Fantasy & Science Fiction: September 2007
February 1, 2008 by Andy
The September issue is fairly strong, with a good number of shorter stories and no honking big novellas monopolizing the page count.
Ted Chiang’s eagerly awaited “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” is the centerpiece. While it didn’t leave me mentally gobsmacked the way his stories usually do, I actually found more enjoyment in its 1,001 Arabian Nights savor than I have in many of his others, which is an understated way of saying I love it.
This well-crafted narrative matryoshka concerns a Baghdad silk merchant. He encounters an alchemist who has created a Gate of Years. The alchemist tells him stories of those who have used it and permits him to try it himself. I’ll say no more, but the overall effect is an authentic tale in a traditional mold. It plays with classic time travel conundrums using the well-suited nesting-stories motif of the Arabian Nights, a reminder of how deep the genre’s roots go, and just how fresh an old style can be.
I also appreciated Alexander Jablokov’s “Wrong Number,” which weaves the clever idea of using people’s automobiles as voodoo proxies into the life of a woman navigating the romantic hazards of playing the field. Further evidence that a trustworthy mechanic is worth their weight in gold.
I’ve yet to be disappointed by an Albert E. Cowdrey story, and Envoy Extraordinary is no exception. (At one point I even conflated this story with George R. R. Martin’s “The Way of Cross and Dragon” in my memory. Further evidence of early-onset senility, I’m sure, but also high praise.) The ambition, duplicity, and expendability of diplomats is on playful display, and while I didn’t find any of the characters sympathetic, they were entirely too human.
Heather Lindsley provides more amusement with “Atalanta Loses at the Interpantheonic Trivia Bee.” Your enjoyment will be directly proportional to your familiarity with mythology and your willingness to see it given the wit and mood of a modern romantic comedy. I didn’t write about it in my diary, if you know what I mean, but it has a fun sweetness to it.
Perhaps the most surprising story for me was John Langan’s “Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers.” I am one who has always ignorantly assumed he didn’t care for post-apocalyptic fiction. So I didn’t look forward to reading this story, unless it was with the false anticipation of satire that Langan’s ridiculous title gave me to expect. But even that was countered by an anticipation of annoyance when I saw the irregular formatting, structure, and extravagant run-on sentences.
A young man and the young woman he’s long nursed a crush for find themselves fleeing from fearsome beasts they call the Pack, racing through an empty city where cars have stalled in the streets, their occupants replaced by purple flowers. It ought to leave me rolling my eyes. But anyone who quotes a song from the Alarm earns a second look from me, and all my expectations were discarded as I found myself enjoying the ride and fully interested in the characters. It’s enough to make me rethink my prejudices and stick the John Joseph Adams-edited anthology, Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, (in which Langan’s story is reprinted) on my wish list.
