Clarkesworld #16, January 2008

In issue 16 of Clarkesworld, Tim Pratt’s story, “The River Boy,” is a sweet little tale about an old woman anxious to carry on her line by having a child, the bargain she makes in order to do so, and its consequences. Her desire becomes linked to the needs of the people who live in her land and their life on the river. Well written and entertaining enough, but I never really felt strongly for the old woman and her longing, perhaps because of the tale’s manner of telling; there is a distance in the narration from a third party. Or perhaps it was more that the conflict at the story’s heart was somewhat diluted and uncertain. If the development and resolution had a metaphoric meaning rather than a simply literal one, it passed me by, and so “The River Boy” remained a nicely told, enjoyable tale, rather than anything truly affecting.

“Debris Ensuing from a Supervortex” by Brian Ames tells of a man whose life’s possessions are sucked up out of his house by a large wind and his subsequent loss of memory and identity. Somebody or something called SD comes along to help Blake recover his memories, but this proves to be a mixed blessing. The central idea of Blake’s loss of identity through loss of his possessions, and their gradual recovery, is a clever one. The writing here, though, didn’t really work for me. There are clunky sentences like “A spinning highwayman of random act stole his possessions” and seemingly unnecessary clusters of terminology such as “A tornadic vortex signature appears on the radar image as an area within the storm with changing wind directions of high periodicity,” which together halt any momentum and make the story stilted to read. Furthermore, I found “SD,” whoever or whatever it is, to be somewhat awkwardly wedged in. Neither a genuine character nor provoking emotive or metaphoric resonance, SD feels like a half-thought notion, and the story’s end, which relies on the (non) revelation of what SD stands for, didn’t work for me at all. Overall, the story has some nice ideas, but the execution falls short.

Not the strongest issue of Clarkesworld, fiction-wise. But both stories are very short and won’t trouble you for too much of your time. So check them out and see if you disagree.