The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction for March and April offers fiction from regulars Albert E. Cowdrey and Rand B. Lee, established names like Benjamin Rosenbaum, Richard Bowes, Tim Sullivan and veteran Bruce McAllister, and new writers such as Alexandra Duncan.
It is the latter, Alexandra Duncan who opens the issue with 'Amor Fugit,' a lyrical story about a girl on the edge of womanhood to whom the 'real' world is that of only occasionally glimpsed ghosts. When she meets a young engineer building the railroad across the USA in the 1860s it threatens the equilibrium of her idyllic existence. Highly Recommended.
Albert E. Cowdrey
Albert E. Cowdrey is one of the magazine's most regular contributors and has appeared a dozen times in the last two years alone, and over thirty times since making her debut in 1997. 'Fort Clay, Louisiana: A Tragical History' is one of many stories set in the Deep South in the Nineteenth Century which are building to an impressive ouvre. Recommended.
Time Sullivan's 'Star Crossed' is the sequel to his earlier 'Planetisimal Dawn,' but this new story tries to cram too much into its length, rather as the Broderick did in last month's issue.
Michael Reaves was a regular contributor in the early 1980s, and after a twenty year break returned with more atmosphere-soaked stories of quiet horror, the latest of which is 'Make Believe,' set in a small town on the edge of the desert in 1950s America. Recommended.
Richard Bowes
Richard Bowes is on the Nebula Ballot with his novelette 'I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said,' and like that piece, his new story 'Waiting for the Phone to Ring' is part of a forthcoming novel. Bowes blurs fact and fiction with this story of stardom and fall from grace by making his narrator andSF writer. There are distinct echoes of ' Aka St. Mark's Place,' above and beyond what would be expected of a sequel.
'Epidapheles and the Insufficiently Affectionate Ocelot' by Ramsey Shehadeh tells of the eponymous wizard, the titular ocelet (which belongs to the king of a nearby kingdom) and the wizard's familiar, an invisble chair called Door. It tries too hard to be funny, and suffers as a consequence.
Benjamin Rosenbaum
Benjamin Rosenbaum's 'The Frog Comrade' has the necessary touch of astringency that whimsy needs, and is therefore far better. "Once there was a princess who lived in a small apartment with her older sister and could never leave. Her father had been taken away to a camp in the highlands, to work very hard and learn about the new system." Highly Recommended.
Despite its title, 'The Fairy Princess' by Dennis Danvers is SF, and comes with a warning of adult themes, which since it's about a supervisor wiping the memory of sex toys, is entirely appropriate. When the supervisor learns that she has not been wiping the memories of the toys so much as simply locking them away, she must finally give up her own long-held emotional equilibrium. Outstanding.
Bruce McAllister
Bruce McAllister's 'Blue Fire' tells of a Pope on his death-bed who has had to preside over a Church under siege from "the Drinkers of Blood," who is visited on that bed by an archivist to record a history the Pope has almost forgotten. Highly Recommended.
'Class Trip' by Rand B. Lee is the latest installement of an occasional series dating back to 2003. Language and linguistics are sciences too rarely tackled by SF, and it's a pleasure to see Lee tackle them in this latest story of the D'/fy (or D'/fu s they're called here). Recommended.
Reviews, Etc
Editor Gordon Van Gelder provides the usual departments, with book reviews from Charles de Lint and Elizabeth Hand, humour in 'Plumage from Pegasus' by Paul Di Filippo, film reviews by Lucius Shepard, while Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty provide one of the irregular science columns. Another excellent issue.
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
