Electric Velocipede #13

Electric Velocipede is an eccentric zine edited by John Klima with work ranging from literary fantasy to slipstream science fiction to the quirky and comical. A host of mostly unknown authors find a home in its pages in issue #13, but several pieces of fiction read as if crafted by pros thirty years past their prime. That’s a good thing.

Issue #13 opens with the splendiferous novelette “Hochelaga and Sons” by Claude Lalumière. Gordon and Bernard’s father is Montreal’s very own superhero, Hochelaga, a masked crime-fighter that has amassed every power thinkable thanks to the Nazi scientists that experimented on him during World War II. Unfortunately, he can only use his abilities individually, leaving him prone to danger often, and with little warning, a wondrous occurrence separates Gordon from his brother. This leads to family downfall, and when the Herald of Hate shows up to destroy, destroy, destroy, it’s up to Hochelaga’s sons to set the world right.

Lalumière’s decision to tell the story from Gordon’s perspective, the seemingly lesser of two sons, is what really made this piece work. The voice used isn’t anything to shout from the hilltops about, but it has a quiet awareness that makes every emotion believable. The superheroes within are of the “bigger-than-life” sort, with silly names and boasting egos, but they all have their charm in tow. Hochelaga is a clearheaded man who tries to pass his beliefs along to his children, but instead gives one of them a gift he never wanted. The story slowly goes from campy boy-wonderish to an eminently dark place. Tough choices perch everywhere Gordon looks, and just like his father and the other superheroes in the legendary group, The Mighty, sacrifices are a must. Lalumière has created a strong piece of fiction that asks whether anyone wants to really be a hero of the people or, if forced to, how would they get by in a world where the colorful dramatics are glorified and the simple miracles ignored? A great start to the issue, well recommended.

“Selection” by Marie Brennan is, well, about the selection process of being chosen for the “most elite and exclusive group in the world.” It’s a straining process, with an application form seventy-two pages long, pop interviews, and a lot of nail-biting waiting. If you get further, consider yourself lucky. Brennan’s prose is quick and easy to get into, making this little glimpse of the arbitrary entertaining. There’s not a lot of answers to be gained from “Selection,” but there also aren’t many questions that need to be asked. It is what it is—readable, engaging, and a lot more fun than actually filling out application forms.

The center of attention in “Momentum” by Damien G Walter is, curiously, a man that never speaks. Or has never spoken, ever, at all, not a single peep—if you were to believe Great Uncle Peter’s niece, through whom we view this predictable but wistful character study. It’s a quick journey, and in it, we learn much about Peter’s life and next to none of his niece’s, which makes the ending troublesome to appreciate. Still, Walter has crafted a man’s entire life for us, wordlessly and deep, all the way to Peter’s culminating farewell to the world, and for that, the story is solid. Read it not for the revelation but the history leading up to it.

In “Sand” by Philip J. Lees, a woman meets a man. What, you want more? Fine. Alice is trying hard to enjoy her time on the beach, but after some younglings at play knock enough sand in her face to bury a seagull, she moves to a boardwalk café-bar for some alone time. There she meets a mysterious man, as is to be expected, and before she knows it, she’s agreed to go on a date later that evening with the charming chap. Only the next morning, Alice sees that she’s been played as a fool.

I’m not afraid to admit that I can be pretty dense at times. Meaning I didn’t understand what was happening in “Sand” on a thematic level. Sure, woman meets man, man charms woman, man scorns woman, woman hates man. There’s some talk of the Greek goddess Alicia, and Lees hints at the notion that Alice and her are one and the same, but even then I didn’t see the logic. Is she, unknowingly, the goddess of love? If so, how and why did she fail to keep this man interested in her? And then, just who in Hades was he? See, I’m clueless. Others might be able to make more sense of “Sand,” and to them go the spoils.

In “Until the Wind Changes” by Jennifer Rachel Baumer, genetic error Billy made the stupid mistake of buying a broken servant droid while at an auction. Her name is Lila, but don’t worry, despite being broken, she doesn’t hurt because she doesn’t have any pain sensors. Soon after, Lila’s helping Billy with his mathematics, his conscious, and even offering advice on the pesky bully Daav at school. The years get on, except not much changes save for Billy’s brother leaving him behind to join Fleet. Billy keeps to himself, but with the urging of Lila, he just might make Fleet one day. But what’s to be of her then?

“Until the Wind Changes” is a quiet coming-of-age story, leading Billy through times of hate, abandonment, loss, and love, all observed astutely by Lila. There are not too many surprises here, and as in every literary boy’s journey into manhood, he learns a hard lesson before the end. Nothing astounding, but still a good read and recommend to anybody that has a heart for robots. Still, I haven’t a clue where the title comes from unless I missed a reference somewhere.

Brian Augmon works in the World Life Archive, more commonly called the Vault, in “Obituary for a Living Man” by Corey Brown. It’s a place built to honor the memories and lives of all people, with race, color, and gender playing no part whatsoever. A memory bank, if you will. This is the sort of career that makes a mother boast to strangers while in the checkout line. That is until the Director, Mr. Dombrowski, assigns Brian the task of erasing all stats—name, birth date, death date, and so on—from several chips. He does as he’s instructed but quickly grows suspicious of the man’s intent. Risking his career, Brian inspects a chip commissioned for erasure and finds memories of the future, past, and present, all them of stamped wrong, all of them signifying the greatest discovery of the era—that the end is near.

Despite all efforts, images of The Matrix kept popping up as I read “Obituary for a Living Man.” This is no fault of the characters, but rather that the setting being a disclosed area brimming with coded data and shelves of memory chips reminded me of Nebuchadnezzar’s internal workings. Still, this isn’t a race to save the Zion. Millions of lives are at stake instead, and with the help of Elisya, Brian hopes to alert as many people as he can of the incoming doom. Their relationship was of little interest to me, as I found Mr. Dombrowski to be far more intriguing. The man allowed himself to be turned into an android after death, making the already strained relationship between boss and employee a wee bit snugger, bringing to attention issues of metal over man. It’s excellent science fiction—smart, demanding, and unnerving, all without any choreographed bullet time photography.

A story of apocalypses, “How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth” by Rachel Swirsky starts by genetically and systematically ridding the Earth of humans. In a treaty conjured up by the trees, mankind promises to interbreed with animals for a chance at peace. It is not long before the crab people are fighting the seal people, the jaguar people fighting the boar people, the alligator people fighting the mosquito people, and so on. The Earth has had enough, decreeing a new apocalypse, this one of darkness. But not all creatures fade to black…

If there’s a single story in this issue of Electric Velocipede that I’d love to see—or dare say, predict would be—reprinted in a year’s best, “How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth” is it. Swirsky crafts a marvelous world, strikingly horrific while at the same time more fantastic and inventive than anything I’ve read in some time now save for Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. As the title suggests, we’re given a myth here, a post-human one at that, and it could be said in simple words that a myth is merely a folkloristic story about the origins of a world and its inhabitants. In that sense, Swirsky succeeds with flying marks. Yet there’s more here, layered like fine cake, rich with little details and quiet observations that give the tale its voice. Read this before the next apocalypse hits.

“The Dogrog Phenomenon” by Richard Howard explores the pop culture explosion that is domestic dogs playing caustic rock-n-roll music. It all started when Nigel Thomas, the head of R&D at Gibson USA, wanted to teach the Labrador he’d bought for his son’s birthday how to play a song on the guitar. He designed equipment to aid in this endeavor. Three years later, after kids worldwide had learned how to properly teach their dogs how to rock out, the dogs-only band, Neuter, gained a cult following, marking the mutts for stardom. That is, until one televised show went terribly wrong, causing the dogs in Neuter to overly stimulate themselves and, well, act like dogs.

This is a silly premise handled passionately, and despite all the puns, it’s a great read. The line between parody and admiration is thin; remember the synth-pop of the ’80s, the grunge phase in the early ’90s, the boy bands and pop princesses that emerged just after Y2K? Is it farfetched (my apologies) to doubt the power of animal music? To me, Dogrog fits perfectly where Howard placed them, in the time of the Sex Pistols and Cream, a time when revolution was a gunshot away, and the new and exciting forms of music were not shunned, but rather embraced. Howard proves here that you can teach an old dog a new trick…just don’t expect it to disregard its very nature.