Reading Tomorrow

The grandaddy of American SF magazines gets the new year started in fine fashion with an enjoyable January/February 2009 issue. Reviews of the seven stories and one serial installment behind the cut—beware of minor spoilers (but I’ll try not to give away the endings).

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“Of Late I Dreamt of Venus” (novelette)
by James Van Pelt
Originally published in Visual Journeys, ed. Eric T. Reynolds, Hadley Rille 2007

(slated for inclusion in Gardner Dozois’ upcoming The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, due out from St. Martin’s Griffin in July 2008.)

The Story: Elizabeth Audrey, the richest human being who ever lived, is using her vast wealth to realize the dream of an inhabitable Venus. With the help of her assistant Henry, she facilitates the terraforming of the second planet, bombarding it with asteroids to adjust its orbit, and with comets to introduce water to its ecosystem. (more…)

“Finisterra” (novelette)
by David Moles
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 2007

(The first of a series in which I’ll review the stories slated for inclusion in Gardner Dozois’ upcoming The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, due out from St. Martin’s Griffin in July 2008.)

The Story: Bianca Nazario, an engineer from a Spanish/Muslim community where her status as both a woman and a Christian stifled her talents and prospects, accepts a job from a shady character named Valadez. That job takes her to Sky, a gas giant planet with an Earth-like nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere but no ground, where gigantic flying creatures called zaratánes have become settlements—living, floating islands kilometers long with ecologies and weather patterns, where humans eke out meager existences. (more…)

“Call Me Joe” (novelette)
by Poul Anderson (1926-2001)
Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, April 1957

From one of Jupiter’s smaller moons, the Solar System’s largest planet is studied by a team of dedicated researchers. One of their project’s primary tools is the pseudojovian, a powerful genetically-engineered creature designed to live in the harsh conditions of Jupiter’s surface, and controlled psionically from the research station with the help of a device called an esprojector. The first of the pseudojovians, “Joe,” is already on the surface, remotely controlled by a bitter quadriplegic named Edward Anglesey. (more…)

Still a few days to go until it’s 2008 proper, but the new year’s short sci-fi (and fantasy) has already been available for a while. We won’t call it a “resolution,” per se, ’cause we all know how those turn out, but I will try to stay on top of things from here on out. In this ginormous double issue, we get eleven (!) stories, one of them the first part of a serial, plus a “Probability Zero” (a short, humorous vignette) and all the usual features and departments. With such an abundance of riches, this is gonna get unwieldy, so I’ll try doing it in two parts.

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“Echo” by Elizabeth Hand
Originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Oct/Nov 2005
Nebula Award nominee for Best Short Story

From an isolated island in Maine, a woman calls out to a lost lover, wondering plaintively where he is and what has happened to him.  Her days are full of simple survival, long walks with her wolfhound Finn, references to Greek mythology, and memories of the time she spent with him. (more…)

“Pip and the Fairies” by Theodora Goss
Originally published on Strange Horizons, 3 October 2005
Nebula Award nominee for Best Short Story

Susan Lawson was the author of a series of children’s books about a girl named Pip and her adventures in a magical land with the likes of Jack Feather, Hyacinth, and the Thorn King. Her daughter Philippa, now a successful soap opera star, was the inspiration for those stories. When her mother passes away, everyone remembers how much they enjoyed the Pip books when they were children, and suddenly Philippa is again living in her mother’s shadow. (more…)

“Impossible Dreams” by Tim Pratt
Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, July 2006
Hugo Award nominee for Best Short Story

Pete, a low-key guy who loves movies more than anything else in the world, finds a strange little video store called Impossible Dreams, a store that he’s positive wasn’t there before. Unable to resist going in, he finds the shelves lined with movies that shouldn’t exist (more…)

Another day, another restart. In the words of Bullwinkle: “This time, for sure.” The goal: get caught up by six weeks from now — in other words, read and blog all three of the major SF/F short fiction magazines through their May 2007 issues by May 1. No sweat… right?

Warning: this is gonna get wordy. Even skipping the conclusion of Robert J. Sawyer’s serialized novel Rollback (which I fully intend to read at some point, especially given the way Sawyer’s been cropping up constantly on my radar as someone I really want to read) and the two Science Fact articles, Analog’s big year-opening double issue leaves us with ten stories to get through, which should be plenty.

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I think I’m getting the hang of this monthly SF magazine thing. Or it could just be that I read three of the stories in this issue a few months ago. Either way, the January Asimov’s was a mixed bag that got better as it went along.

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