Interzone 262, January-February 2016

by Andy Cox (Editor)

The January–February issue of Britain's longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine contains the latest Wergen story by Mercurio D. Rivera, plus other stories by Rahul Kanakia, Ian Sales, Carole Johnstone, T.R. Napper, and Philip A. Suggars. The 2016 cover artist is Vincent Sammy, and interior colour illustrations are by Jim Burns and Richard Wagner. Features: The Imitation Game by Vincent Sammy; Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits); Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe (film reviews) - includes Star Wars: The Force Awakens; Laser Fodder by Tony Lee (DVD/Blu-ray reviews); Book Zone (book reviews, including Dave Hutchinson interviewed by Andy Hedgecock); Jonathan McCalmont's Future Interrupted (comment); Nina Allan's Time Pieces (comment).

Genres: Science Fiction

96 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2016

Reviews

[Leo Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories in this mag are fascinating and original- excellent writers and unique future thinkers. The reviews and interview highlighted a number of new works for me to take a look at also :)

I'm gonna spoiler the rest because I just wanted to say it, mostly for my own satisfaction, but it has next to nothing to do with reviewing this mag.

Because sometimes I come up with mini theories and things I want to say and can't place them, and then writing becomes an exercise in bloodletting, of interest to few people. Anyways!

Some articles got a bit lofty at times. A review of The Good Dinosaur contains the adj./n."alloprehistorical" within the first paragraph, for example, surely a priority of the film's target audience. And in the opening essays, there's some typical "we need stories"-ing and the "art isn't given as much value as practical jobs"-ing (MFA straw man triple combo bonus sorry, sorry I'm so rude, so rude, excuse me, follow your passions, write about them, ignore me- at the end of the day I'm just some guy, okay? Never forget.) The second one is not something I've ever personally heard anyone proclaim. There was some passage in a Lionel Shriver's So Much For That that I can't properly remember- something about a documentary-maker trying to make her brother pay to put their father in a home. He says something like 'Why, just because my job makes more money, do I have to pay for everything?' She says 'I shouldn't be punished for following my passion. I could spend my time making a documentary about the scandalous conditions of these homes, and create more value for society that way.' He says 'Most documentaries are fucking boring.' Shriver, as a full-time artist herself, surely does not fully side with either. The point of the question- whether one profession, one use of time, has more value than the other- is not to have the final say, the airtight solution, but to cope with its inherent lack of answer. I've posed it to other writers out of curiosity, to see how they react, live with the notion: commonly you hear the answer the writer has cockily developed to give themselves permission to do whatever they want. I question anyone who, with conviction, takes the stance that one profession is just as important as another. By the very constraints of life, every single person is bound never to know what is the best use of their time, how one path might have played out compared to another, and of all things I would think it prudent not to defend full-time fiction writing too much, no matter how much you "just want to do it", which I think is the number one motivation for pretty much everything anyways- and it's not a bad one, either. But then, most things existing, staunch defenders of literary fiction are surely out there somewhere, and where else would I expect to find them but lit mags?

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story punctuated by this alternate history’s punchlines of illiberal politics, where the two male protagonists tango with each other every night, a touching relationship of striving for life’s purpose as workers or lovers with progeny as their legacy, against all the illiberal strictures, and they fight against the watching ornithopteron-moths, and other honey traps. Meanwhile, there are some amazingly hard-sensuous passages of bodily-machine-creating of their girl ‘children’, with a blend of cyborgisation, steampunk, Frankenstein (but none of these essentially), by using a material like prehensile putty called lux. The trouble is if you use too much lux…
A moving and superbly envisioned story. A fine climax.

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.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An above average issue, with good stories by T.R. Napper and Philip A. Suggars.

- "The Water-Walls of Enceladus" by Mercurio D. Rivera: set in his Wergen universe, when aliens have given humans space technology in return for human 'love', one lone isolated human on Enceladus, suffering from a disfiguring disease, performs research with only her pet dog and a group of Wergens who fawn over her. But after years of isolation, she wants to break off from the Wergen and return home. Doing so would involve sacrifices and uncover a deception from the Wergen.

- "Empty Planets" by Rahul Kanakia: a strange mismash of a story, featuring human who in the far future live under the watchful eye of the Machine who controls their lives yet allocates 'shares' for discoveries the Machine is interested in. The story follows two people, one of who is searching for a meaning to his life, the other wants to gets revenge on the Machine for aborting her space colony. The details of the far future don't seem far fetched enough to make the setting believeable.

- "Geologic" by Ian Sales: more of a fragment of a longer story, this one tells of the discovery and an ancient artifact on a super-Earth planet and the feelings its explorers have over it especially when a manager-level person arrives to ask why their expedition of the artifact should still be sponsored.

- "Circa Diem" by Carole Johnstone: a fantasy-type story set in a future when the Earth's rotation has mysteriously slowed down, leading to humanity to divide into two groups; those that want to stick to the old 24 hour day-night rhythm and those who wish to embrace the new longer diurnal cycle. The story tells of a meeting between two people from the two groups and the decisions they have to make as the long daylight hours end.

- "A Strange Loop" by T.R. Napper: a fascinating tale of a man who sells his memories in order to make money to convince his divorced wife to let him see his daughter. But it all falls apart when he can't remember his past, despite prompting from his external memory device. In the end, he decides to take part in a scheme to bring down the memory sellers. The story examines how memories make up our personalities and the consequences of relying too much on external devices to remember things for us and what can happen if we could sell our memories, erasing them from ourselves and letting others experience our memories.

- "Dependent Assemblies" by Philip A. Suggars: in a South American country where a strange fluid can bring life to inanimate objects, a man undergoes a Frankenstein-like struggle to bring to life a creation to undo his past mistakes. But there is a hint of a shadow from his past that will come to haunt him.

[Michael J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six stories this issue, and not a bad read among them. Best story this issue is A Strange Loop by TR. Napper about a man who sells his memories. Also memorable are Geologic by Ian Sales, which ended too soon for my liking; The Water-Walls of Enceladus by Mercurio D. Rivera, and Empty Planets by Rahul Kanakia. There's also an illuminating interview with author Dave Hutchinson which prompts me to check out his Europe trilogy.