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Interzone 254, September-October 2014
The September–October issue of the British Fantasy Award winning magazine contains new stories by Nina Allan, Jay O'Connell, S.L. Nickerson, T.R. Napper, Julie C. Day, Sam J. Miller. The cover art is by Wayne Haag, and interior colour illustrations are by Tara Bush, Richard Wagner, Daniel Bristow-Bailey. All the usual features are present: Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits); Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe (film reviews); Laser Fodder by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); Book Zone (book reviews) and Jonathan McCalmont's Future Interrupted column. This issue also sees the start of a new regular column: Time Pieces by Nina Allan. Read More for details, images and extracts.
96 pages, ebook
First published January 1, 2014
14 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 3, 2014
4.5 stars
Every story in this issues was excellent, and the articles and criticism up to the usual high standard.
Every story in this issues was excellent, and the articles and criticism up to the usual high standard.
September 21, 2014
Great mixture as usual. Stand out stories include Marielena by Nina Allan and Dark on a Darkling a Earth by T R Napper.
February 10, 2015
Nappers story was good, like a evening of plentiful fine wine.
January 21, 2021
I know this often happens to me; perhaps I am blessed – but this has just turned out to be the perfect coda to my ToTAl TTA experience in this review. A great story, in itself, with so many quotable sentences that tell striking truths, ones you feel have always been said, but now they have been said for the first time. As a coda, it conveys its woman protagonist not only as a regrouping parent with her today’s child (a daughter), the relationship with her estranged husband (the daughter’s father), but also as the child that she was herself and the regrouping parent that she becomes as parent of the child that she once was – through the ‘time travel’ of music: those mnemonics and aide-memoires and Armageddon effects of the songs that can literally change one’s whole life. Not only songs by the Beatles or the Pixies or Prince, but also by Kurt Cobain, and the pervading philosophy as a telling suicidal ingredient of today’s growing sense of Anti-Natalism amid “the winds of software innovation or the shifting trade tariffs of faraway countries”…
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.
January 22, 2015
Marielena - Nina Allan: um conto que começa por nos parecer uma história sentida sobre imigração com uma leve sugestão de sobrenatural. Um exilado político vindo dos sítios habituais no médio oriente deambula pelas ruas de uma Londres pouco acolhedora enquanto aguarda a confirmação do seu estatuto. Deambula e recorda quem ama e deixou no seu país longínquo, fazendo-nos intuir que é mais do que uma mulher, talvez um demónio das mitologias milenares do médio oriente incorporada num corpo feminino. O conto vai-se arrastando entre percepções do problema da imigração e sugestões de sobrenatural, até terminar no encontro entre o imigrante e uma sem-abrigo. Este ajuda-a, e ao fazê-lo descobre que tal como ele ela é uma refugiada, só que vem do futuro para prevenir um evento catastrófico que nunca chegaremos a conhecer. Conto interessante, apesar de uma prosa a puxar para o literário comiserativo.
A Minute and a Half - Jay O'Connell: conto que se lê como uma vinheta cheia de acção. É essa a história, de uma perseguição fatal contada como reminiscência por um dos sobreviventes. Pelo meio vai metendo umas curiosas referências futuristas, com drogas inteligentes que alteram a personalidade dos utilizadores, cultos suicidas e comunidades libertárias hiper-liberais fugidas à desagregação dos estados-nação. Apesar destes elementos, é um mero fragmento de acção, talvez um exercício de estilo em narração proto-cinematográfica.
Bone Deep - S. L. Nickerson: há algo de muito arrepiante neste conto. Acompanhamos uma personagem gravemente doente cuja única hipótese para pagar os tratamentos é tatuar-se com logotipos comerciais. Ser um anúncio vivo é o único recurso para as massas que não ganham o suficiente para tratamentos médicos. Os problemas agudizam-se quando as tatuagens interferem com uma cirurgia que necessita para sobreviver. Um comentário óbvio aos problemas trazidos pelo acesso privatizado à saúde, que privilegia o ganho em detrimento do humanismo.
Dark on a Darkling Earth - T.R. Napper: a Interzone de vez em quando faz-nos destas. Publica contos que são surpresas inesperadas quer pelo conceito, técnica literária ou coerência do mundo ficcional. Este é um excelente exemplo disso. Somos levados à China num futuro pós-apocalíptico, mas o autor não perde tempo a contar-nos os dramas e catástrofes que aniquilaram o planeta e o mergulharam numa névoa permanente. Ao longo da história dá-nos pequenos vislumbres intuídos e nada mais. Acompanhamos um responsável superior de uma organização extinta que se junta a um grupo de soldados à deriva para protecção e alimentação enquanto prossegue a sua viagem de regresso aos seus familiares. Eles nãosabem se a guerra terminou, quem venceu, se há governo, se há mais soldados ou sobreviventes, persistindo na sua missão de patrulhar os caminhos que conduzem a direcções que desconhecem. Pelo caminho encontram um refúgio, verdadeira arca de noé cultural que protege artefactos e memórias digitais de um tempo extinto. Conto fortíssimo, com uma ambiência visual que me faz recordar a pintura chinesa. Apesar dos indícios de tecnologia os soldados deambulam por vazios florestais, sem se cruzar com outros sobreviventes das instituições governamentais.
The Faces Between Us - Julie Day: acho que este conto é sobre um casal de namorados que invoca fantasmas inalando as cinzas de pacientes cremados num hospital abandonado. Posto desta forma até promete ser um conto interessante, mas não. Difuso, confuso, um lodaçal de leitura.
Songs Like Freight Trains - Sam Miller: outro corpo estranho nesta Interzone. Uma das personagens deste conto é mentalmente transportada aos tempos da juventude ao ouvir certas músicas. Algo que ao conduzir pode ser perigoso. Se os personagens não são eliminados com extremo prejuízo num acidente rodoviário, o leitor passa o conto a desejar que este desastre literário termine por misericórdia. Percebe-se a ambição literária, e uma ligação ténue ao fantástico, mas o estilo narrativo e a ausência de elementos de ficção científica tornam este conto uma estranha escolha editorial da revista.
A Minute and a Half - Jay O'Connell: conto que se lê como uma vinheta cheia de acção. É essa a história, de uma perseguição fatal contada como reminiscência por um dos sobreviventes. Pelo meio vai metendo umas curiosas referências futuristas, com drogas inteligentes que alteram a personalidade dos utilizadores, cultos suicidas e comunidades libertárias hiper-liberais fugidas à desagregação dos estados-nação. Apesar destes elementos, é um mero fragmento de acção, talvez um exercício de estilo em narração proto-cinematográfica.
Bone Deep - S. L. Nickerson: há algo de muito arrepiante neste conto. Acompanhamos uma personagem gravemente doente cuja única hipótese para pagar os tratamentos é tatuar-se com logotipos comerciais. Ser um anúncio vivo é o único recurso para as massas que não ganham o suficiente para tratamentos médicos. Os problemas agudizam-se quando as tatuagens interferem com uma cirurgia que necessita para sobreviver. Um comentário óbvio aos problemas trazidos pelo acesso privatizado à saúde, que privilegia o ganho em detrimento do humanismo.
Dark on a Darkling Earth - T.R. Napper: a Interzone de vez em quando faz-nos destas. Publica contos que são surpresas inesperadas quer pelo conceito, técnica literária ou coerência do mundo ficcional. Este é um excelente exemplo disso. Somos levados à China num futuro pós-apocalíptico, mas o autor não perde tempo a contar-nos os dramas e catástrofes que aniquilaram o planeta e o mergulharam numa névoa permanente. Ao longo da história dá-nos pequenos vislumbres intuídos e nada mais. Acompanhamos um responsável superior de uma organização extinta que se junta a um grupo de soldados à deriva para protecção e alimentação enquanto prossegue a sua viagem de regresso aos seus familiares. Eles nãosabem se a guerra terminou, quem venceu, se há governo, se há mais soldados ou sobreviventes, persistindo na sua missão de patrulhar os caminhos que conduzem a direcções que desconhecem. Pelo caminho encontram um refúgio, verdadeira arca de noé cultural que protege artefactos e memórias digitais de um tempo extinto. Conto fortíssimo, com uma ambiência visual que me faz recordar a pintura chinesa. Apesar dos indícios de tecnologia os soldados deambulam por vazios florestais, sem se cruzar com outros sobreviventes das instituições governamentais.
The Faces Between Us - Julie Day: acho que este conto é sobre um casal de namorados que invoca fantasmas inalando as cinzas de pacientes cremados num hospital abandonado. Posto desta forma até promete ser um conto interessante, mas não. Difuso, confuso, um lodaçal de leitura.
Songs Like Freight Trains - Sam Miller: outro corpo estranho nesta Interzone. Uma das personagens deste conto é mentalmente transportada aos tempos da juventude ao ouvir certas músicas. Algo que ao conduzir pode ser perigoso. Se os personagens não são eliminados com extremo prejuízo num acidente rodoviário, o leitor passa o conto a desejar que este desastre literário termine por misericórdia. Percebe-se a ambição literária, e uma ligação ténue ao fantástico, mas o estilo narrativo e a ausência de elementos de ficção científica tornam este conto uma estranha escolha editorial da revista.
June 1, 2016
Good stuff as usual from the IZ crew:
The particular strength this time is Nina Allen's novelette, Marielena which is a timely and elegant story about loss and migration to new lives/worlds/times/etc. It's a sad read and less than complementary about the modern urban environment but it's full of lovely phrases and imagery and resonates with an understated hope. It actually pretends not to be SF until very near the end in fact (not that it matters) which serves the delicate pairing of isolation and motivation well. Definitely one to check out.
A Minute And A Half by Jay O'Connell - I've not seen the film but it feels like it would be a good partner for Lucy. I wasn't quite primed for its bombast and freneticism after Marielena so maybe I bounced off it a little, but the framing device and the bridge between the character before and after were the strengths. It was maybe a little ridiculously high-octane for my tastes, so the top and tail were my favourite bits.
Bone Deep by S.L. Nickerson - Ok, I've read a take on this story before somewhere. I can't place it but I've seen it before. That aside, the visceral sense of mortality (ironically through unrestrained growth) is great here. The skin-deep beauty line isn't overplayed and I got a strong sense of her pain and suffering, compounded by the vulgarities of medicine as presented.
Dark on a Darkling Earth by T. R. Napper - What I am a sucker for is worlds playing with the human condition but leaving it open to interpretation. So this ghostly tale of lost soldiers and wise men, lost and without memory, is right up my street. It carries a sense of timeless wisdom, evoked by the Chinese wisdoms and poetry and is perfectly nebulous for the theme.
The Faces Between Us by Julie C. Day - This is getting read again at a later date. It's unsettling in the extreme because they say it's all for the best but it really doesn't seem like that. It's a look into the cognitive dissonance of desire and compulsion which doesn't make it easy to pick out arbitrary things like 'good' or 'bad'.
Songs Like Freight Trains by Sam J. Millar - It depends on how you react to music in stories, really. It does fall into the trap of using Nirvana - the sonic screwdriver of music as a contemporary symbol - but it also speaks a lot of truth on what we expect out of our memory and the art we interact with. We all react differently to nostalgia is the point, and we could all do with a little magic in our lives.
The particular strength this time is Nina Allen's novelette, Marielena which is a timely and elegant story about loss and migration to new lives/worlds/times/etc. It's a sad read and less than complementary about the modern urban environment but it's full of lovely phrases and imagery and resonates with an understated hope. It actually pretends not to be SF until very near the end in fact (not that it matters) which serves the delicate pairing of isolation and motivation well. Definitely one to check out.
A Minute And A Half by Jay O'Connell - I've not seen the film but it feels like it would be a good partner for Lucy. I wasn't quite primed for its bombast and freneticism after Marielena so maybe I bounced off it a little, but the framing device and the bridge between the character before and after were the strengths. It was maybe a little ridiculously high-octane for my tastes, so the top and tail were my favourite bits.
Bone Deep by S.L. Nickerson - Ok, I've read a take on this story before somewhere. I can't place it but I've seen it before. That aside, the visceral sense of mortality (ironically through unrestrained growth) is great here. The skin-deep beauty line isn't overplayed and I got a strong sense of her pain and suffering, compounded by the vulgarities of medicine as presented.
Dark on a Darkling Earth by T. R. Napper - What I am a sucker for is worlds playing with the human condition but leaving it open to interpretation. So this ghostly tale of lost soldiers and wise men, lost and without memory, is right up my street. It carries a sense of timeless wisdom, evoked by the Chinese wisdoms and poetry and is perfectly nebulous for the theme.
The Faces Between Us by Julie C. Day - This is getting read again at a later date. It's unsettling in the extreme because they say it's all for the best but it really doesn't seem like that. It's a look into the cognitive dissonance of desire and compulsion which doesn't make it easy to pick out arbitrary things like 'good' or 'bad'.
Songs Like Freight Trains by Sam J. Millar - It depends on how you react to music in stories, really. It does fall into the trap of using Nirvana - the sonic screwdriver of music as a contemporary symbol - but it also speaks a lot of truth on what we expect out of our memory and the art we interact with. We all react differently to nostalgia is the point, and we could all do with a little magic in our lives.
November 18, 2014
Good stuff as usual from the IZ crew:
The particular strength this time is Nina Allen's novelette, Marielena which is a timely and elegant story about loss and migration to new lives/worlds/times/etc. It's a sad read and less than complementary about the modern urban environment but it's full of lovely phrases and imagery and resonates with an understated hope. It actually pretends not to be SF until very near the end in fact (not that it matters) which serves the delicate pairing of isolation and motivation well. Definitely one to check out.
A Minute And A Half by Jay O'Connell - I've not seen the film but it feels like it would be a good partner for Lucy. I wasn't quite primed for its bombast and freneticism after Marielena so maybe I bounced off it a little, but the framing device and the bridge between the character before and after were the strengths. It was maybe a little ridiculously high-octane for my tastes, so the top and tail were my favourite bits.
Bone Deep by S.L. Nickerson - Ok, I've read a take on this story before somewhere. I can't place it but I've seen it before. That aside, the visceral sense of mortality (ironically through unrestrained growth) is great here. The skin-deep beauty line isn't overplayed and I got a strong sense of her pain and suffering, compounded by the vulgarities of medicine as presented.
Dark on a Darkling Earth by T. R. Napper - What I am a sucker for is worlds playing with the human condition but leaving it open to interpretation. So this ghostly tale of lost soldiers and wise men, lost and without memory, is right up my street. It carries a sense of timeless wisdom, evoked by the Chinese wisdoms and poetry and is perfectly nebulous for the theme.
The Faces Between Us by Julie C. Day - This is getting read again at a later date. It's unsettling in the extreme because they say it's all for the best but it really doesn't seem like that. It's a look into the cognitive dissonance of desire and compulsion which doesn't make it easy to pick out arbitrary things like 'good' or 'bad'.
Songs Like Freight Trains by Sam J. Millar - It depends on how you react to music in stories, really. It does fall into the trap of using Nirvana - the sonic screwdriver of music as a contemporary symbol - but it also speaks a lot of truth on what we expect out of our memory and the art we interact with. We all react differently to nostalgia is the point, and we could all do with a little magic in our lives.
The particular strength this time is Nina Allen's novelette, Marielena which is a timely and elegant story about loss and migration to new lives/worlds/times/etc. It's a sad read and less than complementary about the modern urban environment but it's full of lovely phrases and imagery and resonates with an understated hope. It actually pretends not to be SF until very near the end in fact (not that it matters) which serves the delicate pairing of isolation and motivation well. Definitely one to check out.
A Minute And A Half by Jay O'Connell - I've not seen the film but it feels like it would be a good partner for Lucy. I wasn't quite primed for its bombast and freneticism after Marielena so maybe I bounced off it a little, but the framing device and the bridge between the character before and after were the strengths. It was maybe a little ridiculously high-octane for my tastes, so the top and tail were my favourite bits.
Bone Deep by S.L. Nickerson - Ok, I've read a take on this story before somewhere. I can't place it but I've seen it before. That aside, the visceral sense of mortality (ironically through unrestrained growth) is great here. The skin-deep beauty line isn't overplayed and I got a strong sense of her pain and suffering, compounded by the vulgarities of medicine as presented.
Dark on a Darkling Earth by T. R. Napper - What I am a sucker for is worlds playing with the human condition but leaving it open to interpretation. So this ghostly tale of lost soldiers and wise men, lost and without memory, is right up my street. It carries a sense of timeless wisdom, evoked by the Chinese wisdoms and poetry and is perfectly nebulous for the theme.
The Faces Between Us by Julie C. Day - This is getting read again at a later date. It's unsettling in the extreme because they say it's all for the best but it really doesn't seem like that. It's a look into the cognitive dissonance of desire and compulsion which doesn't make it easy to pick out arbitrary things like 'good' or 'bad'.
Songs Like Freight Trains by Sam J. Millar - It depends on how you react to music in stories, really. It does fall into the trap of using Nirvana - the sonic screwdriver of music as a contemporary symbol - but it also speaks a lot of truth on what we expect out of our memory and the art we interact with. We all react differently to nostalgia is the point, and we could all do with a little magic in our lives.
October 3, 2014
A below average issue, mainly due to the choice of stories that dont' really appeal to me. Nina Allan's story initially appeared out of place until near the end when its SF premise is revealed.
- “Marielena” by Nina Allan: a mostly contemporary story about a political fugitive from another country who is waiting for asylum in Britain. In the midst of waiting, he encounters a homeless woman who seems to know the agony he faces over seeking asylum and 'abandoning' his country. When he later comes to her aid, he makes a discovery about her that will change his opinion about her and about his own future.
- “A Minute and a Half” by Jay O’Connell: a tale about how a man reconciles with his girlfriend and toddler girl via an illegal bio-engineering chip. But it nearly all goes wrong when they are attacked by the girl's former end-of-the-world sect and he needs to decide on the spot what kind of man he wants to be.
- “Bone Deep” by S.L. Nickerson: at a time where people earn money by letting corporations deeply tattoo their logos onto their bodies, one woman with a degenerative diseases that causes her bones to grow wildly in her body has to decide what to do when the tattoo ink causes her treatment to be stopped. Can she cheat the companies to get the money to pay for the treatments?
- “Dark on a Darkling Earth” by T.R. Napper: set in the future in China, a old man stumbles into a small company of soldiers who ask him to tell tales so that they can remember the past. They then stumbled on to a memory shelter full of past objects and he must then choose whether to stay or to leave to search for more memories of his own.
- “The Faces Between Us” by Julie C. Day: a strange tale about two people who can 'inhale' dead people and let them inhabit their bodies.
- “Songs Like Freight Trains” by Sam J. Miller: a story about a woman who apparently learns the 'art' of time travelling by listening to old favourite songs.
- “Marielena” by Nina Allan: a mostly contemporary story about a political fugitive from another country who is waiting for asylum in Britain. In the midst of waiting, he encounters a homeless woman who seems to know the agony he faces over seeking asylum and 'abandoning' his country. When he later comes to her aid, he makes a discovery about her that will change his opinion about her and about his own future.
- “A Minute and a Half” by Jay O’Connell: a tale about how a man reconciles with his girlfriend and toddler girl via an illegal bio-engineering chip. But it nearly all goes wrong when they are attacked by the girl's former end-of-the-world sect and he needs to decide on the spot what kind of man he wants to be.
- “Bone Deep” by S.L. Nickerson: at a time where people earn money by letting corporations deeply tattoo their logos onto their bodies, one woman with a degenerative diseases that causes her bones to grow wildly in her body has to decide what to do when the tattoo ink causes her treatment to be stopped. Can she cheat the companies to get the money to pay for the treatments?
- “Dark on a Darkling Earth” by T.R. Napper: set in the future in China, a old man stumbles into a small company of soldiers who ask him to tell tales so that they can remember the past. They then stumbled on to a memory shelter full of past objects and he must then choose whether to stay or to leave to search for more memories of his own.
- “The Faces Between Us” by Julie C. Day: a strange tale about two people who can 'inhale' dead people and let them inhabit their bodies.
- “Songs Like Freight Trains” by Sam J. Miller: a story about a woman who apparently learns the 'art' of time travelling by listening to old favourite songs.
dipped-in
January 6, 2019Read Nina Allan's story 'Marielena'. At first I wasn't keen on this at all, and would have said it was the only Allan story I've actually disliked, but it does get better towards the end – enough to bump it up to 'good' status, but not 'good-for-Nina-Allan' status, which is of course much better than anyone else's 'good'. It's written in a markedly different style from most of Allan's fiction and possesses a kind of realist lyricism. It's told from the point of view of Noah, who comes to the UK as an asylum seeker. He meets a homeless woman called Mary and, when he helps her, he is brought to an outlandish yet inescapable conclusion about her origins. I didn't find Noah's voice wholly convincing, and the idea that he is telling the whole thing to his ex-girlfriend – Marielena – also felt a little tacked on.
'Marielena' is a sort of companion piece to 'The Science of Chance', published the same year. I'm guessing both were written while Allan was working on The Rift, which explains the common themes. This story is certainly interesting but I definitely prefer the author's usual style.
'Marielena' is a sort of companion piece to 'The Science of Chance', published the same year. I'm guessing both were written while Allan was working on The Rift, which explains the common themes. This story is certainly interesting but I definitely prefer the author's usual style.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews