Asimov's Science Fiction, December 1993

by Gardner Dozois (Editor), Alexander Jablokov (Contributor), Mary Turzillo (Contributor)

CONTENTS

Novella
"The Last Castle of Christmas" by Alexander Jablokov

Novelettes
"Inn" by Connie Willis
"Fox Magic" by Kij Johnson
"Bordertown" by Mary Rosenblum

Short Stories
"'Forever,' Said the Duck" by Jonathan Lethem
"Some Old Lover's Ghost" by Ian McDowell
"Being Human" by Mark Bourne
"The Shorn Lamb" by John Alfred Taylor

Poetry
"These Angels in Our Midst" by William John Watkins
"if you loved me" by Mary A. Turzillo

Departments
"Guest Editorial: Ten Years After" by Pat Cadigan
"SF Conventional Calendar" by Erwin S. Strauss

Asimov's Science Fiction, December 1993, Vol. 17, No. 14 (Whole No. 209)
Gardner R. Dozois, editor
Cover art by Wojtek Siudmak

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy

180 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1993

About the author

Gardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, both as an editor and a writer of short fiction.
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois

http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...

Reviews

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are three fine Christmas tales here, plus a story of foxes and enchantment in long-ago Japan, and three other stories as well.

One of them is a horror story set in Scotland, "The Shorn Lamb" by John Alfred Taylor. Deep in the Scottish Highlands is a structure, an old church with a carving high up on a wall. The carving is an image of a lamb that has been shorn. This is not the pitiful lamb of the proverb for which God lessens the wind, not a Lamb of God at all, but something evil that punishes anyone who touches it. And Phillip, the main character of the story, does touch it, and then must find a way to free himself from the ensuing terror. This begins well but the ending is somewhat rushed.

Jonathan Lethem's story, "'Forever,' Said the Duck," is...is...I'm not sure what it is. It takes place at a party put on by a couple. The guests seem to all have been lovers of one or both of their hosts. The guests are not people, but some sort of virtual reality projections, that appear to think and feel. Then things get strange. (I don't think this is a very good, or even an adequate, synopsis; I'm not sure how to explain it better, though.)

"Being Human" by Mark Bourne tells of a future in which people can be morphed into pretty much anything they want. Some become blimp-like beings. The narrator has become a cleaner, a being that cleans wherever it travels - by licking things. Some might even come together and become a spaceship. But, fundamentally, they remain human.

Mary Rosenblum's story "Bordertown" tells of a less remote future, one in which the United States has erected an electronic wall between itself and Mexico. An American on the run in Mexico contacts his estranged brother for help. As I write this in 2019, this story appeared over twenty-five years ago and is, I think, now no longer so unlikely.

Kij Johnson has now won or been nominated for a raft of awards for her fiction. Her story in this issue, "Fox Magic," won a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. It is, essentially, a fairy tale set in medieval Japan. The central character and narrator is a fox.

The young vixen lives with her mother, grandfather, and brother in a hole dug beneath a storehouse on a rich estate. The foxes are discovered inside the storehouse and the mistress of the house wants them killed. Her husband refuses and lets them go free. The young female falls in love with the man.

Foxes have magic, and the man is led to see the fox as a beautiful woman and the hole in which the foxes live as a great estate. The man is bewitched, loves the fox, and lives with the foxes in their lair. But he still has a human wife and a son, and things do not go smoothly.

This story was later expanded into a novel, The Fox Woman, which I have not read.

The shortest and saddest (and least Christmasy) of the three Christmas stories is "Some Old Lover's Ghost" by Ian McDowell. The narrator says that the events he is recounting took place in 1985, when as a graduate assistant in English he taught an evening class in Freshman Composition in a room in the college library. A young woman comes to the first class and tells the teacher that she is not enrolled in his course but she works in the library and would like to audit the course. He agrees. The girl shows up for some classes, always wearing the same clothes. Then at the end of the course, just before Christmas, she turns in a paper which leads to revelations. This is a type of story that is, strangely, traditional for Christmas.

Connie Willis had a tradition of her own of having Christmas stories in December issues of Asimov's. "Inn" is a sweet fantasy in which a young couple, definitely not dressed for winter, come to a church in the middle of a snowstorm. The woman, little more than a child, is obviously pregnant. The woman who meets them at the church door has been told that homeless people are absolutely not allowed in the church - but it is snowing heavily and they don't even speak English. In fact, the woman in the church discovers, they speak Aramaic, and what they seem to be saying is that they are lost and seeking Bethlehem. Asimov's readers voted this the best novelette to appear in the magazine that year.

I first read Alexander Jablokov's story "The Last Castle of Christmas" in an anthology titled Christmas Magic, edited by David G. Hartwell. My brief comment in a review of that book said:

"The Last Castle of Christmas" by Alexander Jablokov is the longest story in the book. It is set on another planet with some customs different from those on Earth, including making edible "castles" at Christmas. The science-fictional aspects of this story are less important than the human interactions.

Jablokov does something that the best science fiction authors often try to do. He takes an alien setting, and without saying, "Look at this and this and that," he presents a convincing society in a harsh world in which people are fiercely proud but must cooperate to stay alive.

There are two poems in this issue. "These Angels in Our Midst" by William John Watkins portrays humanity as being so petty that they - we - would risk destruction rather than embarrassment. "If You Loved Me" by Mary A. Turzillo presents a demand for love that is, shall we say, extreme. I like both of these.

Pat Cadigan has a guest editorial titled "Ten Years After," telling that it had been ten years since the beginning of what became known as "cyberpunk."

Interior artwork is by Laura Lakey, Karl F. Huber, James Mahon, Ron Chironna, Stephen King, Joseph and Lisa Hunt, Broeck Steadman, and Alan M. Clark. I know that one sure way to annoy a magazine editor is to point out details in illustrations that differ from the descriptions given in stories, always getting the reaction that these are petty and unimportant matters. The young woman in "Some Old Lover's Ghost" is described as not carrying "even a notebook," but has a notebook in Ron Chironna's picture. The lost young man in the story "Inn" "wasn't a man, he was a boy, his beard as thin and wispy as an adolescent's," his hair was greasy and his face looked "like a young punk's." The male-model handsome fellow in Laura Lakey's illustration has a full, perfectly trimmed beard and equally perfect hair. As it happens, these are my two favorite illustrations in this issue, and yes, I know I am being petty, but I am also right. (Broeck Steadman's illustration for "The Shorn Lamb" is fine, but extremely - albeit appropriately - horrifying.)

The cover is by Wojtek Siudmak.

The stories by McDowell, Johnson, Jablokov, and Willis are all quite good and enthusiastically recommended.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Christmas pageant rehearsal takes on extra meaning when a young man and his heavily pregnant young bride seek refuge in the church from the freezing rain and snow. If the sandals and light clothing weren’t enough of a hint, they only speak Aramaic. A little seasonal joy in “Inn” from Connie Willis. A vividly drawn fox fairy tale from Kij Johnson sees “Fox Magic” bewitch a young man into leaving his wife and child for a vixen, while Ian McDowell gives us a seasonally spooky tale of an unrequited love in “Some Old Lover’s Ghost”. In a future where the Mexico-US border is protected by a deadly electronic wall that would make Trump proud, Josh must cross and finally cut ties with his wayward, selfish older brother in “Bordertown” by Mary Rosenblum, and John Alfred Taylor takes us to the dark heaths of Scotland where an ancient carving of “The Shorn Lamb” curses those who touch it. Remaining stories are fairly unmemorable.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up a few old sci-fi magazines at a book sale. I hope they are all as good as this one was! It's fun to see what authors get right and totally wrong about the future!

[Antonio Ippolito · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good, thirty-year-old Christmas issue!
"Inn" by Connie Willis, the opening story, as Jablokov's closing one, is the more Christmassy. Once more Willis proves herself a brilliant and humane author: the story is about a parish choir's rehearsals just before Xmas, narrated with gentle humour (all drawn from her own experiences.. and I myself could really resonate!). One of the singers will have to face the daunting challenge of giving hospitality, unbeknownst to her colleagues and the harsh vice-parsons, to an unusual couple, stranded outside of the sacresty amidst a blizzard and only speaking a remote idiom.. certainly not the most original theme, but very pleasantly spun.
"The last Christmas Castle", by Alexander Jablokov: similarly to "The forgotten taste of honey" (which I read twenty years later on Asimov's), it weaves a complex network of relationships among the settlers on the world of Koola, whose ecological network is as complex and studied as its human network is: one would think that more stories than just this one, albeit long, have been set into it by the author. "Christmas Castle" of pastry, slowly decaying into food for yardbirds, while hard seeds in the dough have been cracked by baking and will sprout in spring... rich and slow as a tapestry.
Kij Johnson was still an unknown author, back then, not featuring on the cover; this "The fox maiden", later expanded into the similarly titled novel, is a sort of fable set in Middle Age Japan, where foxes (and especially vixens) were notorious for their magic powers, usually tinged of sexual lures.
Mary Rosenblum's "Bordertown", a short story on difficult brotherly love, in a US-Mexico border already a battlefield for clandestine immigration (those were the years of NAFTA and Ross Perot), with “wetbacks” or “mojados”.. and on a green-eyes half-blood “curandera” between them.
Ian McDowell's "Some Old Lover’s ghost" is a very pleasant ghost story in a university set, so aptfor the season! It may be noted how in ’93 homosexuality could also be narrated as something dramatic or tragic, while through all recent years while I've been reading it any "diversity" is totally run-of-the-mill.
"The shorn lamnb" is also a pretty good horror short story, set in the Scottish wilderness among lochs, glens, stanes and bens, on the track of a haunting lamb..
Not to be missed, Pat Cadigan' inflamed opening piece on cyberpunk's decennial, its importance and pervasivity, the ridiculousness of considering it already dead..
I admit to quitting after a couple of pages Lethem's story and Mark Bourne's “Being Human”.