Interzone 213 for November-December 2007 has Chris Roberson's latest Celestial Empire story and fiction by Benjamin Rosenbaum, Jason Stoddard and Aliette de Bodard.
Interzone's 25th anniversary year
Interzone concludes its 25th anniversary year with issue 213. There are the usual features -- David Langford's Ansible Link, the print version of his on-line SF gossip column (and so much more), John Clute's book reviews, together with a revitalized books department under the stewardship of Paul Raven, and Tony Lee's DVDs -- as well as a fascinating interview with Gary Gibson. But as always, it's the fiction which is the main reason why its subscribers buy Interzone and it has its reputation.
Interzone Fiction
'Molly and the Red Hat,' by Benjamin Rosenbaum occupies this issue's Quirky Slot (last issue was Gareth Lyn Powell's excellent Ack-Ack Macaque) and starts as a children's story, but turns into something much darker and becomes almost mythic in the process; in the end, while keeping its children's-story-tone, it is both poignant and literally marvellous.
John Phillip Olsen's 'The Men in the Attic' is very much a story of our time. The USA has become a tyranny presided over by a despotic President who ruthlessly supresses dissent while allowing the illusion of democracy; the underground are the only resistance, but they are failing, and their only hope is to download fugitive's consciousness into volunteers who will share their minds. This is a story that is drenched in paranoia, and if in the end it doesn't quite fulfil it's nightmare promise it's a close-run thing.
Jason Stoddard
'The Best of Your Life' by Jason Stoddard conflates the vogue for financial planning, modern consumers to want instant gratification, and for the planners to maximise profit by locking buyers into very long-term contracts; at the same time Stoddard throws in the classic urban breakdown to good effect. Thought-provoking and well-written.
'Odin's Spear' by Steve Bein belongs in that small sub-genre of SF/fantasy stories about mountaineering to which Zelazny's 'This Mortal Mountain' and Leiber's 'Stardock' also belong. On a remote base on Callisto, two mountaineers looking for a challenge decide to climb the highest peak on the planet. The sombre tone belies what to some would seem a frivolous subject (although to those possessed of vocation, nothing about it is frivolous) and packed full of detail -- almost too full, as some of the infodumps could have been better worked in. But it's an interesting and unusual story.
Aztecs on Mars
In his editorial, Andy Cox talks of receiving two separate but remarkably similar stories, featuring alternate futures where "China and the Aztecs are the dominant powers, and where the Spanish either didn't discover America, or were defeated by the Aztecs." Rather than rejecting one, Cox says "we thought it'd be more interesting to run them in the same issue, and show that two writers living in different continents can, independently, come up with the same idea but then work it out in a completely different way."
Kudos to Cox for bravery. Chris Roberson's 'Metal Dragon Year' is written from the [Chinese] Celestial Empire perspective. While the setting is well-worked out, the plot is less original taking the American obsession with revisiting the Apollo space program via a transplant to another culture, with a sub-plot that's fairly obvious from about half-way through. Still, even the weaker Interzone stories are worth reading, and the langorous pace may appeal more to other readers
'The Lost Xuyan Bride' by Aliette de Bodard is by contrast written from the Aztec perspective, and is much busier. Like the Roberson story, it features an outsider. The Roberson protagonist is one of the Arab scientists working on the space race for his Han masters, but excluded by their casual racism from being alllowed to fly the craft. 'The Lost Xuyan Bride' features an American PI now sheltering in the Chinese-occupied sector of North America, his search for a runaway sixteen-year-old due to be married to a wealthy but unsavoury businessman. It's a fine piece of faux-noir by a writer who has now appeared twice in three issues with very different stories. De Bodard is one to watch.
Interzone 213 is -compared to the last three issues- only an average issue. But even a moderately good issue is as good as, if not better than the majority of other pro speculative fiction magazines. All told, Interzone's 25th Anniversary year has been richly rewarding for its readers. They will hope that 2008 is at least as good.
