F&SF March 2009 Reviewed
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, # 680 from Spirogale Inc
Feb 7, 2009
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction for March 2009 features just four new stories, all novelettes --although they're all good ones-- and a reprint of a classic 1959 Hugo award winning short story.
Fantasy
'The Curandero and the Swede' by Daniel Abraham is subtitled, A Tale from the 1001 American Nights, and story-telling is at the heart of this contemporary fantasy of a young man, his girlfriend and her first meeting with his family. His uncle tells an 'enlightening' story, but within that is another story, and within that....with each nested story the reader is taken further from the original narrative and with increasing distance irritation turns to distraction. Its narrative tricks undermine what could be a very good story but it still works well enough.
Science Fiction
Yoon Ha Lee's 'The Unstrung Zither' starts like a fantasy, but is quickly revealed as world-spanning SF. A musician is drafted in to help interrogate five assassins sent to kill a general of the Empire. The general believes that the assassins have a last secret and that the musician will help find it out; for their part the assassins are willing to play along to delay their execution. The nature of the secret is hardly a surprise, but the background is richly textured, and Lee's prose is stylish, which compensates for any lack of originality in the plot.
Robert Bloch
Robert Bloch is best known to the world at large as the author of the original novel that Hitchcock's classic Psycho was based on. Yet in the same year Bloch won his one and only Hugo award from the World Science Fiction Convention for 'That Hell-Bound Train.' Phil Klass writes a fascinating introduction to the story of orphan drifter Martin, and the stranger he meets when walking the tracks one cold November evening. It's a lyrical fantasy that reverberates with the rhythm of the tracks and disproves any suspicion that Bloch was a one-story writer.
Marc Laidlaw returned to the August 2008 issue after a twelve-year absence with the third story of the bard Gorlen. Laidlaw and Gorlen's fourth appearance follows much sooner; in 'Quickstone,' Gorlen is captured by (gar)goyles, who drag him underground to be sacrificed to their god. In 'Childrun' heavy hints were dropped about the origin of Gorlen's polished stone right hand, but this time the hints stop and its history is placed centre-stage; Gorlen's hand was turned to the stone of a gargoyle -- but 'Quickstone' is as much about the goyle whose right hand Gorlen received. It's an unusual and stylish fantasy that's sure to win Laidlaw new admirers.
Robert Reed
Like the Laidlaw story, Robert Reed's 'Shadow Below' marks the author's return with the latest installment of a long-running series. 'Raven Dream' began the serquence in the December 2001 issue, but this latest installment is told from Raven's uncle Shadow-Below's perspective. The descendants of the Lakota live alongside but apart from their white companions -the Demons- in the near future. Shadow-Below earns a living teaching rich people wilderness skills. While there is an emotional arc to the novelette, and Reed has interesting comments about our society's tendency to romanticize the noble savage, there is also a sense that this is but one episode in a long-running chain, so any reader satisfaction is limited.
With the regular crop of book reviews from Charles de Lint and Michelle West, and film reviews from Kathy Maio, the magazine delivers another solid, reliable issue.
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