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julieandrewsNow that I'm back from Wiscon and from gallivanting with my parents, I had time to finish reading the July 2008 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction which I, in full disclosure, received for free upon the promise to blog about it.
The first thing I noticed was that there was one woman's name on the cover out of five authors. Would I have noticed this before the blogosphere brouhaha of yesteryear? Probably not consciously, but certainly subconsciously. Turning to the table of contents, Lisa Goldstein is the only female name on the six stories. Naturally this doesn't mean she is a woman, or that the other five are not. But chances are. It also doesn't mean much that she made the cover, since only Scott Dalrymple did not. This is his first published story, so you can see why his name on the cover isn't likely to sell any additional copies. But hey, he works at Hartwick College, which my father went to.
More annoyingly, all of the stories have male main characters. Can I fault this without being hypocritical? I tend to mostly write guys. Yes, I can, because that means the guys should've been writing mostly chicks. See?
I like to read science fiction/fantasy magazines and anthologies from cover to cover. Except when I get impatient and skip to the shorter stories. I try not to do this, since it's kind of nice to save them for a good refresher after slogging through the long ones just before them. For this issue, I read it cover to cover except that I skipped over the novella, and I didn't read the movie reviews.
"Fullbrim's Finding" by Matthew Hughes was interesting. It gives you something to think about by the time it's done, which is good of a science fiction story to do.
Books to Look For by Charles De Lint. In which he reviews Duma Key by Stephen King and Jack: Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson. One thing you can say about F&SF book reviews is that they're generally interesting reads in and of themselves. I finally picked up Naomi Novik's Temeraire series from a review in F&SF. Will I pick up either of these two? No. Not that I was inclined to before I read the reviews, either.
Oddly, the next item is Books by James Sallis. I would've expected another story in between to space things out. The New Weird by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, which I was totally going to read one of these days anyway, really! The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick. This didn't make an impression on me, and I doubt I'll be going out to pick up the book.
"Reader's Guide" by Lisa Goldstein. This is my favorite story in the magazine, and it's not because it was written by the only woman. Unless of course it is because it was written by the only woman. It starts out as a reader's guide and is a light and fun read, then it takes an interesting turn.
Then the novella, which I skipped at first, so I will get to that later in the entry.
Plumage from Pegasus: Galley Knaves by Paul Di Filippo. Talk about new weird. I'm not quite sure what to make of this thing.
Cartoon! F&SF needs more cartoons! Though this particular one isn't all that funny to me.
"Enfant Terrible" by Scott Dalrymple. This is second person, so you might wonder how I decided it was a male main character. It is, because 'you' do things that wouldn't be physically possible for the average, or even somewhat above average woman. I rather liked this one, as I like stories about remarkable kids, but I wish it had gone further somehow.
Films by Kathi Maio. As soon as I realized this was about "Jumper", I skipped it. I've read the book, but haven't yet seen the movie and I hate spoilers! Even watching movie previews is a bit much for me some of the time. This is good timing though, as the movie is due out on DVD this month, I believe.
"Poison Victory" by Albert E. Cowdrey. Alternate history and the Nazis to boot. Not my thing, but the story was okay.
"The Dinosaur Train" by James L. Cambias. I liked the setup. Unfortunately, it seemed mostly setup. It presented an idea about dinosaurs in a carnival and there was a story in there, but I wanted more. Or something different. This still might be my third favorite of this issue though.
Marketplace. I wonder why more people don't advertise here. It's so short that I usually read every entry. The editors usually tuck something neat in there too. Like an easter egg. I can't quite tell if there's one in this issue. Maybe it's too subtle for me.
Curiosities by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre. Who may be a man or a woman or something else. Who might be Scottish or Welsh or something else. This one page 'curiosity' is about The Big Ball of Wax: A Story of Tomorrow's Happy World by Shepherd Mead, published in 1954. Talks about how Mead got some things right about the future and some things wrong.
Finally I went back and read the novella for completeness's sake. Not to mention the fact that it takes up about a third of the magazine, so you'd be wasting most of it if you didn't read it.
"The Roberts" by Michael Blumlein. A story about Robert who's an architect and visionary, only he needs a woman to truly inspire him. But then when he's inspired, he wrecks his relationship by inattention and it's a bad cycle he's in. So to break out of it, he buys a customized woman. He gets to select what she looks like, and sounds like, and smells like, and her personality. So he gets the perfect woman. Or you might say he gets the right woman for him. This is only mildly better than it sounds in that she seems more of a real woman than a stereotypical 'perfect' woman. And it's, again mildly, ameliorated by the fact that we also get a couple of versions of a male, Robert, to go along with it. I won't go into much more detail, as that would be too spoilerish.
I will say that I found the whole thing rather disturbing. And it's all the more disturbing by the end, because I just could not tell if the author meant it to be disturbing, or realized how disturbing it is. This woman he creates has a manufactured past and while it may seem like a full-fledged, well-rounded personality, she doesn't appear to have any life apart from Robert.
Robert, the man, is free to pursue his dreams and aspirations, helped by the little woman and muse he has at home. Is this story a commentary on that? Or is it not nearly as thought-out as all that?
As for the cover, supposedly it's for the novella. But other than it being a futuristic building of some sort, I can't quite see what it has to do with the story.
Anyway, if you'd like to pick up this issue, it should be on newstands/bookstores/magazine racks/whatever throughout June.
And if you'd like to subscribe, there's a limited time good deal on subscriptions available here: https://www.toybox.ca/fsf/blog-buy-sub.htm and PayPal here: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/blog-subscribe.htm
Go forth and support science fiction and fantasy!
The first thing I noticed was that there was one woman's name on the cover out of five authors. Would I have noticed this before the blogosphere brouhaha of yesteryear? Probably not consciously, but certainly subconsciously. Turning to the table of contents, Lisa Goldstein is the only female name on the six stories. Naturally this doesn't mean she is a woman, or that the other five are not. But chances are. It also doesn't mean much that she made the cover, since only Scott Dalrymple did not. This is his first published story, so you can see why his name on the cover isn't likely to sell any additional copies. But hey, he works at Hartwick College, which my father went to.
More annoyingly, all of the stories have male main characters. Can I fault this without being hypocritical? I tend to mostly write guys. Yes, I can, because that means the guys should've been writing mostly chicks. See?
I like to read science fiction/fantasy magazines and anthologies from cover to cover. Except when I get impatient and skip to the shorter stories. I try not to do this, since it's kind of nice to save them for a good refresher after slogging through the long ones just before them. For this issue, I read it cover to cover except that I skipped over the novella, and I didn't read the movie reviews.
"Fullbrim's Finding" by Matthew Hughes was interesting. It gives you something to think about by the time it's done, which is good of a science fiction story to do.
Books to Look For by Charles De Lint. In which he reviews Duma Key by Stephen King and Jack: Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson. One thing you can say about F&SF book reviews is that they're generally interesting reads in and of themselves. I finally picked up Naomi Novik's Temeraire series from a review in F&SF. Will I pick up either of these two? No. Not that I was inclined to before I read the reviews, either.
Oddly, the next item is Books by James Sallis. I would've expected another story in between to space things out. The New Weird by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, which I was totally going to read one of these days anyway, really! The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick. This didn't make an impression on me, and I doubt I'll be going out to pick up the book.
"Reader's Guide" by Lisa Goldstein. This is my favorite story in the magazine, and it's not because it was written by the only woman. Unless of course it is because it was written by the only woman. It starts out as a reader's guide and is a light and fun read, then it takes an interesting turn.
Then the novella, which I skipped at first, so I will get to that later in the entry.
Plumage from Pegasus: Galley Knaves by Paul Di Filippo. Talk about new weird. I'm not quite sure what to make of this thing.
Cartoon! F&SF needs more cartoons! Though this particular one isn't all that funny to me.
"Enfant Terrible" by Scott Dalrymple. This is second person, so you might wonder how I decided it was a male main character. It is, because 'you' do things that wouldn't be physically possible for the average, or even somewhat above average woman. I rather liked this one, as I like stories about remarkable kids, but I wish it had gone further somehow.
Films by Kathi Maio. As soon as I realized this was about "Jumper", I skipped it. I've read the book, but haven't yet seen the movie and I hate spoilers! Even watching movie previews is a bit much for me some of the time. This is good timing though, as the movie is due out on DVD this month, I believe.
"Poison Victory" by Albert E. Cowdrey. Alternate history and the Nazis to boot. Not my thing, but the story was okay.
"The Dinosaur Train" by James L. Cambias. I liked the setup. Unfortunately, it seemed mostly setup. It presented an idea about dinosaurs in a carnival and there was a story in there, but I wanted more. Or something different. This still might be my third favorite of this issue though.
Marketplace. I wonder why more people don't advertise here. It's so short that I usually read every entry. The editors usually tuck something neat in there too. Like an easter egg. I can't quite tell if there's one in this issue. Maybe it's too subtle for me.
Curiosities by F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre. Who may be a man or a woman or something else. Who might be Scottish or Welsh or something else. This one page 'curiosity' is about The Big Ball of Wax: A Story of Tomorrow's Happy World by Shepherd Mead, published in 1954. Talks about how Mead got some things right about the future and some things wrong.
Finally I went back and read the novella for completeness's sake. Not to mention the fact that it takes up about a third of the magazine, so you'd be wasting most of it if you didn't read it.
"The Roberts" by Michael Blumlein. A story about Robert who's an architect and visionary, only he needs a woman to truly inspire him. But then when he's inspired, he wrecks his relationship by inattention and it's a bad cycle he's in. So to break out of it, he buys a customized woman. He gets to select what she looks like, and sounds like, and smells like, and her personality. So he gets the perfect woman. Or you might say he gets the right woman for him. This is only mildly better than it sounds in that she seems more of a real woman than a stereotypical 'perfect' woman. And it's, again mildly, ameliorated by the fact that we also get a couple of versions of a male, Robert, to go along with it. I won't go into much more detail, as that would be too spoilerish.
I will say that I found the whole thing rather disturbing. And it's all the more disturbing by the end, because I just could not tell if the author meant it to be disturbing, or realized how disturbing it is. This woman he creates has a manufactured past and while it may seem like a full-fledged, well-rounded personality, she doesn't appear to have any life apart from Robert.
Robert, the man, is free to pursue his dreams and aspirations, helped by the little woman and muse he has at home. Is this story a commentary on that? Or is it not nearly as thought-out as all that?
As for the cover, supposedly it's for the novella. But other than it being a futuristic building of some sort, I can't quite see what it has to do with the story.
Anyway, if you'd like to pick up this issue, it should be on newstands/bookstores/magazine racks/whatever throughout June.
And if you'd like to subscribe, there's a limited time good deal on subscriptions available here: https://www.toybox.ca/fsf/blog-buy-sub.htm and PayPal here: http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/blog-subscribe.htm
Go forth and support science fiction and fantasy!