Postscripts #13, Winter 2007

The Winter 2007 issue of Postscripts opens with “The Twilight Express” by Christopher Fowler, a sad tale about Billy, a small town boy who wants to escape his small town for something bigger and better, if only he hadn’t gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He doesn’t want her hurt, but he does scheme his way into a job at a carnival, planning to arrange an accident which will free Susannah of his baby and him of his obligations. Instead, he enters a kind of dream realm and gets a vision of his future child. However, the emotional switch from a boy willing to set up his girl and kill a baby to mourning for the baby doesn’t ring as true to the readers as it does to Billy. Perhaps if there had been more to this, if the climax and the section after a time jump hadn’t been weak in relation to the thorough establishing of character and set up in the opening, it would have been more compelling.

Leaving the reader feeling sympathetically drunk, “Drunk Bay” by Marly Youmans is the dreamy tale of Tamarind, a young woman visiting the Virgin Islands, where she was conceived, with her parents and brother—who never really become part of the narrative. She wanders the island in a sort of running description of paradise until she encounters a man that she supposedly finds attractive, but who both she and the reader immediately recognize as trouble. It’s hard to feel sympathetic as events progress and things go wrong, having spent quite some time seeing Tamarind lulled by the exotic influences of St. Martin’s into ignoring her instincts. The writing is lovely, but of the mist-filled variety that can be hard to follow, and, as is not uncommon with this writing style, the dreaminess overpowers the plot—as descriptions of action are buried in descriptions of settings—and results in the reader wondering what exactly happened.

Reading more like a magazine or newspaper article than a story, “Mary of the New Dispensation” by F. Brett Cox is a strange tale of science and mysticism that keeps one at arm’s length, never really drumming up any connection with the many characters. That’s not to say it isnt interesting, though readers might have a problem following the bizarre story logic—even if they are aware of Fortean theories. In a group of people with a small, unusual fellowship—who speak to spirits and build machines in an effort to better the world—Mrs. Newton has been chosen to be the new Mary, though what she gives birth to is not human.

If the science here were more familiar, or solid, and less like the ravings of a cult leader, perhaps “Mary of the New Dispensation” would be easier to follow. It does come together to a more traditional ending, but to readers not already familiar with this unusual blend of science and spiritualism, this one might be hard to grasp.

“A Cup of Tea” by Quentin S. Crisp is presented as a letter, but the format doesn’t preclude the prose from being charming. It describes a man riding a bus to a Job Centre and applying for unemployment benefits. Along the way, he rambles on, likening his life to walking an invisible tightrope, clinging desperately to a trail of paper for balance. He also waxes on to the letter’s intended audience, a woman he separated from some time before. The bus ride, a short interview, and much musings upon past events and the nature of the world are the extent of the plot and action, which may leave readers wondering whether they missed something.

“The End of the Great Continuity” by Paul Di Filippo is chilling, although somewhat passive—much of it being an explanation of how the fictional world works. But it does a fantastic job of reflecting upon some of the concerns in our world, tying it directly to the reader in many small ways. The story centers on Margali Gueths, though she’s not the point of view character. The laws of the city she lives in, while designed to bring peace and harmony, also hold each person to a Template, almost as if the rulers keep a character sheet on each person and arrange the city around them to keep them “in character.” Margali has suffered a long and horrid marriage and spent years studying her husband’s fur business, only to be told after his death that she doesn’t have the proper character to run a business. She confronts Jallow Yphantidies, the Grand Consistor, in an effort to convince him not to take her husband’s business from her and render all the years she devoted to it wasted. But Yphantidies is one of the strictest followers of the Great Continuity and instead of aiding her, he takes insidious measures to ensure she fails. But subconsciously ignored irritations grate the hardest when pointed out, and Yphantidies is subtly changed by his short time with Margali. “The End of the Great Continuity” feels alien but also too familiar, built on a world where a person’s worth isn’t just determined by their actions, or public opinion of them, but on their own acceptance and application of labels and restrictions. Creepy in a classic, sociopolitical way, like the early greats of science fiction, this story is the one to get this issue for.

Starting with the main character dead draws immediate interest to Richard Park’s “Directional Drift,” a tale of an AI infused spaceship that has stored the captain, Michael Danning, in electronic form. The ghostly, digital Michael is not a good man. While Park says in the story’s introduction that this is a second story with the same characters, the casual reveal of what occurred in the first adds to the build, without making the readers who haven’t read the first feel that they’ve missed something. Michael is responsible for the deaths of his crew, even his own death, due to selfishness and by sabotage, all over a woman. After the digital ghosts of the fallen crew took over the AI and tortured Michael for his deeds, the AI finds a reason to delete them and begins to address Michael. What the AI has in store for him is far worse than what the crewmembers could do. “Directional Drift” evokes the isolation and chill of space, making it an excellent follow-up to “The End of the Great Continuity.”

A twisted biblical tale, “Snakeskin” by Robert T. Jeschonek starts irresistibly with:

“The Tree of Knowledge didn’t exactly teach us everything we needed to know . . . like what to do with a dead man’s body.”

Jeschonek turns the first murder into the first murder mystery, spiced with humor, sadness, and a touch of paradise. Like any good murder mystery, things aren’t quite what they seem, and there are actions and motivations beneath the surface ones. A different take on a story even the nonreligious should be familiar with, this is both compassionate and a little bit heretical, a fine combination.

“Natural Selection” by J.F. Peterson meshes the first trio of stories in this issue with the second in a science fiction-laced tale of alternate worlds and theory. Helen and her team of robots break into a lab where a man and her former acquaintance, Sister Rachel, are seeking to heal the tear between religion and science by erasing Charles Darwin—not just from their timeline, but from all times. There is deeper meaning to be gleaned here, with a vague ending that leaves much to the reader’s interpretation. Using snippets from alternate timelines interspersed with the speculative present serves to evoke an etherealness, or possibly confusion, making it likely that “Natural Selection” will resonate with some and frustrate others, who may find it vague and the ending to be a letdown.

Wrapping up this issue of Postscripts is “The Island of the Pirate Gods” by Hal Duncan, a piratical tale of man love, treachery, and fairies. Unfortunately, continual point of view jumps leave the reader dizzy and unsure of which side of a love quadrangle they’re on. Black Joey and Flash Jack are bitter enemies and pirates, one hunting the other for selling him into slavery and the other the chosen of the pirate gods, Matelotage and Mutiny—whose history is also explained. They shipwreck on the shores of an island of sprites who seem to think they are Matelotage and Mutiny, famed male pirate lovers. The sprites mistakenly stage a fight that Fate’s been waiting for, one that the world may never recover from. Both intriguing and frustrating, “The Island of the Pirate Gods” matches the overall feel of this issue.