from an author whose work you just read is a amazing feeling.
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August 7th, 2007 admin
I just finished reading the September issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
If We Can Save Just One Child…, by Robert Reed was an excellent observation and criticism of the one percent doctrine (the concept, not the book) and the culture of fear built up around it.
In the story, we meet paranoid character after paranoid character fixated on the current crisis: trafficking in clones of people who did not consent to the cloning. This ‘bootleg cloning’ is an all-consuming fear; it doesn’t matter that there are on average 3.5 cases each year.
I enjoyed reading this piece quite a bit. It seemed long on message and short on plot, but I hardly think that is a complaint in this case.
The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate, by Ted Chiang is an interesting time-travel piece. It treads the well-worn track of “one cannot change the past or the future.” That theme is explored in the frame story and the three sub-stories. The evocative setting, Baghdad and Cairo during the Golden Age of Islamic Culture, does a good job of freshening up the moral. Mr. Chiang does a very good job of weaving the stories in a comprehensible manner; while I wasn’t terribly surprised at the outcome, I was pleased by the way he showed the protagonist’s gains in understanding that resulted from the outcome.
Those were all the stories in this issue. This issue will be on the news stands until August 29, 2007. I encourage everyone to pick up a copy.
I was surprised by the overall quality of the magazine. I will have to keep a closer eye out for it in the future.
This series (and the other content on this site) was my first attempt at writing reviews. As is probably very easy to tell, I am still working out the kinks. Hopefully, they weren’t too painful.
Previous parts in this series:
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August 6th, 2007 admin
Atalanta Loses at the Interpantheonic Trivia Bee was a cute little romantic comedy with a mythological backdrop by Heather Lindsley. This was a fun story; it got a few smiles from me. Honestly, it would probably have gotten many more if I was a little more versed in myth.
For me, Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack In the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers, by John Langan was worth the purchase of the issue by itself. I would call it post-apocalyptic survival horror, but that evokes too many images of Mad Max. This is more like Night of the Living Dead; something is going horribly wrong. Most everyone is dead, the Pack is hot on the tail of the survivors, and there are many more questions asked than answered. It differs from Night of the Living Dead, however, in the composition of the Pack. The Pack is the survivors’ term for semi-intelligent, man-eating dogs.
I am a sucker for stories that don’t wrap everything up in a neat little package. By the end of the story, I’ve formed, weighed, cast aside, and replaced a few hypotheses that are never confirmed or denied. A very good read — as long as you don’t mind that.
Kevin N. Haw’s piece Requirements for the Mythology Merit Badge is exactly what it sounds like; not really a story so much as a piece of background information. It reads like a clipping from a scout handbook from a world very different from our own. This was pretty humorous, especially since I do remember reading through and completing checklists very much like this (only much more mundane) in my scouting years.
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August 1st, 2007 admin
The second story in the issue was Envoy Extraordinary, by Albert E. Cowdrey. This darkly comedic story was more of a slice of life of a future diplomat from a much degraded, indulgent, and morally vacuous, Earth. The piece provided a brief exploration of a setting; the characters were more unlikable inhabitants than fleshed-out characters.
That said; the setting was fairly interesting. I didn’t mind visiting for the term of the story, but I’m not sure I would enjoy a longer stay.
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July 31st, 2007 admin
I wasted a fair amount of my youth reading science fiction. I had a voracious appetite for fiction of all sorts, but my science fiction was my soft spot. Once I hit high school and real life started catching up, that habit tapered off. I still have the occasional relapse, but nothing like the golden days of my youth, when I would eagerly await my trips to the library and each issue of Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (my primary drug of choice).
Given that background, I got excited when I saw that Fantasy & Science Fiction had forty copies of their September issue that they were going to give away to bloggers in exchange for a mention/review.
I requested a comp. copy for review, but unfortunately, their stock ran out well before me.
I think having this sort of outreach/marketing program is a good thing; there isn’t really a loser in the equation. So, in the interest of promoting the program and the magazine, I went out and purchased a copy for myself.
Over the next few days (as I finish reading each story), I will post a mini-review.
I would like to point out that I would be very willing to review anything (well, books, music, movies, software, etc) that someone would want me to review. If you are interested, just drop me an email.
I enjoyed the first story in the collection; a piece by Alexander Jablokov entitled “Wrong Number.” The story is a modern urban fantasy piece, with a subdued sense of the fantastic. No flashy magic here; just a dash of the fairy tale aesthetic.
I must confess, I have a weakness for this (sub)genre. This piece gave me (what will probably be) my favorite quote from this issue:
That was Marlene: a smart babe in a rubber dress with a genuine talent for mechanized warfare.
Stephanie, a friend of Marlene, struggles with a curse placed on her by a guy she gave an incorrect phone number to several years in the past. Marlene brings her to a particular auto body shop whose proprietor has a knack for fixing things. Most of the action takes place in the body shop among the likeable employees. I felt that the ending was a little unclear; I had to read it a few times to follow the plot. Overall, I enjoyed the story; a quick little read with fun characters.
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