Fantasy & Science Fiction: May 2008

F&SF has several nice stories in May 2008, especially Gilbow’s and Cowdrey’s, but Pollack’s ambitious novelet overshadows them all.

“Reunion” by Robert Reed
The graduating class of a small town is the locus of statistically impossible success.  Billionaires, politicians, actors, spies, and scientists.  Half the graduates have become fabulously rich and famous.

The daughter of one of the less-famous classmates shows up at the reunion asking questions, hoping to discover her father’s role in the mysterious phenomenon.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the short-lived TV drama called Reunion that aired on FOX in 2005.  It had some promise, but was cancelled before the identity of the killer was revealed.  Here also things never came together for me, but Reed makes it worthwhile.

“Rebecca’s Locket” by S. L. Gilbow
I enjoyed Gilbow’s “Who Brought Tulips to the Moon?” (Dec. 2007) and this story provides another look at how a small, personal technology can change the way we live our lives.

It’s fashionable to imprint a loved one’s personality in a piece of jewelry or similar item upon their death.  You can keep them with you always, talking over old times and such.  And when you’re ready to move on, just toss it in the trash.

It’s a brief, light piece, but the new widow’s grieving process and the slice of heaven her departed husband finds for himself are memorable.  Gilbow is one to watch.

“Immortal Snake” by Rachel Pollack
Pollack’s novelet dominates the issue just as surely as the faces on Mark Evans’s cover illustration rivet the attention.

At times intrusively mythic in tone, “Immortal Snake” nevertheless succeeds in casting its spell, with a bloody priesthood cycling through capricious emperors in a palpably distant realm.  But the new emperor’s sister has no intention of playing along with destiny.  Together with a Scheherazade-like slave she defies the immemorial order of things.

There were so many things I would have done differently in this story, undoubtedly making it something less than what Pollack gives us.  I’m a sucker for nested stories, like Ted Chiang’s “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” (Sept. 2007), and Pollack tells some nice ones here.  But it’s the dark mythic mood that sticks with me.

“Firooz and His Brother” by Alex Jeffers
A young man on a caravan in central Asia follows his hound as it chases a deer.  Hidden in the wilderness he finds a cast-off child, and raises him as a brother.  But Firooz has taken to his bosom a creature not quite human.  Jinni, ifrit, something from a fairy world, Haider makes it possible for Firooz to have the one blessing that escapes him.

Jeffers’s voice is well-suited to the tale, and it’s well told.  The squirm-inducing incest strained my credulity, though it’s presented in the objective, mindset-jarring manner of good speculative fiction.

“Thrilling Wonder Stories” by Albert E. Cowdrey
Cowdrey may be the most consistent of the F&SFregulars in quality.  “Thrilling Wonder Stories” is the only story in this issue that left my inner negativist with nothing to grab onto.

We all know that the rough boys who torture neighborhood animals grow up to be serial killers.  In this story Cowdrey gives us the reason why one boy starts in on the animals in the first place.

The boys and the mother and father are as well-realized as Cowdrey’s beloved New Orleans.  The subject matter may evoke the pulp magazines Cowdrey references, but it’s doubtful that many of them featured writing as polished and unobtrusive as Cowdrey’s.

“Traitor” by M. Rickert
Just as I always enjoy Cowdrey’s stories, I’m always impressed by Rickert’s writing.  ”Traitor,” a disconcerting story of a mother, her daughter, and terrorism, isn’t my favorite piece from her, but it affirms my admiration for her talent.

“Circle” by George Tucker
The issue closes with this story of a part-time Seminole shaman with a day job in construction.  He’s hired to free a high-rise development from the curse it has invoked from building on a sacred site.  It didn’t click for me as well as it did for some, but it’s not a bad story, and the protagonist is well-drawn.