Interzone, #215, April 2008

As befits a springtime issue, Interzone #215 offers six stories of transition, death, and new life (of one sort or another).

In “The Endling,” Jamie Barras introduces a host of interesting characters in a complex situation of interlocking fates. Wright is the last member of a human space colony taken captive by the Melzemi, aliens who experimented on the humans and killed them off. Wright himself died, but the Melzemi have repeatedly “re-grown” him in hopes of luring and destroying the mysterious Elena Andalian who, with the help of the primitive Far-Beyonders, is seeking the far-flung remnants of the human race. Meanwhile, Asha, victim of a Melzemi disease and living bodiless within the mind of her “neo-nous” ship, takes readings that lead her to believe she has found the cradle of the “mesominds,” knowledge that could buy her freedom.

It is clear in reading this piece that Barras has built a rich and complicated world, populated by races with their own unique histories and interrelationships. However, the swatches of this intricate tapestry presented in “The Endling” left me feeling a bit confused and out of the loop—as if there is more background information I would need to fully appreciate this story. I am not familiar with Barras’s work, so there may indeed be more material available to readers concerning this world. However, reading “The Endling” on its own feels like trying to put together a puzzle without the picture on the box, until the last page or so, where a rather forced conversation between Wright and Elena ties everything up with a nice bow. It seems that these characters and their complex world deserve more space—to truly live and breathe—than a short story can provide.

“Dragonfly Summer” by Patrick Samphire is the tale of an uneasy reunion of former college friends. Paul, a hard-drinking cynic, agrees to meet his old friend, Howie, out of curiosity more than anything else, and finds himself also in the company of the two women with whom they spent a fateful summer twenty years before. Their memories remain, but it seems the place where they made them doesn’t exist, and never did. This is a moody tale of regret and wasted potential, affectingly told and thought provoking.

In Greg Egan’s “Crystal Nights,” wealthy tech entrepreneur Daniel Cliff has a vision. He wants to create true AI, functioning at a human level, through a carefully controlled evolutionary process. Because Daniel has the money and the will, he does succeed with his project, but the end result is not what he expected.

“Crystal Nights” is an interesting take on the themes first explored by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein. Unlike most stories of manmade intelligence, Egan focuses not on the plight of the creatures or the effect on society of their existence, but on the motivations of their creator and on how the creatures and their actions affect him. Although Daniel is not the most sympathetic of characters, his dreams and his flaws are quite recognizable, and therefore compelling.

In “Holding Pattern” by Joy Marchand, there’s a sweaty alien in seat 1A who says the plane is going to crash after its twentieth pass over LAX, but flight attendant Nanette is determined to make the best of the situation, no matter what. This is an intriguing, engaging tale, by turns humorous and poignant. Marchand keeps the reader guessing until the end, and beyond.

Twenty-four-year-old Kilo considers becoming a “Street Hero” in Will McIntosh’s vision of a declining near-future America. The young man spends his days roaming the streets with friends, posturing and trying to intimidate interlopers with martial arts moves and hauling dirt to the roof of his apartment building for his family’s garden. After watching the brutal street execution of his former eighth grade teacher, he decides to follow the advice the man gave him years ago and get back to reading. Armed with a little new knowledge and some comic book images, he makes a disastrous attempt at being a superhero, but then finds another calling among a group of apparently aimless wanderers.

Through Kilo’s authentic voice, McIntosh enables the reader to empathize with the struggles of living through the slow and painful crumbling of a society and of finding one’s place on the other side.

“The Imitation Game” by Rudy Rucker is the story of what might have happened to Alan Turing, a member of the British cryptology team that broke the Enigma code in World War II, who was subsequently disgraced and removed from the team in a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain. Having lost his position, Rucker’s Turing is currently conducting experiments in computational morphogenesis, during which he recently has been able to grow a fully-formed ear. He’s taking a break from his work to embark on a carefully planned surreptitious holiday with his Greek lover. However, the holiday is cut tragically short, and it looks like Turing’s work will provide a solution he never anticipated.

“The Imitation Game” is a clever tale that brings many known elements of Turing’s life seamlessly together to explore an unexpected and fascinating science fictional possibility.

[Disclosure notice: The Fix is brought to you by TTA Press, publisher of Interzone.]