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Interzone 269, March-April 2017
The March–April issue of Britain's longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine contains new stories by Steve Rasnic Tem, Sean McMullen, Tim Akers, Christien Gholson, and Richard E. Gropp. The cover artist for 2017 is Dave Senecal, and interior colour illustrations are by Richard Wagner and Martin Hanford. Features: Guest Editorial by Steve Rasnic Tem; Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits); Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe (film reviews); Book Zone (book reviews, including an interview with Steve Rasnic Tem conducted by Peter Tennant); Jonathan McCalmont's Future Interrupted (comment); Nina Allan's Time Pieces (comment).
- GenresScience Fiction
ebook
Published January 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 6, 2017
An average issue with a fun story by Sean McMullen to start things off and ending with Steve Rasnic Tem's story which feels more like a fragment from a longer tale. Tim Akers's tale sound intriguing and could be part of a book to flesh out the background more.
- "The Influence Machine" by Sean McMullen: an interesting piece set at the beginning of the 20th century in Victorian England. A police inspector with a scientific background is tasked to investigate a wagon filled with electrical equipment and a strange camera created by a woman. What he sees changes his world view and his opinion of the woman. But greater forces intervene when the masters of the land hear of the invention and attempt to intimidate the woman into giving her machine to them. What is a sympathetic inspector to do?
- "A Death in the Wayward Drift" by Tim Akers: an unusual story set in place where people are divided in groups that take care of the water, trees, ground, etc. One group of water carers must navigate their treacherous lake to fix an underwater water pump. When one of them dies in the attempt, the partner has to take a journey to return his remains to the water; a journey that entangle the partner with a member of the tree people.
- "Still Life With Falling Man" by Richard E. Gropp: a tale about the mysterious appearances of points on Earth where time appears to almost stand-still for those caught in them. One man, who has the ability to 'see' and 'hear' events far away via a mental window discovers the latest one to appear. But in the race between organisations to claim it, he gets caught in one.
- "A Strange Kind of Beauty" by Christien Gholson: in a desert area, a old woman who acts to interpret written prophesies decides that it is time to enter a forbidden area. What they find there causes a group of travelers to question the prophecies. But danger lies in wait for the woman for her skill also lets her converse with ghosts from the pasts - and one ghost may want her for his own plans.
- "The Common Sea" by Steve Rasnic Tem: a day in the life of a family in a future Florida slowly vanishing beneath the waves due to global warming. The father struggles to keep the family safe, get supplies -- and also to distinguish between reality and visions of another world perhaps nearby, perhaps faraway.
- "The Influence Machine" by Sean McMullen: an interesting piece set at the beginning of the 20th century in Victorian England. A police inspector with a scientific background is tasked to investigate a wagon filled with electrical equipment and a strange camera created by a woman. What he sees changes his world view and his opinion of the woman. But greater forces intervene when the masters of the land hear of the invention and attempt to intimidate the woman into giving her machine to them. What is a sympathetic inspector to do?
- "A Death in the Wayward Drift" by Tim Akers: an unusual story set in place where people are divided in groups that take care of the water, trees, ground, etc. One group of water carers must navigate their treacherous lake to fix an underwater water pump. When one of them dies in the attempt, the partner has to take a journey to return his remains to the water; a journey that entangle the partner with a member of the tree people.
- "Still Life With Falling Man" by Richard E. Gropp: a tale about the mysterious appearances of points on Earth where time appears to almost stand-still for those caught in them. One man, who has the ability to 'see' and 'hear' events far away via a mental window discovers the latest one to appear. But in the race between organisations to claim it, he gets caught in one.
- "A Strange Kind of Beauty" by Christien Gholson: in a desert area, a old woman who acts to interpret written prophesies decides that it is time to enter a forbidden area. What they find there causes a group of travelers to question the prophecies. But danger lies in wait for the woman for her skill also lets her converse with ghosts from the pasts - and one ghost may want her for his own plans.
- "The Common Sea" by Steve Rasnic Tem: a day in the life of a family in a future Florida slowly vanishing beneath the waves due to global warming. The father struggles to keep the family safe, get supplies -- and also to distinguish between reality and visions of another world perhaps nearby, perhaps faraway.
July 18, 2017
Steve Rasnic Tem’s Guest Editorial outlines ten actions you could take to help address climate change problems. Jonathan McCalmont’s column argues that attempts to open up genre culture to previously marginalised voices are all well and good but that reading genre cannot of itself address the world’s problems, only action can. Nina Allan’s Timepieces reflects on the many homes she has had, some of which have fed into her fiction. She hopes she has now settled down. The reviews contain one of Tem’s latest novel Ubo plus an interview with the author. Also covered are the latest novels by Charles Stross, John Scalzi and Adam Roberts, the very good indeed Spaceman of Bohemia by Jaroslav Kalfař, and my thoughts on The Mountains of Parnassus by Czesław Miłosz.
In the fiction, The Influence Machine by Sean McMullen is narrated by Albert Grant, the only Metropolitan Police Inspector in 1899 with knowledge of science. A woman has been arrested for loitering with intent as her wagon contains something “scientific”. Her machine can peer into a parallel, more scientifically advanced world. The story is delightful but its ending is a bit weak.
A Death in the Wayward Drift by Tim Akers didn’t grab me at all. It features divers in a lake of strange water, things called emissary birds, trees that move and, despite the title, more than one death.
Still Life with Falling Man by Richard E Gropp. A man who can see into other dimensions is employed to find when a new nexus opens. These are spaces wherein twenty seven million years goes by in a subjective ten seconds. He gets trapped in one and is counting down from ten. This aspect reminded in part of my own Closing Time (Interzone 89, Nov 1994.)
In A Strange Kind of Beauty by Christien Gholson the Scoryax Kahtt wander a parched landscape following the prophecies of scrolls. Their Vaithe find new scrolls and translate the prophecies. Heoli’s find points her tribe to a hitherto forbidden place replete with water.
Set in a globally warmed flooded south Florida The Common Sea by Steve Rasnic Tem focuses on a man whose oldest memories are visions of another dying world and who is trying to get by in this one. In part the story riffs on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
In the fiction, The Influence Machine by Sean McMullen is narrated by Albert Grant, the only Metropolitan Police Inspector in 1899 with knowledge of science. A woman has been arrested for loitering with intent as her wagon contains something “scientific”. Her machine can peer into a parallel, more scientifically advanced world. The story is delightful but its ending is a bit weak.
A Death in the Wayward Drift by Tim Akers didn’t grab me at all. It features divers in a lake of strange water, things called emissary birds, trees that move and, despite the title, more than one death.
Still Life with Falling Man by Richard E Gropp. A man who can see into other dimensions is employed to find when a new nexus opens. These are spaces wherein twenty seven million years goes by in a subjective ten seconds. He gets trapped in one and is counting down from ten. This aspect reminded in part of my own Closing Time (Interzone 89, Nov 1994.)
In A Strange Kind of Beauty by Christien Gholson the Scoryax Kahtt wander a parched landscape following the prophecies of scrolls. Their Vaithe find new scrolls and translate the prophecies. Heoli’s find points her tribe to a hitherto forbidden place replete with water.
Set in a globally warmed flooded south Florida The Common Sea by Steve Rasnic Tem focuses on a man whose oldest memories are visions of another dying world and who is trying to get by in this one. In part the story riffs on The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
January 26, 2021
Any story with St Paul’s Cathedral in it starts as a winner. An engaging and imaginative story of a police inspector in 1899 London – an inspector with scientific qualifications, but a sidekick cleverer than him as a detective, unlike Watson was to Sherlock – who arrests a woman scientist for what appears to be an anarchist bomb but turns out to be a method to tap into an alternate world with far greater scientific powers than ours. The machinations within the underbelly to politics in those days, and the plot that is deduced becomes fascinating, including gender issues in science. Believable characterisation, too. Descriptive alternate vistas to die for. And a glancing kiss possibly more powerful than any passionate one in literature.
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.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews