Friday, April 14, 2023

2023 read #36: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1986.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, February 1986 issue (70:2)
Edited by Edward L. Ferman
162 pages
Published 1986
Read April 14
Rating: 1.5 out of 5

After the dismal September 1989 and December 1989 issues, I have every right to feel dubious about another Ferman-era F&SF. But I went on a small collecting spree over the winter, and this issue, with its lecherous but amazingly pulp cover art of Maureen Birnbaum exiting the subway with a barbarian sword, just needed to be read. It isn't my oldest issue (that would be January 1986), but this one promises to be memorable, for better or for worse.

"Maureen Birnbaum at the Earth's Core (as told to Bitsy Spiegelman)" by George Alec Effinger. Between that all-time-great title and the spectacular cover art, I figured this one would go one of two ways: either it would be the most horrendously dated, casually bigoted thing I'd ever read, or it would be the most delightfully bawdy satirical pulp frolic. It turned out somewhere in between. Maureen Birnbaum herself emerges as a private-school preppy, a daughter of society wealth from Long Island, rather than the scrappy street-wise Brooklynite I had pictured. She doesn’t even get a good stab in with her barbarian sword. Overall, a product of its time that largely squanders its potential, but still an amusing bauble. B-

“The Metaphysical Gun” by Wayne Wightman. The editorial introduction promises this story “delves into the future pornography industry, mind control, and a man’s beliefs in how things should work in a crumbling world…” If that isn’t just the least appetizing string of descriptors for a mid-1980s story — cishet-normative masculinity as unrestrained id, Mad Max but make it non-consensual smut. It also happens to be the longest story in this issue by several pages, wallowing in grotesque misery and exploitation solely for its own sake. There are mumbles of “what does it mean to be human,” of course — some pretense that the misery porn is in service to some higher insight — but that was de rigueur during this era of sci-fi, and didn’t make it special. This could be touted as a primitive example of crustpunk, I suppose, but for me, this novelette wasn’t worth the newsprint it was printed on. Look away now if you don’t want to be subjected to a sample: “We wouldn’t want her to go to Snuff City, would we? Not with a set of knockers like that. It would be a terrible waste.” F

“Memories of Gwynneth” by Jennifer Black. A nearly affectless tale of implanted memories (and the experience of someone else’s love) on the rustic planet Cymru. It’s All Creatures Great and Small meets the Trill from Star Trek, which could be promising, but it’s told in flat prose that doesn’t leave much of an impression and stirs zero emotional response. Something about the vagueness of Black’s bio makes me suspect she’s some other author under a pseudonym, most likely a hetero man based on how our narrator Jilly is driven by the memories of the late Gwynneth’s old boyfriends, but “Jennifer Black fantasy author” isn’t especially productive to google. D-

“We Call Them Flowers” by Lynn Marron. This one reads like pure soap opera, full of tearful “if you really loved me, Adam” scenes of heteronormativity, but set among socialites on the moon and centered on illegal cosmetic implants that may or may not be alien parasites: “flowers” grafted into our heroine’s nervous system. It could be a good story, but it isn’t. Marron’s otherwise unremarkable prose is peppered with implausible future-slang; nouveau riche has somehow transmogrified into “nouveau creditpersons.” It’s a lot, and not all that much of it is worthwhile. Meh use of a solid title. D-

“Me and My Shadow” by Larry Eisenberg. Tepid send-up of midcentury “great minds in labcoats” sci-fi. It even has that hoary old chestnut, “You’ve been reading too many science fiction stories.” Something about psychological modeling and projecting a 3D simulacrum of the person under assessment— a simulacrum that then proves to be better at their job than the original person. Insubstantial and forgettable. D

CW for the next entry: mention of real life childhood SA.

“The Wandering Lute” by Marion Zimmer Bradley. It wouldn’t be a 1980s genre magazine without at least one notorious child molester, would it? I skimmed through this novelette because I hate giving my time to sex offenders. Outside of that context, it’s fine, I guess? Standard magic and minstrel stuff, several installments deep into a fantasy serial (or so it would seem). Our protagonist is Lythande, the Pilgrim Adept of the Blue Star, a mercenary-magician who also happens to be a bard. This is the kind of tale that likes to repeat whenever the Blue Star shines, burns, and prickles on Lythande’s brow. MZB carefully avoids Lythande’s pronouns for most of the story, setting up the shocking reveal that Lythande is a woman. (Genre fiction was unbelievably dire before 2000 or so.) But that’s enough words for this child molester. Begone forever, MZB. F

“Lo, How an Oak E’er Blooming” by Suzette Haden Elgin. The run of stories that came after “Maureen Birnbaum” have bummed me the fuck out. Will this one be any better? It features an amazing title, and the conceit — a feminist, exhausted from trying to get non-feminist women to listen to her, inadvertently causes a miracle — is interesting. The narration is of that facile “and the reporters and the clergymen came” variety, though, a just-so story. It holds any meaningful engagement at arm’s-length, which (I felt) hampered my enjoyment. It works well enough as social commentary: the clergymen spurned by Willow Severty’s atheism, the experts soon mull using a nuclear warhead to destroy the miraculously blooming feminist oak, but instead the men in power decide to tell the press that the tree is releasing carcinogens, and is a result of evil witchcraft. And so on. All in all, especially in contrast with everything that came before, I’d say it deserves at least a C+

“Observations on Sirenian Singing” by Jerrie W. Hurd. Mostly adequate space opera piece, using that term a bit more literally than usual. A human linguist gets interrogated about her report regarding the unique singing language of the newly discovered Sirenians. The galactic federation desires the rare minerals on Sirenia, but first contact has been delayed because of the Sirenians’ singing and its effect on the multispecies study teams. The denouement offers few surprises to anyone who read the title (telepathy and the musical communication of emotion both play a role), but this piece is fine regardless. Maybe a C

“The Road King” by Russell Griffin. Closing out this highly mixed and mostly mediocre issue with a silly and excessively long “the EPA crushed free enterprise and those commies banned the automobile!” piece. Hawthorne, a model-semitruck enthusiast with big Divorced Dad energy, gets recruited into an underground network of internal combustion renegades, all of them fetishists of the “good old days” of freeways, capitalism, and CB radio. Hell, forget Hawthorne — this whole story reeks of Divorced Dad energy. Imagine Demolition Man with McMartinis and tractor-trailers instead of Taco Bell and simulation sex. Goofy-ass reactionary bullshit, or a fine parody of it? Who knows. Who cares. D-

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