Asimovs SF February 2009 Reviewed
Volume 33 issue 2, Whole Number 397 From Dell Magazines
Jan 18, 2009
The newer, slimmer Asimov's science-fiction magazine for February 2009 carries one novella and in place of any novellettes, five short stories, plus a healthy sprinking of poetry.
Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling
The fifth collaboration between Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling --a partnership dating back to Interzone in 1985-- takes the reader to the end of the Universe as we know it, and what may lie beyond. Fun and free-wheeling, this most inspired of collaborations has almost too much imagination, as similes congest the paragraphs toward the end of the story; nonetheless, it's a welcome counter to much of the doom currently running through the genre.
Carol Emshwiller
Much more typical of the current trend is Carole Emshwiller's 'The Bird Painter in Time of War.' As is often the case in Ms. Emshwiller's fiction, the setting and nationality of the characters is left deliberately unspecified (it's often the case that Emshwiller even deliberately leaves the protagonist's humanity ambiguous, to make the reader question their own assumptions) but there's no doubting the painter's initial humanity, even as gritty realism metamorphoses into lyrical fantasy toward the end. An early contender for a Nebula.
From the heat of 'Lagos' in the August 2008 issue, Canadian Matthew Johnson takes the reader to the Arctic for 'The Coldest War.' It's taut, and the writing is complicated, but the resolution is somewhat lacking in real drama.
Colin P. Davies depicts the survivor of a Martian disaster in 'The Certainty Principle,' but the labyrinthine politics and character arcs would have been better suited to a longer story which would allow Davies space to draw them more fully. As it is, it feels rushed.
Steven Utley
Asimovs regular Steven Utley is almost as prolific a contributor as Robert Reed is to F&SF, and this short-short piece about hatred and virtual reality has been done before, but rarely bettered, for all its brevity.
From the shortest piece to the longest, Judith Berman's novella 'Pelago' is an extract from her novel in progress Invisible House. It's dense, info-heavy future-tech SF about a young woman whose family are murdered, and who is forced to accept passage from her family's killers --who have no idea of who [or what] she is-- and whose journey takes her into the starry rift en route to the water world of Pelago. It's a story that will win Berman many new admirers, as well as reminding others that she's still around.
Whether temporarily or permanantly, James Patrick Kelly's column seems to have vanished, but there are still an editorial, columns and reviews from Editor Sheila William,s Robert Silverberg and Peter Heck, as well as poetry from David Lunde, Darrell Schweitzer, Ruth Berman and G.O. Clark.
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