Interzone 244 Jan - Feb 2013 Read online

  244

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  INTERZONE

  SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY

  ISSUE #244

  JAN - FEB 2013

  Cover Art

  Jim Burns: 2013 cover artist

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  PUBLISHED BY:

  TTA Press on Smashwords ISBN: 9781301038985

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  v5 Roy Gray

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  ISSN (Print edition) 0264-3596 > Published bimonthly by TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, UK (t: 01353 777931) Copyright › © 2013 Interzone and its contributors Worldwide Distribution › Pineapple Media (t: 02392 787970) › Central Books (t: 020 8986 4854) › WWMD (t: 0121 7883112)

  › If you want the print edition and Interzone is not stocked by your local bookshop, newsagent or newstand please ask them to order it for you, or buy it from one of several online mail order distributors...or better yet subscribe direct with us!

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  Fiction Editors › Andy Cox, Andy Hedgecock ([email protected]) Book Reviews Editor › Jim Steel ([email protected]) Story Proofreader › Peter Tennant ([email protected]) E-edition + Publicity › Roy Gray ([email protected]) Podcast › Pete Bullock ([email protected]) Twitter + Facebook + Google › Plus Marc-Anthony Taylor Website › ttapress.com Email [email protected] Forum › ttapress.com/forum E Subscriptions › Not available as yet. Submissions › Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always welcome. Please follow the contributors’ guidelines on the website.

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  Note we omit some images from this edition but those you can see are also in colour at http://ttapress.com/1543/interzone-244/0/4/

  Note live links are repeated in the ENDNOTES

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  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This emagazine is licensed for your personal use/enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this magazine with others please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this magazine and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the contributors and editors

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  CONTENTS

  INTERFACE

  EDITORIAL & NOTES

  ANSIBLE LINK > David Langford's News, Gossip & obituaries

  ENDNOTES > Links etc. > last 'pages'.

  READERS' POLL – Readers' opportunity to vote on 2012 stories and art.

  BACK PAGE

  FICTION

  THE BOOK SELLER by Lavie Tidhar

  illustrated by Warwick Fraser-Coombe

  BUILD GUIDE by Helen Jackson

  illustrated by Richard Wagner

  THE GENOA PASSAGE by George Zebrowski

  illustrated by Martin Hanford

  iROBOT by Guy Haley

  illustrated by Jim Burns

  SKY LEAP–EARTH FLAME by Jim Hawkins

  illustrated by Richard Wagner

  A FLAG STILL FLIES OVER SABOR CITY by Tracie Welser

  REVIEW SECTION

  BOOK ZONE edited by Jim Steel

  books: book reviews by Jim's team of reviewers

  MUTANT POPCORN movie reviews by Nick Lowe

  LASER FODDER DVD Blu ray reviews by Tony Lee

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  EDITORIAL NOTES

  All is Flux, Nothing Stays Still

  One of the pleasures of working on Interzone is the way some issues develop a personality that comes as a surprise even to those of us who have read all the stories in advance. And we have to admit the occasional twinge of pride when we consider the variety of themes, subgenres, settings, tropes, techniques, symbols, storytelling styles and voices we’ve been able to include over the past fifty issues.

  For example, Interzone #242 included ‘Strigoi’, Lavie Tidhar’s tale of interracial alienation in the spaceways, and ‘Needlepoint’, Priya Sharma’s subtle but edgy story set in an alternative Albion. Both tales are admirably idiosyncratic: one has clearly identifiable science fictional elements, while the other skitters along in the debatable lands between fantasy and history.

  But that’s enough about the pleasures of working on Interzone in its 30th year. What about the frustrations and failures? A major source of disappointment is however eclectic the taste of the editors and however determined we are to be flexible, it’s inevitable we are going to reject some elegantly structured, linguistically complex and strikingly imaginative stories simply because they have no valid and defensible fit with the genres of sf, fantasy, horror or crime. In other words, all too often the team at TTA Towers experience the pain of rejecting engaging and powerful stories because we can’t find a home for them in Interzone, Black Static or Crimewave. And the pain is heightened by our awareness that this kind of work is increasingly unlikely to find a place in a publication that will do it justice.

  Three exciting submissions we’ve found it impossible to place in a TTA publication – stories by Tim Lees, Nina Allan and Tyler Keevil – have inspired us to create Flux, an occasional supplement containing such stories, that we’ll send out free to subscribers of Interzone and Black Static.

  As Heraclitus of Ephasus said: “All is flux, nothing stays still”. TTA Press is heading for a state of Flux – and we’re hoping you’ll feel a damn good Flux is just what you need.

  The above applies to the printed edition for subscribers. I will have more on what we might do with the E book version in the next issue.

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  Readers’ Poll

  It’s time to start voting for your favourite Interzone stories of 2012. We welcome back Martin McGrath to oversee the poll, and there are three ways you can send him your votes: by post, email, or via a form on the website. Vote for or against as many stories as you like. There are more details and a list of eligible stories later in this issue.

  We’ve decided to restrict the poll to fiction only this year, and not include artwork. Like the magazine’s nonfiction, the art is done by the same small team and it no longer seems right that they should compete with each other, especially as the work is commissioned rather than unsolicited. Let us know if you think that’s a mistake.

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  E-Edition (An Apology): This E edition of Interzone 244 has been uploaded later than I hoped but at least you have time to vote in the readers' poll and Interzone 245 will not be published when this is uploaded. Hopefully I can do better henceforward. Please accept our apologies for delays. Keep checking Smashwords or Amazon for new issues. Thanks for your patience! This issue, #244, has been out in print since Jan 14.

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  Note you may find references to Fictionwise.com as a source of TTA Press E Books and magazines. Fictionwise closed in the USA in December and in the UK in January. Now we are not sure what will happen about TTA back issues and e books formerly held solely on the 3 Fictionwise sites. Many of our files were removed early from Fictionwise's TTA page. Many back issues may well be unavailable in E book formats now. More in the Endnotes.

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  The next print issue, Interzone 245, will be dated March/April. In print or as E book, don't miss it.

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  ANSIBLE LINK - David Langford's News & Gossip

  As Others See Us. Robert McCrum once again indulged in genre-bashing, with exceptions: ‘Science fiction is the cockroach in the house of books: it survives on scraps and never goes away. Occasionally, as in the work of HG Wells and JG Ballard, it becomes sublime.’ (Guardian)

  Awards. James Tait Black Award all-time “best of best” fiction winner since the award began in 1919: Angela Carter (1940–1992), Nights at the Circu
s. • New York Film Critics Circle: best animated feature, Frankenweenie. • Roald Dahl Funny Prize, funniest book for 7–14 year olds category: Jamie Thomson, Dark Lord: The Teenage Years. • 2012 SFWA Grand Master for life achievement: Gene Wolfe. (‘If you keep this up I’ll start thinking I’m a good writer.’) • US National Book Awards: the Young People’s Literature winner was a fantasy, William Alexander’s Goblin Secrets. • World Fantasy Award novel winner: Lavie Tidhar, Osama.

  C.S. Lewis will be honoured with a memorial stone in Poet’s Corner, Westminster Abbey, on 22 November 2013 – the fiftieth anniversary of his death.

  We Are Everywhere. Jon Stewart on the copious intimate emails between a US general and a married woman: ‘30,000 pages of emails – I could understand it if Stephen King and George R.R. Martin were having an affair!’ (The Daily Show)

  Camille Paglia’s enthusiasm for sf sublimities earned her a Private Eye ‘Pseuds Corner’ appearance: ‘…it is emotionally overwhelming, with the intensity and sweep of a Puccini opera. The long finale of Revenge of the Sith, leading up to Darth Vader’s tortured fabrication and the birth and separation of the twin babies Luke and Leia, is in my view the most powerful work of art in any genre in the past 30 years – including literature.’ (Huffington Post)

  Terry Pratchett ‘nearly died’ in a New York cab during his November US publicity tour. When his heart went into fibrillation, his assistant Rob Wilkins ‘had to kneel on the back seat of the taxi and give him CPR. It was fingers down throat stuff.’ After a rapid recovery, Terry remarked that he’d heard book-signing tours could kill you ‘quicker than drugs, booze and fast women’. (Telegraph) He also announced that he’ll pass the Discworld novel franchise to Rhianna Pratchett when no longer able to write: ‘The Discworld is safe in my daughter’s hands.’ (Interview, New Statesman)

  As Others See Us II. A little love in the Firefly reunion TV special: ‘And for the fans – the greatest moment is this brief snippet where Gina Torres says, “There’s nothing like a scifi fan. Like warm honey, poured all over you.” I want to watch that clip over and over.’ (io9) Depends which fan gets poured.

  Malcolm Edwards, a founding Interzone editor, is in The Bookseller’s list of ‘100 most influential people in the book industry’. They call him ‘The brainy fixer behind the scenes at Orion since 1998’.

  Publishers & Sinners. Fictionwise.com, the early e-publishing venture that was pretty good until bought up by Barnes & Noble, closed in December. After so many years I’ll miss all those Fictionwise royalty payments of exciting sums like $1.84. • Analog and Asimov’s SF increased their short-fiction payment rates from 6–8 cents per word to 7–9 cents per word.

  Paul Krugman, introducing a Folio Society edition of the Foundation trilogy, has a Margaret Atwood Moment: ‘Maybe the first thing to say about “Foundation” is that it’s not exactly science fiction – not really. Yes, it’s set in the future, there’s interstellar travel, people shoot each other with blasters instead of pistols and so on. But these are superficial details, playing a fairly minor part in the story.’

  Algis Budrys has a new nonfiction book out: a little project in which I took part. See http://ae.ansible.co.uk.

  Thog’s Masterclass. Sharing Dept. ‘Leaks were something Emma didn’t want to share.’ (Elizabeth Lowell, Death Echo, 2010) • Dept of Girly Superlatives. ‘“Good girl,” said Dex, patting her satiny bare shoulder as he stood free again. “You’re a sport and a gentleman. You don’t understand the terms? They’re earth words, Greca, that carry the highest praise a man can give a woman.”’ (Paul Ernst, ‘The Red Hell of Jupiter’, Astounding, October 1931) • Spung in a Cold Climate Dept. ‘His nipples were standing so erect they looked like little pink pencil erasers.’ ‘I looked down and noticed my own chest made it look like I was trying to smuggle candy corn out of the country, two at a time.’ (Nancy A. Collins, Right Hand Magic, 2010) • Dept of Pet Names. ‘When he got there, his Deputy, a portly bald man with a ginger moustache called Bo Sampson, was trying to calm down a hysterical man.’ (Adam Millard, Dead West, 2011

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  R.I.P.

  Janet Berliner-Gluckman (1939–2012), South African-born horror/dark fantasy author and anthologist who won a Stoker award for ‘Children of the Dusk’ (1997) with George Guthridge, died on 24 October; she was 73.

  John Coates (1927–2012), UK film-maker and TV executive best known for Yellow Submarine (1968) and The Snowman (1982, based on Raymond Briggs’ book), died on 16 September aged 84.

  Charles E. Fritch (1927–2012) US author and editor whose stories are collected in Crazy Mixed-Up Planet (1969) and Horses’ Asteroid (1970) died on 11 October; he was 85. One story, ‘The Misfortune Cookie’, was adapted for The Twilight Zone.

  Jacques Goimard (1934–2012), French critic, editor, novelist and anthologist, died on 25 October aged 78. As acquiring editor at the Paris-based Pocket paperback imprint, he published some 800 works of sf/fantasy.

  David Grove (1940–2012), US illustrator inducted into the Illustration Hall of Fame in 2007, died on 25 October aged 72. Genre work included the striking Something Wicked This Way Comes film poster, the Eye of the World ebook, and covers and interiors for Gene Wolfe titles.

  Larry Hagman (1931–2012), US actor best remembered as J.R. in Dallas and the harried Captain/Major Anthony Nelson in the fantasy sitcom I Dream of Jeannie (1965–1970), died on 23 November; he was 81.

  Alan Hunter (1923–2012), UK artist whose work included covers for Nebula SF in 1952–1953 and much interior art for Nebula and New Worlds through the 1950s, died on 31 August aged 89. He was unfailingly generous with artwork for semiprozines and fanzines including Algol/Starship, Ansible, Banana Wings, Ghosts and Scholars, SF Chronicle, SFinx, Vector, Whispers and many more.

  Julie Ann Jardine (1926–2012), sf author and fan who with her then husband Jack Jardine wrote The Sword of Lankor (1966) and The Mind Monsters (1966) as by Howard L. Cory, died in November; she was 86.

  Kenneth Kendall (1924–2012), BBC radio announcer and newsreader (the first to appear on BBC television) who featured as a newsreader in Doctor Who: ‘The War Machines’ (1966) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), died in November aged 88.

  Paul Kurtz (1925–2012), humanist/sceptical author and founder of Prometheus Books in 1969, died on 20 October aged 86. Prometheus published many genre works (including Martin Gardner’s No-Sided Professor) before launching its dedicated sf/fantasy imprint Pyr in 2005.

  Patrick Moore (1923–2012), UK astronomer, author and TV personality who had presented the BBC’s The Sky at Night since April 1957, died on 9 December; he was 89. His over 20 novels for young readers were all sf; nonfiction works of genre interest include his sf survey Science and Fiction (1957), the spoof How Britain Won the Space Race (1972 with Desmond Leslie), and the round-up of oddball science Can You Speak Venusian? (1972). He made a cameo appearance as himself in the Doctor Who episode ‘The Eleventh Hour’ (2010).

  Patrick O’Connor, former editor-in-chief or senior editor for several US publishers including Pinnacle and Popular Library, died on 13 October aged 87. His authors included Ayn Rand and Andrew M. Greeley.

  Kevin O’Donnell, Jr. (1950–2012), US author of several entertaining sf novels including Mayflies (1979), ORA:CLE (1984) and the Journeys of McGill Feighan tetralogy, died on 7 November; he was 61.

  Spain Rodriguez (Manuel Rodriguez, 1940–2012), US underground cartoonist who created the post-holocaust superhero Trashman, died on 28 November; he was 72.

  John D. Squires (1948–2012), US book dealer, New York Review of SF contributor and world authority on M.P. Shiel, died on 2 November; he was 64.

  Boris Strugatski (1933–2012), Russian author whose collaborations with his brother Arkady (1925–1991) were among their country’s finest and most-translated genre sf, died on 19 November. Their best-known single work may be the story translated as Roadside Picnic (1972) and adapted as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979). Both were popular guests of honour at the 1987
UK Worldcon in Brighton.

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  Copyright © 2013 David Langford

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  THE BOOK SELLER

  by Lavie Tidhar

  Illustrations for The Book Seller by Warwick Fraser-Coombe

  THE BOOK SELLER

  Achimwene loved Central Station. He loved the adaptoplant neighbourhoods sprouting over the old stone and concrete buildings, the budding of new apartments and the gradual fading and shearing of old ones, dried windows and walls flaking and falling down in the wind.

  Achimwene loved the calls of the alte-zachen, the rag-and-bone men, in their traditional passage across the narrow streets, collecting junk to carry to their immense junkyard-cum-temple on the hill in Jaffa to the south. He loved the smell of sheesha pipes on the morning wind, and the smell of bitter coffee, loved the smell of fresh horse manure left behind by the alte-zachen’s patient, plodding horses.

  Nothing pleased Achimwene Haile Selassi Jones as much as the sight of the sun rising behind Central Station, the light slowly diffusing beyond and over the immense, hour-glass shape of the space port. Or almost nothing. For he had one overriding passion, at the time that we pick up this thread, a passion which to him was both a job and a mission.

  Early morning light suffused Central Station and the old cobbled streets. It highlighted exhausted prostitutes and street-sweeping machines, the bobbing floating lanterns that, with dawn coming, were slowly drifting away, to be stored until nightfall. On the rooftops solar panels unfurled themselves, welcoming the sun. The air was still cool at this time. Soon it would be hot, the sun beating down, the aircon units turning on with a roar of cold air in shops and restaurants and crowded apartments all over the old neighbourhood.