Edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
162 pages
Published 1996
Read from December 14 to December 15
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Rusch was an unfairly ignored editor in the history of F&SF. I hadn’t even been aware of her ’90s tenure in the editorial chair until I was reading through a Wikipedia article earlier this year. I’ve wanted to read some of her issues ever since, but always got sidetracked one way or another.
This issue is my introduction to Rusch as an editor. I picked this one because 1) it has great cover art, and 2) the table of contents looks interesting, without any obvious red flags. (None obvious to me, anyway. Goodness knows there could have been all kinds of ’90s writer scandals that got hushed up or forgotten.)
“Here We Come A-Wandering” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. I was nervous about this one — it’s a magical homeless drifter story from the ’90s. Thankfully, it turns out to be a lovely, delicate, inventive tale, in which the vertiginous strangeness of men stepping out from walls, and cars sharing insight into the psychology of their drivers, feels like a natural part of our world, just around the corners of things. The story itself was maybe a bit pat, with Matt breaking through the walls of her PTSD to find human companionship on Christmas, but still, it was quite good. B
“The Mall” by Dale Bailey. Early next year, a story of mine will be published in an anthology of shopping mall horror, so it was interesting to compare and contrast it with this tale from 28 years before. Bailey and I approached mall horror from opposite perspectives — me, an elder Millennial who grew up around and found shelter in malls; Bailey, writing with Boomer suspicion of malls and their hypnotic pull on those Millennial kids — but both of us gravitated toward the idea of malls as extradimensional spaces inhabited by hungry beings. I felt the ending of “The Mall” fell a little flat, but it was surprisingly palatable overall. B-
“The Plight Before Christmas” by Jerry Oltion. A bland tale of yuppie white male mediocrity. Our hero is an advertising man, prone to hissy-fit outbursts, who endlessly edits his day with a household time travel appliance. He can't figure out why sales are down, nor can he figure out what to buy his girlfriend for Christmas. First meh story of this issue, though even this one elicits some mild interest with the social ramifications of casual time editing. C-
“Annie’s Shelter” by Bonita Kale. Didn’t like this one, not one bit. It’s a dreary number about Annie, a developmentally disabled young woman who, thanks to a new job, can support herself in an apartment, and Ziv, a homeless drifter (another one!) who cons his way into her apartment by telling her he’s an alien studying human culture. We get front row seats to Ziv sexually exploiting Annie, because we’re in the rancid meat of the ’90s. Of course Annie gets pregnant and Ziv kicks her out of her own apartment. (And yes, Ziv’s POV keeps referring to Annie with the usual slur.) I know fiction that makes readers uncomfortable is important, but it didn’t feel like this piece had anything to say beyond being a slimy little soap opera. There isn’t even any speculative element, besides Ziv’s lies. F
“In the Shade of the Slowboat Man” by Dean Wesley Smith. A vampire visits her one-time husband, who’s dying in a nursing home, and reminisces about how they met on a paddle-wheel “slowboat” on the Mississippi. It’s a sweet trifle. B-
“Javier, Dying in the Land of Flowers” by Deborah Wheeler. Seeing this title on the table of contents, I imagined an atmospheric reinterpretation of a medieval French lai. Weirdly specific idea, and sadly wrong. Instead, it’s a near-future piece about a migrant worker landing a job on Tierra Flores, an artificial island resort where rich Anglos lead sparkling lives far away from the drugs, violence, and cartels — the usual feverish stuff Anglo-Americans imagine when they peep over the southern border. Every Anglo stereotype about Mexico, in fact, pops up in this story: wailing babies and swarming rats, nightly cartel gun fights and mariachi bands at the mercado, ingrained misogyny and swaggering machismo. The Angla tourists also apparently come to the island with a race-play fetish. Though the story is written well enough, I don’t think any Anglo authors can be trusted with any of this. F
“Go Toward the Light” by Harlan Ellison. Rankled by sanctimonious comments from an orthodox coworker, professional time-traveler Matty Simon trips back to witness (and hopefully debunk) the miracle of Chanukah. But somewhere along the way Matty decides the miracle needs a little help. This compact yarn is Ellison in fine form. B
“Bulldog Drummond and the Grim Reaper” by Michael Coney. The title, and the excellent cover art, sadly oversell the promise of this closing novelette. The “Grim Reaper” of the title is a nickname for a dungeon scenario that “proximation” players experience through a robotic avatar, a mix of video game and escape room. “Bulldog” Drummond is the pulpy adventure hero of the dungeon narrative, battling through every peril to foil the diabolical Carl Peterson. But our actual story is the friction between Bobbie, founder of the proximation company, and her ex-slash-business-rival Bill, whose technology connects users to implants in various animals, letting them experience the adventures of their pets, lions on the hunt, and so forth. Naturally, Bill uses his tech to spy on Bobbie via a raccoon named McArthur. Inevitably, Bobbie runs out of robots partway through recording the Grim Reaper scenario, and ventures into the dungeon to finish the proximation herself. Predictably, Bill must send his implanted animals into the Grim Reaper to save her. I didn’t hate the story, but McArthur was the only character I cared about. And as you might imagine from my hectic summary, the pacing is a bit awkward. C-
And that’s it! A couple ’90s stinkers, but overall, not bad! A significant improvement over Rusch’s predecessor, certainly. I’m intrigued to read more.
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