Asimov’s, July 2008

Do you hear that sound? That, folks, is a year’s subscription to Asimov’s draining out of my bank account. Yeah, I’ve bought single issues, I’ve subscribed to other SF mags, but July’s cornucopia has sold me, and sold me well. There are future award winners in this issue, or what should be future award winners, and I’m going to be looking for these names elsewhere.

What started the recent trickle of historical SF? I’m thankful for it, whether it was the result of mind control rays from Venus, an organized conspiracy by clandestine Elizabethans, or an accident of convergent evolution. I’ll certainly be looking for the previous novellas in this series by Brian Stableford, which is as enjoyable in its way as recent hit Eifelheim by Michael Flynn.

Smoothly written, effectively introduced, and captivating, “The Philosopher’s Stone” recounts the adventures of forger and self-declared spirit medium Edward Kelley as he attempts to elude Puritan militiamen and gain the protection of prominent magician and natural philosopher John Dee. Some details in the story seem a bit odd—there is a reference to Queen Jane, for example, although she only reigned for either nine or thirteen days in 1553, and the plot is set in 1582, but I imagine that difference might indicate that these events occur in a mirror universe where Lady Grey was never beheaded. Another difference between Stableford’s 16th century England and ours is that Kelley is bringing Dee not just a rock he’ll claim to scry in, but an alien artifact. Other than Kelley and occasionally the two Dominicans, Cuthbert and his famous coreligionist, Giordano Burno, all of the characters are fairly flat, although this isn’t particularly troubling because the plot and description are so well hewn and diverting. Period color is present but not rampant, the tone consistent, and suspense palpable. Several passages demonstrate Stableford’s skill in evoking an alien mentality without writing the sort of unintelligible prose one wades through instead of reads, which is an irritating habit I’ve seen other authors slip into:

“You might have heard my kind called by the name hardcore, because our supportive skeletons are contained within our flesh rather than armoring it without—you’re hardcores too, by that reckoning. You might think me monstrous, but the Lunars would consider the two of us very much alike, intrinsically horrid in exactly the same fashion: mollusks turned inside-out.”

The fictional adventures of Drake and Raleigh which form a background for this story are nicely of a piece with contemporary narratives of exploration, and the fleshcore aliens (in this elided view) seem hardly less strange than the creatures medieval fabulists imagined living on the other side of the globe—that is, men with elephant heads or faces embedded in their chests. Unlike those monsters, however, Stableford’s description isn’t tinged with the sort of xenophobia which produced Lovecraft’s rubbery horrors: the fear and linchpin at the heart of this story is the alien vastnesses of space, teeming in his universe with dark matter and intangible intelligences.

I first encountered Gord Sellar in Fantasy Magazine’s January issue, and although that piece was well written and interesting, it in no way approaches the relish with which I read (and will many times re-read) “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues.” In fact, I fully intend to launch a concerted effort to get it onto the Hugo ballot. Think about the first time you discovered science fiction you enjoyed; remember the wonder and joy you felt, the sort of sensation that makes you twelve years old again. Sellar conjures up that Ray Bradbury-esque golden-hour bliss with a piece which has a traditional feel but glimmers with freshness, originality, and craft…sort of like a good rendition of a jazz standard. If I can enjoy “Pahwahke” without attacking him for cultural appropriation, since he really seems to have done his homework, I’ll reason that I can do the same with this story until told otherwise; his background in music, rounded characters, and consistency of tone show a respect for the material which can’t be dismissed.

In 1948, tenor saxophonist Robbie Coolidge has an opportunity to audition for a lucrative long-term gig on a cruise ship. Only catch is, he’ll have to work for rubbery aliens that smoke like chimneys. Worse still, the whispers have it that they have a tendency to tweak men’s minds in ways that leave them…never quite the same. At least the Frogs (as they’re known) brought a lot of new technology with them, like portable phones and furniture that fixes itself after it’s been broken, not to mention the entertainment value to be had by those witnessing an amusing musical weakness which leaves them less than invulnerable:

The frog, when it heard Monk start up with all that, it stood itself up, dropped its cigarettes on the ground, and slapped one hand over its huge front face-eyes and the other behind the back of its head. It was moaning—with three or four voices at once—and this blue stuff starting leaking out of its nose. Then it decided it was time to get the hell out. It wobbled but finally made it out the door, shaky like a junkie dying to shoot himself up…”Damn Frogs never could handle Monk,” Max said, laughing. “Man, that was beautiful!”

As is this story. Read it.

Stableford and Sellar allowed us to wander through the past. Michael Bishop’s “Vinegar Peace, or, the Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage” is a painful return to the current state of affairs. It throbs like a wound, and that vulnerability and passion give it power. Sometimes the scathing surreality of it is a bit too much, as with the “Pro Patria Mori” song, but then, this is as much satire as it is a heartfelt exploration of two anxieties that dominate this period in American history.

You are Ms. K—., probable divorcee, somewhere north of 40, and they’ve come to take you away to the home for people the last of whose children have died (most likely in the War on Worldwide Wickedness). Vinegar Peace is a place of contradictions, where the ICU is teeming, sleeping quarters are barracks-like, bathroom lines are long, and yet a chapel, Arboretum, elegant bar, V.R. suite, and other odd amenities await lonely adult orphans. Maybe I’ve been reading too much James Morrow, but I see his influence here, unless Bishop influenced him. Ultimately, this is less a vision of the future than a vision of the present refracted through a kaleidoscope and perhaps a few fun house mirrors. Despite a few awkwardnesses, this is a story I won’t forget for a long time.

The first three stories in this issue are a hard act to follow. In any other issue, Steven Utley’s creepy, sad tale might stand out more than it does here. In some ways, “The Woman Under the World” reminds me of that immortal James Patrick Kelly story, “Think Like a Dinosaur.” Because, although it’s unclear whether there has been a death, it is certain that some portion of a person—or the person herself, as her colleagues could be lying— has become a free-floating radioactive protoplasm, the product of a time-travel experiment gone wrong, and it has to be taken care of, dealt with. Imprisoned, really, since there seems to be no tidy way to deal with a…person..?…who can fry electronic equipment merely by approaching it.

Bishop and Utley haven’t cornered the dystopian market, however. R. Neube peppers “Cascading Violet Hair” with class commentary and shadows of the mortgage crisis. Henry’s a widower on a bankrupt space colony, long after the Earth has become an unlivable landfill. He’s chained to a currently worthless apartment into which he has sunk his life savings and spends most days working at an array of dead-end civil service jobs that there aren’t enough people to fill due to emigration. Then he meets Diane, an unlucky visitor to the colony who also happens to be she of the violet tresses.

Bishop’s piece is overtly related to recent history; Neube’s is subtler. But the connections are there, and, as much as well rounded characters and an interesting environment, they make the story memorable, although it seems a bit aimless at times. That aimlessness is built into the life of its narrator, however, so I suppose it’s just as valid as the vaguely similar aimlessness present in movies like Clerks, although this aimlessness has depth to which that chronicle of retail hokey could never pretend.

This issue’s theme (in the fiction, anyhow) seems to be loss and what comes after it—often something hopeful. In “The Philosopher’s Stone,” the threat of semi-hostile alien life and religious strife are counterweighted by the promise of technology and tolerance. Robbie Coolidge sees men change in terrible ways and says goodbye to love, twice, yet gains instrumental superpowers. Ms. K—. loses her daughter but somehow manages to turn to a tired acceptance and resignation. The complicated loss of a person named Phyllis, or her stellar shadow, is tinged with the memory of love. Henry Newton’s unexpected guest turns despair into hope. And in “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss,” Kij Johnson assembles a beautiful mystery which, although it may seem predictable or familiar at first, has a flower (instead of a sting) at the end of its tail.

Aimee lost everything and replaced it with a sideshow. Twenty-six well-behaved, exceptionally intelligent monkeys pile into a bathtub and disappear, to return hours later to the bus which is their home with all sorts of odd items. She and her boyfriend, Geof, are just along to drive it seems, and like Bastian of Michael Ende’s The Neverending Story, she wanders as though she’s used up all her wishes and no longer remembers who she is:

Fairs don’t mean anything, either. Her tiny world travels within a slightly larger world, the identical, interchangeable fairs. Sometimes the only things that cue Aimee to the town she’s in are the nighttime temperatures and the shape of the horizon: badlands, mountains, plains, or city skyline.

The ending may seem predictable, and in some ways, what you expect is what happens. Why and how—and what it means for the future of the monkeys, the bathtub, Aimee, Geof—less so. The thing that ultimately gives meaning to this tale of slipstream serendipity may surprise you with tears.