Fantasy & Science Fiction: June 2007

When my July issue of F&SF arrived I knew my June issue had been skipped.  That afternoon I asked about it and the next morning had an email saying they’d resend my copy.

As a librarian I know that resolving what are called “claims” is sometimes as pleasant as calling the phone company to contest a billing error.  The speed of F&SF’s response was nothing short of extraordinary.  My thanks and compliments to Andrew, the Circulation Manager, for this example of service quality. 

Between this and the rejections John Joseph Adams is so quick to send me for my stories, F&SF runs a remarkably tight ship.

Getting back on topic, the June 2007 issue starts with an SF detective story, “Sweet Trap,” from Matthew Hughes.  Henghis Hapthorn is Old Earth’s foremost freelance discriminator, and he’s searching for a client’s missing husband.  Abduction?  An affair?  The investigation leads to an amateur spelunker who seems desperate to sell his spaceship for a rock-bottom price.  By the time this case is solved we see how little it takes to grant a human happiness, and are left wondering just what a more capacious intellect might require. 

This tale lacks the noirish feel that SF detective stories typically adopt.  Instead there’s a slight tongue-in-cheek sensibility, and a setting with many interesting elements (integrators and shared consciousnesses and grinnets and a revival of magic) going in many different directions.  It all added flavor but sometimes didn’t feel firmly tied to this particular story, an impression which reflects the fact that this is my first exposure to this recurring character.  In that capacity it does whet the appetite.

If “Sweet Trap” avoids noir in favor of understated humor, Charles Coleman Finlay’s “An Eye for an Eye” hyperbolizes it, and the body modification fad, for more blatant laughs.  It’s not that this is slapstick, but a story that begins and ends with an eyeball surgically attached to an anus can’t harbor any pretensions.  It’s a lark, but the tone is right and the twists are deliciously devious.

I’m afraid Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life” has ruined me for stories where linguistics is the S of the SF, much as Tolkien has ruined me for invented fantasy languages.  Still, I do like language, and Sheila Finch’s “First Was the Word” appealed to me.  If “Story of Your Life” is hard linguistic SF, “First Was the Word” is soft, concerned more with its protagonist as a character encountering other characters than with his efforts to teach an alien English.

Marta Randall’s “Lazaro y Antonio” features two brothers living in the slums nestled up against a spaceport.  Lazaro’s brain is full of sludge, so Antonio looks out for him.  Once Lazaro was Fibs for a smuggler, navigating the Continuum by dancing the Fibonacci sequence.  Locked in his head is a treasure map, and in exchange for it he’ll get a chance to think clearly.  The Spanish and slang and overall color of the story are very well done in this excellent piece, as is the brothers’ relationship and Lazaro’s plight.

But the one story this issue that truly blew me away was “Wizard’s Six” by Alex Irvine.  It’s a high fantasy that strikes the right balance between atmosphere and exposition.  The hunter Paulus trails a renegade wizard and must kill the children his quarry has “collected.”  Paulus is a rough man who paid a wizard to help him forget his past.  Between this mystery and the horror of his task he becomes a fascinating character.  Affecting but never affected, this is one of the best things I’ve ever read in the pages of F&SF.