Polyphony, Volume 4

Polyphony Anthologies #4

by Deborah Layne (Publisher, Editor), Jay Lake (Editor), Heather Welliver (narrator)

INTRODUCTION

It's been a long, strange road since the first volume of Polyphony was conceived by the dashboard lights along the lonely miles of I-5 in the Willamette Valley. Two and a half years have gone by, three volumes have been published in the series, markets have changed, production technology has evolved, and somehow, our book has found a home in genre.

When Polyphony first took off, it was on a wing and a prayer, with the help of a few dozen supporters and a hell of a lot of hope. New Weird was not the topic of the hour, the definition of slipstream was even more arguable than it is now. The phrase "interstitial arts" hadn't crept into the critical lexicon, let alone spawned a foundation or a conference. We weren't even sure whether to call Polyphony "cross-genre" or "slipstream" or "literary with a genre sensibility" (the last being the least elegant but most descriptive). As Supreme Court Justice Potter STewart said in another context, "We know it when we see it."

We weren't the first. Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Leviathan and Strange Horizons, to name several, had charted this oh-so-literate genre territory before us. We haven't necessarily been the best—only the years will tell that. But we have been privileged to make a mark, and perhaps even set a standard, for a kind of fiction that many wanted to write, and many more wanted to read.

We could fill this book thanking all the mentors, authors, publishers, reviewers, critics, booksellers, friends, fans, and family members that have helped drive that winding road. Instead we thought we'd fill this book with stories.

Curl up and read. That's what we'll be doing because we still love short fiction. Deborah Layne and Jay Lake
Portland, Oregon
July, 2004

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction

Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars for the whimsical fantasy short story “State Change” by the talented Ken Liu, free online on his website (it's also included in this collection and in his The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories collection). Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:

Rina lives in a version of our world where each person’s soul is embodied from birth in a physical object. Rina’s soul materialized at her birth in the form of an ice cube, and Rina has spent her life assiduously protecting her ice cube from melting, to preserve her soul and her life. Her ice cube soul has to remain physically close to her body, so Rina carries around portable refrigerated units, and keeps multiple refrigerators in her apartment, to keep her frozen soul from melting and killing her in the process.

A chill surrounds Rina, and no one has ever gotten to know her well, except perhaps her former college roommate Amy, whose soul was a pack of cigarettes that Amy would recklessly smoke every so often. Rina quietly works her office job during the day and stays home in her apartment at night, reading biographies of interesting people, to lose herself in their lives: Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose soul was a candle; T.S. Eliot, whose soul was the grains of coffee in a tin.

To measure out a life with coffee spoons, Rina thought, must have seemed dreadful sometimes. Perhaps that was why Eliot had no sense of humor.

But a soul in a coffee tin was also lovely in its own way. It enlivened the air around him, made everyone who heard his voice alert, awake, open and receptive to the mysteries of his difficult, dense verse. Eliot could not have written, and the world would have understood, Four Quartets without the scent of Eliot’s soul, the edge it gave to every word, the sharp tang of having drunk something deeply significant.

Then one day a new young man shows up at Rina’s office, and Rina’s quiet life, protecting her fragile soul, no longer satisfies her.

If you can roll with the central conceit, “State Change” is an engaging and insightful story. Beyond the obvious symbolism of the main idea, which Ken Liu explores in various delightful ways, I love the way he ties in the lives of famous people, whose genius is reflected in the way they handle and use their souls, as well as the subplot concerning Amy, Rina’s college roommate, who still has a place in Rina’s heart. It’s a gentle tale, told with affectionate sympathy.

[Shoa Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

"By all signs he should have been just another one of the anonymous, ambitious, disappointed young men passing through the building every day. But he was the most comfortable person she had ever seen. Wherever he was, he acted like he belonged. He would say only a few words, but people would laugh and afterwards feel a little wittier themselves. He would smile at people, and they would feel happier, more handsome, more beautiful."



This is a short story with a lot of soul. No, I mean, literally. It's set in a universe where children are born with a physical object identifying their soul. In the case of the protagonist, it happens to be an ice cube, which is why she always keeps her place stacked with refrigerators. She believes that if she were to part with it, that would be the end of her life.

This made for an interesting tale of magic realism and coming-of-age state changes.

[Yukari Watanabe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the optimistic tone of this quiet short story.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, rated only for Greg Van Eekhout's delightfully odd, whimsical series of vignettes, Tales from the City of Seams, heard on the Far Fetched Fables podcast.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

If your soul was an object what would it be and how would the characteristics of that object impact how you lived your life? These are the thought lines behind this short story. Rina's is an ice cube, so she lives her life in fear of it melting, surrounded by refrigerators at home and work, her icy persona scaring off colleagues until the day Jimmy Kesnow starts to work in her office. This story makes you think about how self resticting we can be based on misconceptions about who we really are.

[Jenn]

Contains my story "Memree."

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

We never truly know ourselves, because when we think we have come to understand our own minds we have ultimately changed in the process.