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.

Watching the presidential candidates promise voters cheaper gas reminds me of when I was in the third grade, watching a couple sixth graders give speeches about why they should be elected class president.  One promised to put soda pop in the drinking fountains.

Thing is, I bet if you put it to a vote most Americans (and certainly most politicians) would rather have soda pop in public drinking fountains than, say, build more nuclear reactors or stop buying SUVs or stop using the highways to do the railways’ job.

We’re just that stupid.

In this image there are two recreational implements.  One is a book.  The other is a toy.

As a librarian I swim in the soup of anxiety surrounding civilization’s transition from a print to electronic world.  I’ve made strides in converting large swathes of my print collections to electronic.  I’ve tried shifting from buying books to buying ebooks.  And I know firsthand some of the reasons why the long prophesied revolution has not yet come (many of them relate to industry structure).

I’ve also become acquainted with ebook readers that use epaper technology.  You can read my review of the most ballyhooed, the Amazon Kindle, here.

I see two reasons why people who aren’t gadgetgeeks aren’t rushing to abandon printed books.  I’ve already given the first: the image above includes a book and a toy.  And when a booklover wants to cozy up with a novel they won’t mistake the two.

I say this not just as a reactionary curmudgeon who’s never actually tried it.  I’ve read full-length novels on these devices.  It’s not a bad experience.  But when I’m not intentionally doing it for the experience’s sake–when I finish one book and contemplate the decision of what to read next–I turn to the familiar and more comfortable, and in some ways still more convenient, paper book.

The second reason why paper books continue to dominate is economic.  Here’s where comparisons between the print-to-electronic transition and the 15th century manuscripts-to-print transition break down.

While both new technologies offer functionality the incumbent technologies lack, print offers an advantage over manuscripts that ebook readers may never offer over print: it costs less.  And with the Amazon Kindle representing a $400 initial investment, on top of which you still need to buy the ebooks (which, inexplicably, aren’t any cheaper than paperbacks), it’s hard to see many people whose primary objective is reading books, as opposed to playing with gadgets, taking this plunge.

Surely the price will come down and functionality improve.  People fondly raise comparisons to first generation cell phones, or Apple’s Newton.  Someone will get it right, and then the market will take off.

But I recall something Isaac Asimov said, that the simplest, cheapest technology that fully meets a need will dominate more complex technologies.  (I haven’t been able to find this quote again, perhaps I’m misattributing it.  I’d be grateful to anyone who could source it for me.)  I’m confident this will bear out, making the ebook revolution something that takes place only on an evolutionary time scale.

But what about the more open publishing environment ebooks are supposed to usher in?  I can buy bestsellers as ebooks.  I can buy your grandmother’s self-published erotica.  I can read my Fantasy & Science Fiction as an ebook.  To say nothing of Strange Horizons, Jim Baen’s Universe, and OSC’s IGMS.  They’re online-only.  Who needs paper?

While I could read F&SF as an ebook, I get my subscription in paper.  And while technology has blown the publishing door open, it only opens on the antechamber.  To be published and to be read are not the same thing, despite what vanity presses want you to believe.  Niche markets (and short form speculative fiction is a niche market) benefit from the medium.  Mainstream markets less so.  You might read your favorite author’s story online in Strange Horizons.  But when her novel comes out, chances are you’ll buy it in paper.

And the alternative of spending $400 on a Kindle, plus another $10 for the book, won’t even occur to you.

Frank Herbert’s Dune is the single greatest novel of science fiction I’ve read, a book I internalized at as a teen, and one of the few I have ever cared to reread (my review).  When you’ve come to “own” something in this way you hate to see people tamper with it.  It was a relief when Peter Jackson’s Return of the King was finally released and I could rest knowing he hadn’t totally ruined Tolkien’s work.  (Here we go again, and I’m even more frightened about Jackson doing The Hobbit.)

Now comes news that Paramount is filming a new adaptation of Herbert’s book, with Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert as co-producers.  It’s nice to see their names attached to the project, even if I haven’t yet dared to see how well they’ve honored the series with their co-authored additions.  It’s also nice that the studio is assuring fans the script will be faithful to the source material.

Of course, the underlying question is whether this is a novel that can be successfully filmed.  David Lynch’s 1984 attempt is a glorious trainwreck, so beautiful and mysterious it sunk deep in my childhood psyche, despite its opacity and ultimate failure (my review).  The more intelligible SciFi miniseries of 2000 lacks sharpness in acting and style, and made little impact on me (review).

I worry that the book is too big, and not just in plot, which could be accommodated by splitting it into multiple films.  Science fiction is the literature of ideas and it is in its ideas that Dune is so vast.  Surely, Lord of the Rings was a big story, filled with ideas, but I feel fantasy lends itself more easily to film, where ideas are communicated through emotion and wonder.  There is that in Dune, but there is a good deal of brass tacks also.  The awkward implementation of voiceovers in Lynch’s Dune to manage Herbert’s ubiquitous internal monologues is symptomatic.

Still, don’t you doubt I’ll be first in line to see any new Dune movie.  There’s always the chance it could be great, as long as they find a screenwriter who doesn’t think he’s more clever than the book.  I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Compared to Maurizio Manzieri’s cover art, the April 2008 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction is underwhelming overall.  Among the highlights:

“The First Editions” by James Stoddard
The first pages of this story are deceptively predictable.  The protagonist visits the home of Yon Diedo to see his library of unique books, only to be transformed into a book himself by his sorcerous host.

This blasé beginning soon falls away, the gothic mansion recedes, and the focus becomes the nook where the narrator now resides among a menagerie of interesting people/books.  Existence as a book is more tactile than one might expect, and the society more complex.

Like George R. R. Martin’s “Sandkings,” this is a variation of what I call the God’s Ant Farm motif.  The rebellion the narrator eventually instigates doesn’t end in Diedo being devoured by books, but with a romantic dilemma.  This, the generous pacing, and the 19th century tone might not be for everyone, but how could a booklover not enjoy this love story between books?

“Five Thrillers” by Robert Reed
I have mixed reactions to Reed’s work.  His stories stay with me but I’m not always sure I like them.  “Five Thrillers” is no different, but I’m going out on a limb and deciding I like it.  Mostly.  Sort of.

Joe Carroway is a uniquely gifted individual.  He can immediately size up people and situations and do just what needs to be done to both advance his own agenda and save the world.  And unlike most people, he’s not secretly bad.  He’s more than open about it.  When he’s not lying to you.

Neither is there any dissembling in Reed’s storytelling.  The protagonist is unabashedly unsympathetic and I never liked him, making it hard to engage with the story’s moral questions.  But I did want to see what dirty business he would undertake next as Reed leads us through Carroway’s career, which spans some particularly precarious times in Earth’s future.  Not exactly uplifting stuff, but if it wasn’t such a trite metaphor you’d expect to experience some pain when having your face riveted to the page.

I don’t know if Reed has published more stories in F&SF than anyone else, but it sure feels like it.  Not, as it turns out, a bad thing.  At least not today.

“The Fountain of Neptune” by Kate Wilhelm
A middle-aged woman with a terminal brain tumor decides that if she only has months left she may as well enjoy herself.  She flies to Rome without telling anyone and spends days soaking in the culture and ambience.  But she notices something odd about the fountain in Piazza Navona.  And it gets odder.  Her doctors warned her of hallucinations, but only she can decide what they mean.

Ultimate meaning is as illusory in this story as are the narrator’s hallucinations.  I’m a meat-and-potatoes kind of guy, preferring to know where I stand, but as Wilhelm’s protagonist concludes, this uncertainty feels right, however unsettling. 

In his book review column Charles de Lint is bemused by the chaste passion of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight trilogy but realizes such “Victorian” attitudes are not necessarily out of touch with today’s kids.  Judging by Meyer’s sales, not every teen is oversexed, overdrugged, abused or antisocial or even enchanted by those who are.  But even such puritans think vampires are sexy.

A long but engrossing story from Albert E. Cowdrey and a short piece of personal interest from Alexander Jablokov highlight the March 2008 issue of F&SF.

“The Boarder” by Alexander Jablokov
I’ve enjoyed the few Jablokov stories I’ve read, but this is the first that’s really struck home.  There’s actually nothing science fictional or fantastic about it, which might normally make me grumble about its appearance in F&SF. 

It’s a character study, told as the memoir of a man looking back at his youth.  His family, Russian emigres, lets out their basement to fellow emigrant Vassily, a metallurgist who worked on the Soviet space program and gets by in America doing odd jobs.

My interest in the story is idiosyncratic–in the 90s I lived two years in the Baltic States of the former Soviet Union.  Never before have I encountered a fictional character that seemed taken directly from my own experience.  I did not know Vassily, I knew several of him.  His rough mannerisms, oscillating temperament, his facility for tinkering, his balcony-style garden, his indifferent arrogance and capacity for lazing are so authentic the story, whatever its value as a perspective on science fiction and space exploration, leaves me replete with the warm fondness of nostalgia.

“Rumple What?” by Nancy Springer
I love fairy tales with the love that leads to strong opinions.  Because of this pickiness it’s not often I’m impressed with twists on classic tales.  “Rumple What?” comes admirably close.  What most recommends it is its unabashed, snarky voice and style.

“The Overseer” by Albert E. Cowdrey
Cowdrey has been one of the most prolific and dependable authors in F&SF’s recent years.  This may be my favorite story of his to date and, overlooking for the moment the personal connection I feel for Jablokov’s boarder, it’s the best story of the issue.

“The Overseer” follows the life of Nick Lerner, whose best friend is a slave boy on his father’s unprofitable plantation.  Nick fights in the Civil War, becomes a criminal, and makes the natural transition from that to politics during Reconstruction.  He’s haunted by the ghost of his father’s overseer, the specter of his own misdeeds, and the echoing consequences of the plot’s patiently developing twists.

It took some time for the narrator’s present to become as interesting as the past he records in his memoirs, but the final package is very rewarding.  I saw The Kite Runner this weekend (haven’t read the book).  “The Overseer” could be considered the antithesis of that powerful story.

“Exit Strategy” by K. D. Wentworth
After a bad day at school Charlsie, a pouty debutante, has come to the Church of Second Life to end it all by donating her body to someone who needs or wants its life more than she does.  It turns out there’s a whole application process and she has to volunteer at the Church for several weeks.  Bummer.  Do they want her body or don’t they?

The stupid self-obsession of my teenage years was bad enough to live through.  I usually find it very tiring in fictional characters.  Wentworth keeps her tongue far enough in cheek, and her protagonist develops just enough to earn a pass.  That coupled with the fun ideas at the root of this story gives it a nice vibe of old-school SF meets mallrat.

“The Second Descent” by Richard Paul Russo
While this piece’s abstracted narrative is a mode that does not resonate with me, it’s final message, of perseverance without hope, perseverance based, in fact, on doubt, does (and no, that’s not just a comment on my own authorial aspirations).

“A Ten-Pound Sack of Rice” by Richard Mueller
I’m also a sucker for stories of redemption, and despite some rough edges Mueller delivers a nice one here, informed by his intimate knowledge of the battle in the air above Guadalcanal.

The February issue falls short of spectacular, but boasts one great story and several that are more than serviceable.

“Balancing Accounts” by James L. Cambias
This is a brilliant story.  Depicting the AI of a space tug falling into a moral quandary, Cambias writes with humor and insight.  The first person protagonist has an excellent voice and may be the most sympathetic AI I’ve encountered. 

This is largely due to the moral system it has developed, which, compared to the logic of Asimov’s 3 Laws, feels downright organic (perhaps Objectivist).  Cambias makes it plausible for an AI while keeping it familiar enough to humans that we recognize the protagonist as the “good guy” who’s trying to do the right thing. 

I love the personalities, I love their culture/setting, I love the action, and I love the dilemma.  I want to marry this story and have its babies.

“Petri Parousia” by Matthew Hughes
And then I might have a brief affair with this story from Matthew Hughes. Irreverent but not irreligious, it reunites a worldly orthopedic surgeon with his annoying med school roommate, a genius who preferred research over practice. 

Now Wally has found a way to reconstruct a person’s ancestors’ DNA and he comes to Jim for venture capital.  When Jim meets Wally’s principal investors he has second thoughts, but Wally can’t leave well enough alone.  This may be a gimmick story, but I’m sold on it.

“Philologos: or, A Murder in Bistrita” by Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald
I also find Doyle and Macdonald’s story alluring.  The bookish protagonist falls into a net of supernatural horror-adventure, with the gothic textures of nineteenth century Romania evoked more by language than description.  As an academic the hero seems to follow the Indiana Jones school.  He’s far less surprised by his situation and much more prepared for it than I was as a reader.

While I resent protagonists who make me feel like the Watson to their Sherlock, I do like this story.

“If Angels Fight” by Richard Bowes
This story takes a bit more digesting and indulges in a more leisurely, roundabout pace.  The Bannons, part of the Boston political aristocracy, rely on the protagonist to keep tabs on his childhood friend, the wayward Mark Bannon, who at times seems developmentally challenged, at times animated by an irresistible charisma.  The search has as much to do with tracking this animus as it does with Mark himself.

An ambitious story.  While the whole didn’t completely coalesce for me, I enjoyed the concept, mood and characters.

“Memoirs of the Witch Queen” by Ron Goulart
Goulart’s humor dominates this wry story of a man who’s ghostwriting a witch’s memoirs.  She becomes rather fond of him, and he can’t quite keep the job from interfering with his personal life.  Good fun.

“Retrospect” by Ann Miller
Miller’s debut (she has my congratulations and courteous envy) begins with a very well-written portrait of a rare book-buying agent whose world reminds me of Wall Street, with its high profile and pressure.  He falls from the pinnacle of success and lands in, of all places, a book club where eccentrics debate things like, if you could send a book back in time which would you send and how would it change the world?

An interesting question.  The story left me at the curb when it transitioned to the fantastical elements at the close, but I’ll be rooting for Miller’s future success.

The January 2008 issue is dominated by stories revolving around simple conceits (not that there’s anything wrong with simple conceits–it’s simplicity and conceit that are dangerous).  The standout is the one piece where the conceit fully receded behind the story and characters: Alex Irvine’s “Mystery Hill.” 

Ken runs a roadside attraction where debunkers and crackpots make their diametric pilgrimages to observe the laws of nature violated by water flowing uphill.  He’s content running his tourist trap, making wry commentary about his visitors and his rural neighbors.  An unconventional young physics professor named Fara starts poking around and together they find some startling answers behind the odd roadkill on US-12 and the weird hooch Little Boozy has been selling local kids.

It’s a playful story, with amusing but recognizable characters.  I loved Ken, sympathized with his infatuation for Fara, and found the whole idea delightfully wacky.  Most of all I came away impressed with Irvine’s voice and versatility.  It’s a slobberknocker of a story, even if the ending doesn’t fully satisfy, and right now Irvine’s is the name I’m happiest to see on the covers of F&SF when they come to my door. 

Among the other stories, “Mars: A Traveler’s Guide” by Ruth Nestvold is an extreme example of the conceit dominating the story.  In fact there is no story, only the hint of one glimpsed through the entries accessed on a traveler’s encyclopedia of Mars.  A clever bit of work.

“The Twilight Year” by Sean McMullen gives a new take on the roots of the King Arthur legend.  I didn’t find the narrative voice particularly graceful, but the characters and setting were well done, and the idea, if not a new invention, feels fresh in its application to King Arthur.

There are a lot of things wrong with the world.  If you could, which would you fix?  The War in Iraq?  The environment?  Or is there some cosmic travesty you’d be compelled to prevent, like the capitulation to the critics offered in place of a worthy sequel to Conan the Barbarian?

Michaela Roessner poses the question in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and when the brains at Berkeley team up with the Department of Defense, who knows what’s possible?  The result is a popcorn story, but Roessner can certainly write.

I’m comfortable enough in my manhood to admit I’m not immune to Jane Austen’s appeal.  Which is not to say I wouldn’t prefer a dash of danger and testosterone in her books.  And maybe a monster.

It could have started as an undergraduate’s writing exercise or as a response to one of F&SF’s competitions, but in “Pride and Prometheus” John Kessel merges Pride and Prejudice and Frankenstein in a way that rings true to Austen, to Shelley, and to Kessel (though he did re-envision Mary to be a foil for Frankenstein). 

More than just a writing game, this fully works as a story and bears up under its weighty title.  While it never feels like showboating it’s a memorable show of prowess on Kessel’s part.  Only Irvine’s story is better.

In his review column Charles de Lint tackles Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows after mentioning that book five, Order of the Phoenix, dragged for him.  Like most in the business, de Lint looks at Rowling with respect but a total absence of awe.  Qualms about her writing aside, he calls her a “born storyteller” and suggests that Harry Potter was the last universal entertainment experience for today’s splintered culture.  Universal minus me–I also had trouble with the fifth book, but I never went any farther.

Kathi Maio’s review of the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust aptly enumerates the movie’s problems.  But my favorite line was her observation that adults are not more sophisticated than children, only more jaundiced.

The cartoons in F&SF aren’t always worthwhile, but I got a kick out of all three in this issue, especially J.P. Rini’s “art for art’s sake” cave paintings on p.29.

There’s nothing I don’t like in the December issue of F&SF, and Lucius Shepard’s Films column tops it off: “The sole value of movies like Rise of the Silver Surfer,flavorless, odorless, soulless product, is that they provide a register for the flatlining of our culture–not of its intelligence, really, but of its will to excel and to strive.”

In juxtaposition to the American need for aimless diversion, Shepard examines two Scandinavian films.   While Songs from the Second Floor sounds entirely uninteresting, Shepard’s description of The Bothersome Man makes it sound fascinating.  But both, Shepard argues, are examples of nihilistic hopelessness.  They wallow in despair as surely as Rise of the Silver Surfer wallows in vacuity.

These examples, seemingly from opposite ends of the artistic spectrum, reflect the same “cynical world view, . . . the abandonment of art as a tool for change, and to our overall surrender.”  The nihilism of the intelligentsia or the idle distraction of the masses amount to the same thing: disengagement. 

Shepard’s thinking gave me that peculiar pleasure that comes from reading a resonant truth, and this insight continues to clarify my views.  Not bad for a review column.

The stories are good too:

The country is divided over Iraq now, but after 9/11 everyone’s focus was Osama bin Laden and we were united.  Everyone wanted to do something.  The problem was (and still is) how to find him.  In “Osama Phone Home” David Marusek’s characters employ an elegant solution: they out-qaeda al-Qaeda, forming an organization modeled on the decentralized and dispersed terrorist group.

It feels a little like a heist and a little like a techno-thriller, with different cells of the organization investigating plausible technologies and tactics for forcing the terror-master to reveal himself.  The story is a bit dry, the ending’s tone perhaps incongruent, but it’s a fascinating approach to vigilantism that weds high technology and guerrilla strategy.

Even more intriguing is “Stray,” by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert.  Ivan is an immortal being who can captivate the will of humans, shaping religions and empires.  He becomes sympathetic when he falls in love with an early nineteenth-century black woman.  To live a normal human life he must abstain from using his power.  But life is precarious, and Ivan’s impulse to protect what he’s gained may instead destroy it. 

It’s a dilemma that will leave him with loss no matter what he does.  Which is exactly what it means to be human.

Frederic S. Durban’s “The Bone Man” is an eerie tale of a soulless hitman who stops off in a small town on his way home from a job.  A true cynic who believes Halloween is a parable for human existence (”We wear masks.  We collect and eat candy.  We die.”), Conlin is amused by the town’s superstitious tradition of the Bone Man, a spectral figure who leads their parade.

As his amusement turns to unease, so does mine (a good thing).  Although I expected Conlin’s childhood to tie more directly into the plot, the leisurely pace led to a nice payoff in a memorable story.

The first person plural is an odd POV for a story, but M. Rickert is the odd author who can eschew clarity without raising my hackles.  She does it again with “Don’t Ask.”  My tastes might only allow me to ingest her work in small doses, but the poetry of the final line in this story cut all the way to the wolf pelt I don’t have in my heart.

I very much liked “Who Brought Tulips to the Moon?” by S. L. Gilbow.  It’s a classic extrapolation piece, where the solution to longevity taxes is Smooth Passing Inc., the modern version of the primitive practice of elderly tribe members who wandered off to die in the wilderness when they became burdensome.

Jack’s 94 years old, his time has come, and his daughter isn’t shedding any tears.  She’s not malicious, just impatient.  I love the weary mood and the solace Jack finds, though the final twist was jarring.

But the last story is the best.  “Finisterra,” by David Moles, is set on a gas giant with a breathable atmosphere (at the right pressure).  Archipelagos of giant floating creatures are prey for poachers and provide living space for outcasts.  Bianca, like her father, designs aircraft.  The criminal Valadez engages her to get one of the beasts, intact, into space, but as she learns more she begins to have second thoughts.

The characterization, flavor, and world creation are all top-notch.  The creatures themselves, and all the various flying machines, make me think of Hayao Miyazaki.  If he ever adapted “Finisterra” I’d love to see it.

Despite two complete stinkers, the October/November double issue has some real pleasers.  It’s also the first time my name has appeared in F&SF.  Appropriately, it’s as a dishonorable mention.  For the Adapted contest I spliced Star Wars and Of Mice and Men.  What can I say?  The thought of smushed Ewoks amuses me.

I suppose most people will be more interested in this issue for the cover story, “Urdumheim,” by Michael Swanwick.  It evokes Mesopotamian mythology along with the Biblical Nimrod, Babel, and St. John’s “In the beginning was the Word,” telling a creation myth where the War in Heaven is fought using language.

The Judeo-Christian influence is shallow, Swanwick’s story fully original.  Nimrod invents language as a way to escape Urdumheim, the nothingness that preceded being.  But the Igigi come to recapture the People, and do so by stealing their words.  Death is invented in the ensuing siege.

“Urdumheim” is told in first person and I find this clashes with its function as myth.  But I doubt that myth without contemporary storytelling sensibilities would work as well (it certainly didn’t for Lord Dunsany), and the aspect of this novelet that works best is the more straightforward story of the narrator and his experience of this gruesome war.  

The other big draw this issue is “Against the Current” by Robert Silverberg, which follows a simple premise with a classic feel: a man starts slipping backwards through time.  He doesn’t get younger himself, but every time he turns around a few more years seem to have slipped by (we all know that feeling).  It’s a well-thought out exercise, and the ending is necessarily dismal.

Other stories I enjoyed include “Unpossible,” by Daryl Gregory, which demonstrates that clarity and surrealism can coexist.  It offers a sad, desperate nostalgia, but any story that alludes to Where the Wild Things Are earns a free pass, and the final note is hopeful.

Albert E. Cowdrey’s “The Recreation Room” feels personal, set in his own New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina, as if it’s Cowdrey’s eulogy for the piece of himself that died with the city, though it took him some time to realize it.

I was thrilled to see another story about Falco and Astolfo, Falco’s sardonic mentor who trades in shadows.  Fred Chappell’s “The Diamond Shadow” tells of a caper the two perpetrate on a persnickety countess.  Although it doesn’t flow as smoothly as Chappell’s story in the March issue, I love the atmosphere of these shadow trade stories, and the way Falco suffers the brunt of the plot twists, never really knowing what his master has in store.

F&SF only publishes a couple first-time writers each year, but perhaps they should rethink that.  “Two Weeks After,”  the debut of M. Ramsey Chapman, is the best story in an issue filled with regulars and luminaries.  It’s a short, simple, but surprising ghost story about two people trying to make peace with their surviving spouses.  It’s also flawless, original, and without affectation.