Interzone #277

by Andy Cox (Editor), Shauna O'Meara (Contributor)

The September–October contains new cutting edge science fiction and fantasy by Gregor Hartmann, Shauna O'Meara, Joanna Berry, Aliya Whiteley, and Samantha Murray. The cover art is by Vince Haig, and interior colour illustrations are by Richard Wagner, Ben Baldwin, and Vincent Sammy. Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits); Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe (film reviews); Book Zone (book reviews); Andy Hedgecock's Future Interrupted (comment); Nina Allan's Time Pieces (comment); guest editorial by Aliya Whiteley.


Cover Abductees 4 by 2018 cover artist Vince Haig





Inscribed on Dark Water by Gregor Hartmann
illustrated by Richard Wagner


The Sea Maker of Darmid Bay by Shauna O'Meara
illustrated by Ben Baldwin


The Analogue of Empathy by Joanna Berry
illustrated by Vincent Sammy


Blank by Aliya Whiteley


Singles' Day by Samantha Murray
illustrated by Richard Wagner





Guest Editiral
Aliya Whiteley


Future Smart Dildos, Cosy Delusions
Andy Hedgecock


Time Onwards and Upwards
Nina Allan


Ansible News, Obituaries
David Langford





Book Zone


Books reviewed include Twelve Tomorrows (2018) edited by Wade Roush, Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi, The Book of Hidden Things by Francesco Dimitri, Liminal by Bee Lewis, Infinity's End edited by Jonathan Strahan, Supercute Futures by Martin Millar, Literature by Guillermo Stitch, Uncommon Miracles by Julie C. Day, Secret Passages in a Hillside Town by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen


Mutant Popcorn
Nick Lowe


Films reviewed include The Meg, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Incredibles 2, Teen Titans Go! to the Movies, The Darkest Minds, Christopher Robin, The Happytime Murders, Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation, Luis and the Aliens, The First Purge, Hotel Artemis

Genres: Science Fiction

100 pages, ebook

First published September 1, 2018

Reviews

[Link Parish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Singles' Day by Samantha Murray really stood out.

[Kam Yung Soh · Rating 3 out of 5]

An average issue with interesting stories by Gregor Hartmann, Joanna Berry and Samantha Murray.

- "Inscribed on Dark Water" by Gregor Hartmann: a story set on a world where life is hard and the colonists are struggling with making the world properly habitable. On an oil refinery, an intern is hard at work with mundane tasks, when a observer group arrives to check on the refinery. She has an opportunity to ingrate herself with the group at the cost of alienating her fellow workers, especially one with a hidden past. But she has to decide where her loyalties lies when she figures out a refinery process that would change the way things are done.

- "The Sea Maker of Darmid Bay" by Shauna O'Meara: a fantasy tale set in a future where much of the natural world is apparently in ecological ruins. A group of fishermen suddenly hook an unusual sea creature whom one believes is able to renew the world. But the needs of the fishermen's families may override his desire to save the creature, unless they are willing to throw themselves into the task to renew the world too.

- "The Analogue of Empathy" by Joanna Berry: an interesting tale of an AI gaining awareness in a time when much of the world is in conflict and the AI project is fighting to stay alive against another project that may well end the world. But the world might be saved if the scientist working on the AI can provide the AI with a form of empathy towards others and pass on its abilities.

- "Territory: Blank" by Aliya Whiteley: disjointed journal entries going back and forth in time about a person who encounters 'creatures' that may have eaten her comrades, but is not believed.

- "Singles' Day" by Samantha Murray: set in a future where China's Singles' Day is the most important shopping day in the world, the story looks at the lives of a few people around the world on that day who have won a lottery to journey to a new world. None were expecting to win, of course, and now they have to prepare, in their own ways, for the journey: like learning to overcome a fear of the outside world, meeting your twin for the last time and really deciding who should go, or how to break the news that you have an unexpected unborn child to bring along for the journey.

[Jack Deighton · Rating 3 out of 5]

In her guest editorial Aliya Whiteley wonders who owns a story as influences can colour story telling as if by osmosis. Andy Hedgecock’s Future Interrupted notes a new approach to doorbell ringing by those under 25 in his consideration of the changes wrought by the internet. And the false sense of agency fostered by advertisers and data brokers. Nina Allan’s last Time Pieces muses on what a difference four years can make, in politics, in Doctor Who in the inclusiveness of SF as a whole. In Book Zone Duncan Lawie welcomes the wide perspective in the anthology Twelve Tomorrows edited by Wade Roush, Ian Sales appreciates Hannu Rajaniemi’s latest novel Summerland despite its lack of SF bells and whistles but is slightly more critical of Liminal by Bee Lewis, I wax lyrical over Francesco Dimitri’s The Book of Hidden Things but less so with Supercute Futures by Martin Millar, John Howard approves of the anthology Infinity’s End edited by Jonathan Strahan, Andy Hedgecock describes Literature® by Guillermo Stitch as a promising debut and Julie C Day’s first collection Uncommon Miracles (can there be common miracles?) as not merely promising but astonishing and Stephen Theaker enjoyed Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen’s Secret Passages in a Hillside Town.
In the fiction:-
Inscribed on Dark Waters by Gregor Hartmann has a student on a work experience programme on an ocean world at a factory producing liquid hydrocarbons biochemically being befriended by an inspector who has her own agenda. The student has an idea to improve the processing.
The Sea-Maker of Diarmid Bay by Shauna O’Meara is another sea-based tale. Four boys on a fishing expedition on a global-warmed, polluted planet come across a mythical creature, a sea-maker.
The narrator of Joanna Berry’s The Analogue of Empathy is a robot, a Cognitive Intelligence Personhood Emulating Robot to be precise. Doctor Harris is developing its - her - consciousness in an attempt to save humanity from itself. Since its structure, form and feel so closely resemble Daniel Keyes’s Flowers for Algernon I would be amazed if this story did not take its inspiration from that source.
Territory: Blank by Aliya Whiteley is a journal based story but the entries are presented to us out of order. Narrator Saffron enters one of the domes; simulated environments designed as entertainment for the masses. Either she goes mad or the domes generate inimical entities by themselves. The third explanation - that Saffron is the experimental subject - is vitiated by the manner of her second dome excursion.
Samantha Murray’s Singles’ Day - Singles’ Day is like Black Friday but only for the partnerless - is a multi-viewpoint tale of four winners of a Singles’ Day lottery (via Smile to Pay) for passage aboard a starship intended to travel through The Rift to the planet of Zorya to escape an overcrowded Earth. The story does not need the info-dump of its preamble.

[Des Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A world that continues to haunt me now, somehow reminded of it in the mind-fazing entanglement of such forces, where body and prey interact like nettles and flesh, fins and fingers. Boneskin and story mats. Paying “tribute”; burred by sea-grapes. My brain swelling and pulsing each time I recall reading it and trying to tussle with it only a few minutes ago. Not remembering it in real-time at all. Desperately grappling to ground its gestalt.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.

[Cate Gardner · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favourite reads this issue were:

Territory: Blank by Aliya Whiteley (a burgeoning superstar). Territory: Blank is told in a series of fragmented diary entries in a future world where there are hungry things. "I press through it, wait for the mouths to come for me too."

Singles' Day by Samantha Murray. This is the story of four girls in different parts of an overcrowded Earth, who are offered a chance to go to a new world, but will have to leave much behind. The horror part of my brain kept expecting something awful to happen. "We take our stories with us. We take all of our past."