Strange Horizons, December 2007

In 2007’s December Strange Horizons offerings, N.K. Jemisin’s “The You Train” tells the story of a woman seeking to escape her modern life. Overwhelmed by the frustrations of work and people, she begins to notice strange behavior in the trains of the New York subway system. Retired trains and, sometimes, trains that have never existed start passing her as she sits on the platform, until she is at last compelled to take one.

“The You Train” has elements that resonate with almost every person in the industrialized world: the frustrations of working in a corporation of rah-rah-do-nothing nitwits, of dating and mating, and of modern isolation. However, it is told as one side of a series of phone calls, reminding the reader of another frustration of the industrialized world. Furthermore, Jemisin’s story stops when the protagonist reaches the point of stepping on the train, but the conflict is all internal and all passive. Everyone gets fed up with the world, but what do you do about it? That’s what’s missing here.

Jemisin does a very good job of capturing the character’s voice; it’s easy to get a clear vision of our unnamed protagonist. Due to the lack of external conflict, a reader’s enjoyment of “The You Train” is going to fall entirely on how well they like her. This reader, for one, didn’t. So while I can relate to the story, in the end, I can’t say I enjoyed it.

Dennis Danvers’s “R³” is a genetically engineered flying reindeer. R³, who goes by “Rudy,” leads a team of flying reindeer, part of the R³ and the Christmas All-Stars traveling show. Sponsored by a large corporation, they fly from town to town, pulling a sleigh with Santa, and meeting up with the rest of the cast at each stop.

Touring an additional town for the first time—the hometown of their corporate sponsor’s headquarters—Rudy’s night doesn’t get off to a rip roaring start. One of his team, Donner, has her weekly nervous breakdown as they’re getting ready to go to their next performance. And just as Rudy gets his team straightened out, he’s informed that their schedule has been changed and one of their shows canceled. Of course, it’s in the poor section of town, and there’s a riot breaking out, so the corporation can’t risk their investment. However, the corporation’s president is trapped at the canceled venue. And the helicopter sent to get him was shot down by rioters. So who else can they call on? The president is always going to be more important that a bunch of freaks.

“R³” is a decidedly dystopian Christmas story—dystopian on a Neuromancer level and in many of the same ways. The world is owned by corporate masters, and the downtrodden can only fight so effectively for what’s theirs. The comeuppance element here is an oft-desired twist on the dystopian trope, though it works primarily because of the the lack of a spiritual component to Danvers’s vision of the modern Christmas. Though the story isn’t particularly religious, a spiritual element manifests in some of the reindeer, in Santa, and in the whole society. The flying reindeer provide a “magical” catalyst for charge, even if that magic is attained through questionable science.

Danvers uses apt, if sometimes a bit clichéd, characterization to carry his story—Rudy’s agony at his past choices, balanced with the saving grace of his current state. If the antagonists are a little heavy, it can be forgiven. In the end, all we really care about is that reindeer really do know how to fly.