Fantasy & Science Fiction: May 2007

There’s a lot to like in the May 2007 issue.  The striking cover goes with Ian R. MacLeod’s striking story, “The Master Miller’s Tale.”  Set in rural England during an industrial revolution that threatens traditional lifestyles and traditional magics, the novella depicts the last of Burlish Hill’s master millers.  A twisted romance neatly parallels and affects his soured prosperity and bitter resistance to technology, making him a saboteur with complex motivations.  An excellent story, sensually rich (I could feel the flour in my lungs), and highly inventive without being outlandish.

K. D. Wentworth’s “Kaleidoscope” is a strongly-crafted tale about a middle-aged woman whose life attains the stability of the titular toy.  Unlike much slipstream-style speculative fiction, which considers a contemporary environment suffering from degenerative-surrealistic disorder a valid setting, here the phenomenon is treated as a problem.  In place of the ambiance of wonder we get a much more sympathetic protagonist.  Not a bad deal.

But my personal favorite in this issue is Paolo Bacigalupi’s “The Tamarisk Hunter,” first published in High Country News (since when did F&SF do reprints?).  A standard extrapolation tale, the premise is that persistent drought has transformed the West.  California, the 800-pound gorilla, has forced the Colorado River Basin to evacuate so it can monopolize the river’s water.  Lolo ekes a living off the bounties he earns for killing thirsty tamarisks.  It’s a brief, stark story, no doubt feeling exotic and apocalyptic to some.  But to a desert dweller the threat of a California National Guardsman standing between you and the river with an M16 is not at all implausible.