The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November/December 2010

by Gordon van Gelder (Editor), Robert Reed, Michael Alexander

NOVELLAS
Dead Man's Run – Robert Reed

NOVELETTES
Plinth without Figure – Alexander Jablokov
Swamp City Lament – Alexandra Duncan
Death Must Die – Albert E. Cowdrey

SHORT STORIES
The Exterminator's Want Ad – Bruce Sterling
Crumbs – Michaela Roessner
Venues – Richard Bowes
Planning Ahead – Jerry Oltion
Free Elections – Alan Dean Foster
Ware of the Worlds – Michael Alexander
The Closet – John Kessel
Teen Love Science Club – Terry Bisson

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories

258 pages

First published November 1, 2010

About the author

Gordon Van Gelder (born 1966) is an American science fiction editor. From 1997 until 2014, Van Gelder was editor and later publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, for which he has twice won the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form. He was also a managing editor of The New York Review of Science Fiction from 1988 to 1993, for which he was nominated for the Hugo Award a number of times. As of January 2015, Van Gelder has stepped down as editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction in favour of Charles Coleman Finlay, but remains publisher of the magazine.

Reviews

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 4 out of 5]

A spatial architect meets up with his ex years later where they thought they had run over a young child many years before. The ghost of the child still haunts their relationship in "Plinth Without Figure" by Alexander Jablokov. Robert Reed gives us a murder mystery with a difference. Last-chance recovering alcoholic Lucas is in a running club that meets a few times a week and when one member, Wade Tanner, goes missing his avatar, a simulacrum of him, rings Lucas and asks him to investigate. What follows is the best Agatha Christie array of suspects and misdeeds arranged in years. "Dead Man's Run" is an excellent tale. Bruce Sterling takes us to a world in the throes of left-wing revolution over climate change with "The Exterminator's Want Ad", and Michaela Roessner gives us a retelling of a very famous fairy tale with "Crumbs". An unfortunate mishap on a first date where the young protagonist runs out of toilet paper and condoms sees him turn his
life around by "Planning Ahead". But you can take things too far as Jerry Oltion amply demonstrates. Alan Dean Foster gives us a Mad Amos Malone tall tale with "Free Elections", where a strange old man refuses to release a town's water supply, while Alexandra Duncan gives us a story that starts out like high fantasy but very quickly becomes a post-Apocalyptic existential crisis in "Swamp City Lament". Chillingly bleak. In the "Teen Love Science Club" the girls must wear masks and their Science teacher helps them make a mythological black hole. Terry Bisson channels R. A. Lafferty in this one. A meeting of the anti-death penalty group "Death Must Die!" is disturbed by the ghost of the notorious hangman Meeks. Psychic investigator Martin is called in and a battle to the death begins in Albert E. Cowdrey's romp.

[monkeyelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

As is unfortunately becoming a pattern for F&SF, this is filled with nice, well-written, completely safe stories. (The exception to this is Alexandra Duncan's fantastic Swamp City Lament, which alone caused my rating of this magazine to go up a star. That story on its own would rate at least a 4.5, if not a 5. SO GOOD.) This issue also continued the unfortunate trend of publishing only 2 stories by women out of 12; the numbers have been similar for every issue since I started counting. F&SF, I have so many fond memories of you, but I will not be renewing my subscription once it runs out.