Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show, October 2007

Reading Steven Savile has always been a pleasure, and “Night of Falling Stars,” the first story in issue #6 of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, is no exception. With lines like “the red sky bleeding to death for another day” Savile wraps not just the story around the reader, but the language itself. Jayant Ash finds his moment of peace, a rare event in the life of a soldier, shattered by the return of a long lost citadel, like the rising of Atlantis. But wise men and glowing crystals aren’t to be found inside the citadel’s damaged walls. Instead, Ash realizes, as he ventures too close to the precariously standing stone, the building is a tomb, a prison for something that has ventured beyond humanity. Despite the aid Ash seeks, first from his swordbrothers and then from a raveller, a wizard reminiscent of a less campy Jafar, the Grand Vizier, Ash’s fate seems to be to free the beast within the tomb. Absoluteness is a tool here, used as a world rule. Absolutely, Ash is not strong enough to fight the commands of the thing buried in the citadel, but on that same certainty is built another absolute that gives the story an almost hopeful end. Despite the small textual errors, this story is a rich, strong piece—what one expects from Savile’s style.

“How Peacefully the Desert Sleeps” by Brad Beaulieu is about as deceptive as its title. What starts as a story about Kallie, a white woman dying of consumption on a quest into the desert for an elusive cure-all, begins to hint at something deeper under the story, like the occupants of the caverns under the desert. The tribe she comes to in order to beg for a cure is hiding something, something in the way they show intense curiosity at the feelings of the white woman in their midst, something in the way they seem to barely keep control of the dejda, the poisonous insects the Ohokwa are famous for being bonded to. The Ohokwa are suspicious of Kallie, as it seems that the dejda queen has chosen the stranger to bond with. The Ohokwa are right to be suspicious, but it’s not Kallie, her disease, or her bond with the dejda queen that they should be fearful of. Their true enemy lays waiting beneath the desert as it has for eons, and it’s finally breaking free of those who enslave it. A rare western fantasy tale, “How Peacefully the Desert Sleeps” steps outside of the greedy white man versus the noble natives cliché, revealing all involved to be merely human after all.

“Great Mother, Great Father” by William Saxton is likely to be a familiar tale to American readers. The SF aspects of Jewish time-travelers and South Americans, reminiscent of the Aztec and Mayans, ruling the world takes only a partly established second place to the story of Tzichem, a Southport (known as New Orleans to us) cop struggling to survive after a devastating hurricane destroyed the city. So much is shoved into this story—the SF aspect, the racism, and the concepts of wrong and right in religion, to name only a portion—and in a short space, that it leaves the story feeling like it’s lacking a singular focus. Early on, Tzichem’s wife and son-daughter-then-son-again are killed in the violence of the city, but the reader is given no time to understand why they should be mourned, other than their humanity. Explanations of the world within the confines of the story are only glanced upon, leaving much unexplained. Despite that, the natives of South America were responsible for incredible advances in math and science; here, they are just cruelty-crazed elitists. While the dark streak in this story is strong, it’s also blatant. Almost as soon as the story begins, Tzichem himself shows the ending before the story continues in a pseudo-moral back and forth and finally comes to a close. Too much put into too little is the major problem here, followed by a rather predictable ending.

“In the Beginning, Nothing Lasts” by Mike Strahan might put off more than a few readers with its surreal, baffling feel. But as the story progresses, telling of Irene—a woman of the late 1930s who is waiting for the day when her son will return to her—confusion turns to poignant understanding. The implication is that the biblical Resurrection has happened, and the translation of “All sins will be forgiven” is more like “All sins will be undone as people live their lives in reverse.” Irene begs her husband to approve of their son’s resurrection rather than to condemn him to suffocate in his grave. The child died at three and therefore would only have three years, in reverse, to live. But Irene’s husband has more reasons than a short life to try to discourage her from reclaiming her son. In such a surreal, haunting world, the true horror isn’t what people have done, but in the inevitability of their sins and successes, their memories, and their very selves being slowly undone. This one is worth a tenacious read.

“The Towering Monarch of His Mighty Race” by Cat Rambo isn’t traditional fantasy, but it does hold a touch of magic. This story is the historical tale about Jumbo, P.T. Barnum’s famous giant elephant, now lost to the annals of history. But in his day, Jumbo certainly was a piece of living magic. It captures the soul of both the gentle giant and the people who touched his life (as he certainly touched theirs in return) and adds to it the machinations of a patron goddess of elephants. There’s a chopped up feel to the story as it’s dealt out in small portions not always on a linear time line. It’s an interesting piece of the past for those who like glimpses at not just other worlds, but our own. It certainly reflects the magazine’s heart itself as one might find such a story being told in otherworldly sideshows before awed children of any race.

“A Spear Through the Heart” by Cherith Baldry, the final story in this issue of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, is an Inquisition tale, and much like its predecessor, tells the story in flashbacks between snippets of the current moment. Crispin is a starving artist who happens upon Dr. Standford, a scholar and alchemist. Dr. Standford commissions Crispin to paint a new piece for the university chapel. In the process, Crispin becomes caught up, almost as badly as Dr. Standford himself, in the horrors of the Inquisition. Chance alone cannot save Dr. Stanford, though luck does seem to be on his side, and Crispin himself does nothing to help his patron, other than painting the likenesses of the players into certain roles in his painting of the Final Judgment. Crispin’s helplessness leaks out to the reader as the story ends, but doesn’t quite resolve.