Edited by Edward L. Ferman
162 pages
Published 1990
Read April 15
Rating: 2 out of 5
I haven't had much luck at all with F&SF issues from the 1980s. February 1986, September 1989, December 1989 — all of them were terrible issues, with maybe one halfway decent story per issue if you were lucky. But at some point between the turn of the 1990s and its end, F&SF must have improved. Even though this issue is only a few months removed from the 1980s — only three issues after December 1989, in fact — I liked the look of the table of contents. Plus, the cover is spectacularly weird. Perhaps this is a good place to try again?
"Shore Leave Blacks" by Nancy Etchemendy. Vibes and trends can change so fast. Astonishingly, here in the first story we have arrived already at what I would consider classic 1990s sci-fi. This is an emotionally fraught tale of relativistic time dilation, as Annie Moffat, a “lightbucker” employed on interstellar runs, reluctantly returns to Earth to face Adam, the son she birthed and left behind some 47 of his subjective years ago. In another ’90s signature touch, Annie takes drugs to cope with the anxieties of her return, breathing illicit "bliss" to shrug off the culture shock, the memories of loss, and the panic of facing Adam and other people she used to know in her dusty desert hometown. The story is well-paced, teasing its revelation about Adam's line of work at just the right moment. A solid story that deserves at least a B
"Down on the Truck Farm" by Thomas A. Easton. The story that goes with this issue's delightfully what-the-fuck cover art (which, if you don't want to Google it, features a guy driving a giant wheeled dog in front of a farm silo). Also going all-in on the classic tropes of the 1990s, this one is a tale of genetic engineering and the "organic future" that was the current vogue in sci-fi. Giant pumpkins are repurposed as houses; chalets perch on beanstalks; our disaffected young adult hero Jimmy sneaks addictively euphoric sips from honeysuckle flowers the size of a wineglass. (There’s that ’90s “put drugs into everything” vibe again.) The genetic fairy tale aesthetic is impeccable, but Easton's prose is mechanical, and the plot — Jimmy’s parents ship him off to a bulldog-truck farm before he can become just another dissipated honey-bum — is barely there. It all works better as a way to show off Easton’s worldbuilding than it does as a story. I’ll give it points for creativity, though. C
“The Bat-Winged Knight” by Catherine Cooke. After the two Totally Kickin’ Rad ’90s stories that began this issue, this one feels particularly antique. With its omniscient roving narration, archetypal lords and ladies, cave-dwelling vampires and changeling babes left in the wood, it could well have come from the ’70s. The occasionally stiff and awkward prose feels like ’70s fantasy, as does the overall vibe of melodrama sprinkled with a hint of skeeviness. You could have slipped this into one of Lin Carter’s annual anthologies and I’d never have known the difference. There isn’t even any drug use! I don’t necessarily dislike ’70s fantasy, and I don’t necessarily dislike this story. It’s overlong for what it is, but it wasn’t, like, actively repulsive, which in my experience is high praise for Ferman-era F&SF. Maybe C-?
“Zürich” by Kim Stanley Robinson. Faintly humorous slice-of-life satire of the Swiss and their uptight habits of cleanliness that escalates into fantastical, fanatical absurdity. C-
“What the EPA Don’t Know Won’t Hurt Them” by Suzette Haden Elgin. There’s no getting around the fact that this story, down to its very conceit, otherizes hillbillies. All my ancestors were hillbillies, along just about any branch you look: Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio. Elgin, meanwhile, drew on her own Ozark hill country heritage for this story. I think I’m fine with it; I feel it’s probably okay. But still, you can’t really ignore it. So, big spoilers: turns out we hillfolk are aliens. And our notorious junkyards, far from being a hoard against poverty, are an arcane array that, once completed and activated, will get us back to our ships. Literal alienation aside, this is a good story: imaginative, well-written, well-paced, with decent (if clichéd) characterization. B?
“Cool Cat” by Edward Wellen. Tediously overlong tale of an aging Elvis figure (eye-roll) who gets turned into a “Haitian zombie” (eye-roll) and cryogenically preserved (eye-roll) by his greedy manager (eye-roll) who also happens to want to put the moves on not-Elvis’s much younger wife (barf). The only redeeming quality of this story was the prose, which was crisp and professional. F+
“Shatterwrack at Breaklight” by Terry Dowling. Loose play at future noir, with a holographic femme fatale playing coy with a sand-ship sailor in a vaguely Middle Eastern tourist dive. Altogether too masculine and heteronormative for my tastes. It’s well-written and makes good use of noir’s laconic style, but the belly-flop of its denouement doesn’t justify the set-up. D-
“Every Trembling Blossom, Every Singing Bird” by Ronald Anthony Cross. I’d hoped we could finish strong with this one — that is an A+ banger of a title. Alas! This is a tale of a mediocre white guy inspired to persevere in life because an angel showed him what he thinks is a potential future of him falling in love with a cute girl somewhere down South. What slight charm this could have possessed is obliterated when the author blows the dust off a broad Twainian dialect for a Black character. The ending is fine, I guess, but what a waste of a title. D-
So, despite a surprisingly strong start, this issue ended up only a modest improvement over the issues from the ’80s. Still, that’s progress, right?
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