Cold War Champions: Bobby Fischer and Yuri Gagarin Descend to Earth by Mary A. Turzillo
Comparison between two different types of Cold War hero. A lot of overlap between the two, but the poem left me lukewarm. To much just factually stated, not quite enough resonance. And I admit, Fischer's death as a "descent to Earth" is underexplored, but a neat idea to compare with a space mission.
Merlin by Lorraine Schein
I quite like the rhythm and neat rhymes of this one. Merlin is obsessed with time and clocks and his lack of control and limited knowledge. A nice take on the character, and a nice poem.
The Skin Walker's Wife by Lisa M. Bradley
Whole poem is the course of a woman having sex with a random guy, and thinking of her body-stealing husband who she has trouble actually recognizing anyway, after he has been away getting a new body. Maybe she should stop spending her whole life waiting for him to come back to her again. A tad more graphic that it needs to be, but the supernatural, absent husband is an interesting, if obvious, metaphor for the more normal type of absent husband.
Dark Matter by Timons Esaias
Hatred, bigotry, authoritarianism, and blind adherence to tradition will always be with us, no matter how many times science or reason try to push them back. Told through the weirdly bigoted astronomy commentary of the narrator's great-uncle. Neat way to make an important observation.
Shoe by Robert Borski
The Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe thinks about how much she loves her children in the giant shoe that fell off a giant, perhaps in the vicinity of a beanstalk. Neat images making the nursery rhyme more grounded, but not a whole lot here.
Dark Matter and Merlin are the obvious standouts; I'd give the edge to Merlin as Best of Issue, but only by a hair. I have to say, this being my first time reading Strange Horizons' poetry, that it is MUCH stronger than the typical Asimov's issue. Here's to hoping that is a trend, not just an outlier.
Showing posts with label Strange Horizons January 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Strange Horizons January 2011. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Third Wish
Short Story by Joan Aiken
Reprinted at Strange Horizons
Mr. Peters gets out of his car and rescues The King of the Forest who is stuck in a thorn bush. The king grants him three wishes and warns him "don't blame me if you spend the last wish in undoing the work of the other two." There is a certain genre-savy and wry humor to the whole exchange, and Aiken gets our expectations of such stories out there in the open from the start.
This is a fairy tale about a man with simple desires, who has read enough such stories to know to be careful. It is a rather simplistic tale, with no real obstacles, but it is short and provides a little lesson about happiness. What I'm most surprised by, and happy about, is the ending. Given extra weight by the title, Mr. Peters' decision about the third wish is surprisingly wise and convention-breaking.
For a story written in 1955, written for children (I think), this really holds up quite well as a fairy tale. I admit it is a genre I don't generally like, but this was surprising and not quite what I expected.
3.5 swans a-swimming out of 5.
A much more in-depth review of Aiken's work was written for Strange Horizons a few years ago, worth reading if you are interested in her other work.
Reprinted at Strange Horizons
Mr. Peters gets out of his car and rescues The King of the Forest who is stuck in a thorn bush. The king grants him three wishes and warns him "don't blame me if you spend the last wish in undoing the work of the other two." There is a certain genre-savy and wry humor to the whole exchange, and Aiken gets our expectations of such stories out there in the open from the start.
This is a fairy tale about a man with simple desires, who has read enough such stories to know to be careful. It is a rather simplistic tale, with no real obstacles, but it is short and provides a little lesson about happiness. What I'm most surprised by, and happy about, is the ending. Given extra weight by the title, Mr. Peters' decision about the third wish is surprisingly wise and convention-breaking.
For a story written in 1955, written for children (I think), this really holds up quite well as a fairy tale. I admit it is a genre I don't generally like, but this was surprising and not quite what I expected.
3.5 swans a-swimming out of 5.
A much more in-depth review of Aiken's work was written for Strange Horizons a few years ago, worth reading if you are interested in her other work.
Pinion
Short Story by Stellan Thorne
Free from Strange Horizons
Greyling is an older detective who one day has to investigate an angel for a robbery. Angels walking around with big wings and perfect skin seem to be rather commonplace in this world. It initially strikes me as a noir-detective story inspired by Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." And frankly, that mode, which is maintained for the first 2/3 of the story or so is one I'm happier with than where this ends up.
But then, rather than just expanding on Greyling's barely-suppressed rage and despair issues following the pre-story death of his partner, we have the angel stalking him because it suspects he is suicidal, moreso because of him. The ending is nicely open, and the story is perfectly concise. I liked the description and especially Greyling's dark characterization. But I could have done without the informed existence of the Christian God (weird comment about an angel story, I know) and without the "you must be saved" tone of the last bit.
At least we don't know how things end, and can suspect that Greyling is still miserable, not magically saved. I'd have preferred a less hard-to-follow climax and not the sudden change in plot and tone toward the very end, but this was still a pretty good story. Perhaps a bit to opaque about the cause-and-effect of the whole incident though.
A bit of description that particularly stands out is the use of "nacreous" to describe the angel's wings. While it is perfect for the kind of lustrous rainbow-white he is getting at, at the same time, it seems like a darker word in this context because of the closeness to "necrosis". I initially read this wrong, and it has a nice extra layer there. Le mot juste.
3 out of 5 viewers think "Robbed by an Angel" would have been a better premise for a TV show.
Trivia: the title refers to a type of feather, but also means a type of gear, as I think is referenced several times in the story, from the description of a lighter to Greyling's place in the police system. A nice title.
Free from Strange Horizons
Greyling is an older detective who one day has to investigate an angel for a robbery. Angels walking around with big wings and perfect skin seem to be rather commonplace in this world. It initially strikes me as a noir-detective story inspired by Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings." And frankly, that mode, which is maintained for the first 2/3 of the story or so is one I'm happier with than where this ends up.
But then, rather than just expanding on Greyling's barely-suppressed rage and despair issues following the pre-story death of his partner, we have the angel stalking him because it suspects he is suicidal, moreso because of him. The ending is nicely open, and the story is perfectly concise. I liked the description and especially Greyling's dark characterization. But I could have done without the informed existence of the Christian God (weird comment about an angel story, I know) and without the "you must be saved" tone of the last bit.
At least we don't know how things end, and can suspect that Greyling is still miserable, not magically saved. I'd have preferred a less hard-to-follow climax and not the sudden change in plot and tone toward the very end, but this was still a pretty good story. Perhaps a bit to opaque about the cause-and-effect of the whole incident though.
A bit of description that particularly stands out is the use of "nacreous" to describe the angel's wings. While it is perfect for the kind of lustrous rainbow-white he is getting at, at the same time, it seems like a darker word in this context because of the closeness to "necrosis". I initially read this wrong, and it has a nice extra layer there. Le mot juste.
3 out of 5 viewers think "Robbed by an Angel" would have been a better premise for a TV show.
Trivia: the title refers to a type of feather, but also means a type of gear, as I think is referenced several times in the story, from the description of a lighter to Greyling's place in the police system. A nice title.
The Space Between Stars
Short Story by Cassandra Clarke
Free from Strange Horizons
A scientist at a top secret facility (Area 51?) reminisces in the second person about his non-sexual friendship with a Vegas showgirl. 2,640 words before anything happens, and then only 650 or so words of actual story. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know whether to be thankful this wasn't longer (as I could barely finish it as is), or whether to wish there was more to it, because after the first 3/4 of the story were out of the way, it wasn't bad, and maybe that could have continued. I'm really not sure.
Anyway, nothing happens, but it turns out that for a too-unexplored-here-to-differentiate-from-cliche story reason, the scientist will never see the girl again and can't go to Vegas anymore. But he wants to impress her even though he won't be with her. Not much character development from the narrator or girl, and there are no other characters. Not much character from those two to speak of anyway. The end has an interesting apocalyptic feel, but nothing is done with it except one nice image that isn't focused on enough.
Nothing to it. Not only will I forget I read this before to long (despite it taking a very long time for the wordcount), but there is really almost nothing to say about this one. Blah humbug.
1.5 small, cheap windchimes out of 5.
Free from Strange Horizons
A scientist at a top secret facility (Area 51?) reminisces in the second person about his non-sexual friendship with a Vegas showgirl. 2,640 words before anything happens, and then only 650 or so words of actual story. I guess what I'm saying is that I don't know whether to be thankful this wasn't longer (as I could barely finish it as is), or whether to wish there was more to it, because after the first 3/4 of the story were out of the way, it wasn't bad, and maybe that could have continued. I'm really not sure.
Anyway, nothing happens, but it turns out that for a too-unexplored-here-to-differentiate-from-cliche story reason, the scientist will never see the girl again and can't go to Vegas anymore. But he wants to impress her even though he won't be with her. Not much character development from the narrator or girl, and there are no other characters. Not much character from those two to speak of anyway. The end has an interesting apocalyptic feel, but nothing is done with it except one nice image that isn't focused on enough.
Nothing to it. Not only will I forget I read this before to long (despite it taking a very long time for the wordcount), but there is really almost nothing to say about this one. Blah humbug.
1.5 small, cheap windchimes out of 5.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Source Decay
Short Story by Charlie Jane Anders
Free from Strange Horizons
Jeremy is trying to break up his friends-with-benefits arrangement with Tara, and devote himself to his girlfriend Roberta. Tara makes this harder than she has to by being willfully delusional and overly attention seeking. I can't reveal much more without spoilers, but this is a comedic story that is decently funny with a good bit of a satire of modern media and historical revisionism.
3.5 women out of 5 are locked in an eternal struggle over one, kind-of-douchy guy.
SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW
So the telephone-game as conduit for comedy isn't anything new, and while the comedy aspects of this story amused me, the social satire and historical commentary are what I really appreciate. Our tendency to continually revise old myths and stories until they have little or no bearing on reality, while insisting they are probably more true-to-life is a fairly common comment, but what I like here is that the initial "true story" was so far from reality in the first place. Who cares about the revisions and political agendas appended to classic stories when the best source material we have is so far off to begin with?
Our cultural love of voyeurism and "reality" that really does need those quotes around it doesn't get enough satirizing. Sure, everyone comments that "reality TV" is stupid, opium-for-the-masses and meaningless, but it is far too rare that someone points out how seriously we still take it as a culture. Sure, the ending of the story is over-the-top, but the middle has some excellent bits, and the ridiculous earnestness-with-no-self-awareness of most of these reality shows needs to be made fun of. As well as the people who care deeply about which constructed-for-TV personality wins some arbitrary competition, and yet can't be bothered to care about any real issues. Anders isn't entirely original here, but hits points too-infrequently hit, and is sufficiently amusing to make this worthwhile satire. Not a favorite, but a definite recommendation, and a good start to the year for Strange Horizons.
Free from Strange Horizons
Jeremy is trying to break up his friends-with-benefits arrangement with Tara, and devote himself to his girlfriend Roberta. Tara makes this harder than she has to by being willfully delusional and overly attention seeking. I can't reveal much more without spoilers, but this is a comedic story that is decently funny with a good bit of a satire of modern media and historical revisionism.
3.5 women out of 5 are locked in an eternal struggle over one, kind-of-douchy guy.
SLIGHT SPOILERS BELOW
So the telephone-game as conduit for comedy isn't anything new, and while the comedy aspects of this story amused me, the social satire and historical commentary are what I really appreciate. Our tendency to continually revise old myths and stories until they have little or no bearing on reality, while insisting they are probably more true-to-life is a fairly common comment, but what I like here is that the initial "true story" was so far from reality in the first place. Who cares about the revisions and political agendas appended to classic stories when the best source material we have is so far off to begin with?
Our cultural love of voyeurism and "reality" that really does need those quotes around it doesn't get enough satirizing. Sure, everyone comments that "reality TV" is stupid, opium-for-the-masses and meaningless, but it is far too rare that someone points out how seriously we still take it as a culture. Sure, the ending of the story is over-the-top, but the middle has some excellent bits, and the ridiculous earnestness-with-no-self-awareness of most of these reality shows needs to be made fun of. As well as the people who care deeply about which constructed-for-TV personality wins some arbitrary competition, and yet can't be bothered to care about any real issues. Anders isn't entirely original here, but hits points too-infrequently hit, and is sufficiently amusing to make this worthwhile satire. Not a favorite, but a definite recommendation, and a good start to the year for Strange Horizons.
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