The August issue begins with Esther M. Friesner’s “At These Prices,” an amusing story of a hotel staffed by fantasy regulars: brownies, trolls, dwarves, and fairies. These characters and their fervent dedication to coffee and poker are quite funny, but the real laughs come from Bella Franklin, the free-booting and dotty hotel guest they match [...]
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The July issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a slight disappointment overall. The most enjoyable story, Lawrence C. Connolly’s “Daughters of Prime,” uses a tried and true motif. Cara has been sent to observe an alien species in its native habitat. When contact is made there’s a lot of language confusion. [...]
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Since the column Dave Truesdale writes for F&SF only appears online I find myself reading the July installment six months late (they ought to create an RSS feed). He discusses the Paraspheres anthology, which attempts to step beyond the genre boundaries of science fiction and literary fiction in order to appeal to both.
In his euphemism-free [...]
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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 [...]
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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 [...]
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I thought Gene Wolfe had died. For a moment, when I saw the cover: his face, and the word “Memorare,” which my mind first read as “In Memoriam.” Happily, the event was just the publication of a new novella.
March Wildspring is a documentary filmmaker whose project takes him to Jupiter, where he investigates memorials and [...]
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The March 2007 issue only has five stories, which is becoming almost typical. Yes, the page count is the same every issue, and yes, one was a novella and two were novelets, but my mind is a simple thing and believes that when counting apples and oranges each still only counts as one. It’s risky [...]
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