July 2008 is a lackluster issue overall. It may be that the best bit is Bill Long’s cartoon, where he proposes some children’s books to instill more realistic expectations in the coming generation (e.g. ”The Service Industry and You”). But while there’s nothing here that I’ll still be talking about on my deathbed, there are a couple things I wanted to mention.
“Enfant Terrible” by Scott Dalrymple
Despite my predisposition to groan and ask “why?” when reading a story in 2nd person, I enjoyed the sudden menace introduced in “Enfant Terrible,” which could almost be seen as the antidote to all those precocious child geniuses Orson Scott Card is so fond of.
“The Dinosaur Train” by James L. Cambias
Sean’s grandfather runs a circus-like attraction featuring dinosaurs. Sean’s father preferred electrical engineering over a carny’s life, but Sean intends to live up to his grandfather’s expectations.
The family conflicts take center stage and it feels almost like mainstream fiction with dinosaurs thrown in as dressing. But it’s done well enough, the characterization is rich, and, well, dinosaurs are cool no matter how old I get.
“Poison Victory” by Albert E. Cowdrey
Cowdrey departs New Orleans for an alternate history set near Stalingrad, or Führerburg in this story, where the protagonist is the hero who won that pivotal battle for the Nazis. Seven years later he lives like a nobleman, ruling tracts of land with a hundred serfs to farm it. No Nazi at heart, he criticizes the Reich in a secret journal and sympathizes with the Russian resistance.
While the protagonist may show some 21st century whitewashing in his sentiments, he’s quite sympathetic is his guilt and dilemmas. The portrayal of the Nazi occupation is plausible and effectively written, offering sufficient details without burying the reader as alternate histories sometimes do.
This is a nice mixture of German and Russian personalities and themes, with the Nazi war hero emulating Tolstoy as a landowner but suffering like Dostoevsky. Certainly the best story of the issue.
