GUEST STAR

Personal matters, most of them connected to the sudden death of my mother this past Sept. 25th, have conspired to disrupt Firebrand Fiction Reviews beyond any level that I would have imagined acceptable when first beginning this venture. Despite a courageous and determined start, the column has slipped from a biweekly to a monthly and now to an "irregularly" posted affair. Widespread support, for which I am grateful, precludes dispensing with the column altogether - and yet my increasingly demanding schedule has made it very difficult for me to give the column the attention it deserves.

While I have every intention of returning to both Firebrand Fiction Reviews and my "Prose Detective" column at www.fmam.biz, fate has proved itself kind in providing me with a very talented writer who has offered to sub for me - at least for a few months - so that we can continue to post Firebrand Fiction Reviews on a respectable schedule.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with my guest columnist, Greg Beatty, I think you are lucky to have discovered him here. Greg is a proven talent in both non-fiction and fiction, with SF related work blooming all around. His non-fiction has appeared in publications such as Paradox, Future Orbits, Strange Horizons, New York Review of Science Fiction , and Tangent, while excellent fiction under his bylne has appeared at or in SCI FICTION, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, H.P. Lovecraft's, Fortean Bureau, and Distant Worlds . You can also get more info on Greg at his website.

I have always enjoyed Greg's fiction (he won an Honorable Mention in our 1st Annual Fiction Contest), non-fiction writing and review work. So, without further delay, I proudly give you Firebrand Fiction's Guest Reviewer, Greg Beatty....

Like Daniel's most recent column, this month I'll focus on three publications: the established professional publication, the newer/semi-professional publication, and an electronic. I'll begin with the reigning granddaddy of SF magazines, Analog.

It's always an interesting challenge to review an issue of Analog. On one hand, Stan Schmidt has a clear vision of what he wants, and his unswerving devotion to publishing science fiction, rather than some variant of slipstream, is refreshing. On the other hand, Analog regularly publishes fiction that is, well, weak.

The first short story in the November 2003 issue is a good example of this. In "The Problem of the Gourmet Planet," Lloyd Biggle, Jr. returns to his ongoing saga of the bumbling Interplanetary Relations Bureau (IRB). This time they're trying to raise the inhabitants of the planet Easole (where everything is delicious) to civilization- only to find they've been eating, and trying to market, the real intelligent race on the planet. It's a potentially amusing idea, but it's badly worked out, and delivered in very clunky prose.

Ron Collins' "Just Business" isn't much better. Like any number of Analog stories, it toys with the idea of the supernatural, only to resolve that possibility through science: what seemed a ghost was a holographic projection, a trick that was old when Scooby Doo used it. The context and texture of the story - a turf battle between competing mob families - rings false even for something played for laughs. A third short story, "Shoo Fly," by Kathy Oltion, is considerably better written, but is more of a sketch of an idea than a real story; at no point did I believe in the protagonist's psychic powers, or care about the story's outcome. Nothing was at stake.

The final story, "Born Under the Sign of Bonanza" by Robert Scherrer, begins to move up the ladder. It takes a bold idea-the imaginary science of memetics, which traces the passage of memes (idea units) through a culture-and plays it for laughs at a breakneck pace. While I wasn't completely convinced by the ending, I enjoyed the ride, and relished the numerous pop culture digs delivered along the way.

This issue also contains the third installment in a serial (which I won't be discussing here), an interesting essay by Richard Lovett on astrobiology, and two novelettes, which contain the real meat of the issue. "The Trellis" by Larry Niven and Brenda Cooper contains some clunky moments, but is at its core solid adventure science fiction (though the outcome is never in doubt). Whereas the short stories lecture to introduce their technological advancements, Niven and Cooper's story deftly introduced the setting (a base on Pluto), and moved onto extrapolative strokes that pleased with their boldness and consistency. A genetically engineered vine growing between Pluto and Charon! Too cool, and pure fun. The social changes Niven and Cooper suggest echo those Niven proposed in "Flare Time," but are more nuanced, and show a greater awareness of social tensions.

The centerpiece of the issue is "Who Names the Light?" by Pete D. Manison. Most of the stories in the issue could have been published in the 1950s, but "Who Names the Light?" could only have been published after science fiction had digested anthropology's insights, and only after an advanced understanding of myth became widespread. The title's question is both literal and symbolic. The main character is a Starcaller, who travels between the human colonies scattered throughout the galaxy. His task is to name the constellations, in order to provide a healthy and unified psychic/mythological trellis upon which these cultures may grow. A striking and original idea in itself, Manison interweaves it with several plot threads-a cyborg computer called an "Earth-heart" at the center of the colony, watching over it, an ill little girl who reaches the Starcaller despite the isolation imposed by his calling, and a self-appointed Starcaller who is driven by grief to usurp his position. Though at times he slips into sentimentality, Manison gives his characters emotions as powerful as any that shredded a community in a Greek myth, and the story resonates with mythic overtones. Thank you, Mr. Manison.

Next up is issue #26 of Talebones, published in the summer of 2003. Talebones is a semipro 'zine. I feel compelled to mention that because it feels professional in so many ways. The magazine is well-designed, with a harmonious layout. The fiction is on the whole superior to that found in Analog.

The issue's first story, "The Pair-a-Duce Comet Casino All Sol Poker Championships," by veteran scribe James Van Pelt, is a solid lead-off piece. Set, as the wonderful title suggests, in a casino on a comet that is nearing the sun, the story follows a classic science fiction pattern. Van Pelt introduces one technological innovation (the recording of memories which are downloaded into new clones of a person after he/she is killed), works out the technical implications well enough to make it feel real, then focuses the reader's attention on the social implications of the idea-while telling an entertaining tale. The story wasn't perfect (the ending was a little abrupt, and certain elements of characterization seemed more successful intellectually than emotionally), but it was a good read, and I enjoyed it.

Next up was Mark Rich's well-written story, "Too Celestial Lane." Rich's tale is more of a meditation on mood and memory than an active story (I'm still not exactly sure what happened), but the writing is richly descriptive, and the tone agreeably melancholy.

Another of the issue's nice, but minor, stories is Jennifer Rachel Baumer's "The Forever Sleep." If Rich's focus in "Too Celestial Lane" is on internal moods, creating a world that seems to slip from past to present in a consciousness that's dimmed, Baumer's focus is external, but in a way related. Baumer gives us a story in which dreams rework the world, but focuses on the parents of young Christy, who is laboring away in her Forever Sleep to ward off the pains of the world. It's an old idea, but Baumer handles it well, evoking both the desperate hopelessness of parents watching children sleep, and the fears we all have in these post 9/11 days. A thematically related piece, about observing changes in the world, but one that is almost pure idea, is Adam Browne's "The End of Roentgen Rays." It is clever, and well-written, but the entire story is implied in the combination of the title and the first line, and I wouldn't want it to be any longer than the page and half that it is.

Patricia Russo's story "The Acquaintance" is the kind of pure story that seems to only show up in genre fiction. Oh sure, there's social commentary, on how teens misjudge the elderly, and how commercial society misjudges the human, but the core of the piece is a quiet horror story about the relationship between an old woman and The Eater. To say more might spoil it, so I just say this: it was savage, and I liked it.

On the other end of the literary spectrum is Kameron Hurley's well-wrought piece "Holding Onto Ghosts." By the other end of the spectrum, I mean that this story is openly political, and necessarily so. Where Russo's piece is probably set in the U.S., but could be set in any city, the ghosts in Hurley's story are the ghosts of South Africa's intense and specific traumas. Hurley uses simple language and a closed domestic setting, but manages to evoke a multiply alien world-African, fantastic, and the strangeness produced by a change of generations- in which history haunts the living, and guilt is everywhere. The only weakness to the fine story is the main character's passivity. It's clear that Aninka is bearing witness to these ghosts, and that this is important work in itself, but acceptance is a very quiet action upon which to hang a story.

My favorite story of the issue is William Mingin's "From Sunset to the White Sea." It opens in the office of Murdoch, a hard-boiled detective in the city of Sunset, but Murdoch's contemplations of his seedy setting and of Twilight, the magical city just across the river, are interrupted, as those of a hard-boiled detective must be, by the entrance of a beautiful woman. Well, beautiful female from the realm of Fairie, anyway, and if a human woman means trouble for hard-boiled detectives, the beautiful fair ones mean even more trouble. Soon Murdoch is embroiled in a case that becomes a scheme, then twists back on itself, first once, then again. The story is as dark and dubious as anything penned by Chandler, though lightened by humorous touches and deft literary references. Not all of the humor works- some lines seem forced- but the story does a fine job of exposing the parallel darknesses between the realms of detection and fairie-and of showing that there are some beautiful streets down which a man probably should not go.

Taken together, this is a fine issue of a fine magazine, and editors Patrick and Honna Swanson are to be commended for Talebones.

For free fiction this month, I thought I'd check in on one of my favorite electronic publications, Ideomancer. I like looking at Ideomancer because of their stylish presentation-a well-designed site, with striking art, and clearly differentiated fiction categories. I also like their steadiness, and their balance; they publish monthly, and while the November issue is all science fiction, Ideomancer regularly publishes fantasy, horror, and slipstream, as well as flash fiction (500 words and fewer). They also reprint a classic genre story. (This last decision is one I'm not sure I agree with, since many of their classics are well-known, and readily available elsewhere, but I respect it as a consistent acknowledgement of their genre heritage.)

The strongest story of the November 2003 issue is "Sleeping Beauty," by Bruce Holland Rogers. Beginning with "Once upon a time," the story is, as those words (and the title) suggest, a retold fairy tale, with all that the term implies. Characters are simplified, rather than rounded, but simplified in order to focus on a core emotional and moral problem. Likewise, the story's action is delivered in pared down language, at breakneck speed, and according to patterns that resonate with antiquity. Now here's the clincher: it is also pure science fiction, with AIs, post-Vingean singularities, and the kind of breadth of philosophical vision that Olaf Stapledon exercised. The surprise is how well the disparate parts work together-how well AIs and transhumans can fill the roles of the magical beings who made fairy tales such fun, and how successfully the wonders of nanotechnology can fill the place of magic gifts. The impressive thing about the story is Rogers' consistency-that he can make this feel like a fairy tale, even as he integrates contemporary perspectives on change and entropy. It's good work-go read it!

The remaining two stories in this issue also reach back to science fiction's roots, but not nearly so successfully. Mark Rudolph's story "Always a Bridesmaid" is Golden Age fun that I would have thought hysterical when I was growing up. Now, I merely smile at the idea of aliens who must feel impending catastrophic threat to trigger their reproductive cycle, and at the idea that (spoiler warning) the narrator takes them to a hellfire and brimstone sermon to get their juices flowing. It's a good yarn, but not much more than that, and ran a bit long.

Igor Teper's "The Well of Mnemosyne," is at once sort of old-fashioned-and the sort of story that could only be written today. Also, I found the story a touch offensive, but that's a lifelong fan of the space program talking, and I'll try to separate that aspect of my reaction from my review. Teper's premise is that we can now record memories, and that this has spawned an industry specializing in seeking out, recording, and marketing rare memories. In this case (spoiler warning), a representative of a memory sales company approaches the last living astronaut with memories of space. After some reflection, the astronaut decides against selling these memories, despite his need for money, because, he reasons, if people had access to perfect memories of space there would be no impetus to go to space. And that's what offended me-and also, I think, this idea is a contemporary attitude. I think a perfect recording of the experience of space would draw humans to the heavens like, no, not flies, but angels, drawn by one taste of heaven, making them forever long for another taste. Clearly, I had quite a strong reaction to what seemed to be a hero selling humanity short! -- but I want to accent that the story is well-crafted, and the ending somewhat diminishes my initial disatisfation. But Ideomancer is free- so go read the story and judge for yourself!

Of the three pubs discussed this column, I'd give the nod to Talebones, then to Ideomancer, with Analog taking third despite "Who Names the Light?"

Thanks, Greg! <ditto from webmaster Dave>

For reasons of continuity, Greg won't be awarding Great Fiction Brands during his tenure as Firebrand Fiction Reviews columnist. I'd like to honor Greg with a low bow and tip of my starry wizard's cap for his awesome reviews and for his gracious offer of his considerable talents to "spell" me a while during a difficult time in my life.

Look for more of Greg's excellent reviews next month!

Until Next Time,

Daniel E. Blackston and Greg Beatty

Firebrand Fiction Reviews: all content © 2003, Daniel E. Blackston