Strange Horizons, October 2007

Strange Horizons brought five stories in October, 2007. The opening one, “Catherine and the Satyr” by Theodora Goss, is a tragedy about being trapped. The titular woman—the wife of Byron—is trapped in a marriage with a man who has become distracted by other women. There are ways for her to find a kind of freedom; she thinks she sees one in the Satyr, but it does not give her the answer she wants.

Goss paints her history with a veneer of the fabulous and ridiculous, most explicitly in the Satyr of the Earl of Aberdeen’s menagerie, but also in the way that the ordinary is touched with the surreal—Peter Kemble’s Shakespearean exclamations and Miss Montrose’s demand for decently priced stockings seem a step removed from normality. Says the Earl:

“Looks a bit mangy now … Did you feed him those lamb shanks I gave you, eh, boy? … Get the zebra some water. If Georgie were interested, I’d give him one of my gazelles. But all Georgie cares about is politics. What kind of life is that, for a son of mine? What I want, of course, is an elephant. Not even King Louis, damn the French, has an elephant.”

Contrasted against this foolery is what happens to Catherine. The cheery quality shows Catherine’s tragedy far more so than a story where the tone is entirely dismal; it invites the reader to brush aside the unpleasantness and laugh at Miss Montrose’s final request for stockings, and in doing so illustrates how Catherine’s situation will be brushed aside in favour of another joke about the menagerie. Goss manages this, and the evocation of Catherine as a lonely, lost young woman, in her usual poetic prose. Highly recommended.

“The Master” by Lavie Tidhar is a story of age and recollection. Shaul Canaan, a well-loved author of the children’s books he wrote over many decades, particularly his Young Riders series, is growing old and melancholy. His wife died of cancer, and the audience for his books has changed beyond his ability to understand; he has not written in several years. In nested recollections, Shaul thinks back to his best years and also to the years when the world around him was already beginning to change, inspiring a new generation of Young Riders. Spurring on these thoughts is an upcoming convention of Young Rider fans, adults now, which he is not sure he should attend.

Tidhar manages a long-sentenced, contemplative style that effectively conveys the thoughts of his character without meandering into incomprehension; and it is in these contemplations that the meat of the story lies. It is a sad reflection of Shaul’s state that his actions in the present are almost entirely glossed over in favour of the past. Like the Goss story, this does not offer a happy ending; it is also a very good story.

The only science fiction story of the month is “Making Payments” by Jason Stoddard. In this version of the future, people live in the Beautiful Economy and are concerned about their Extrapolated Lifetime Value. West Danvers works with numbers and is aiming high—with a little help from the Life Improvement analysis paid for with his hotcard, which takes either money or days of his life.

I tend to find dystopic futures fundamentally indistinguishable, and at first, Stoddard’s story seemed to offer nothing new. The regular people are slaves to the corporations, socially programmed to think always of a far-off great goal rather than the present. The presence of Starbucks and their genetically modified employees (tweaked to require no sleep and always appear cheerful) felt overly trite. By the end, though, the realisation that West comes to and his willingness to act, despite the costs of doing so, helped to redeem “Making Payments” for me. Being about personal aims, rather than an attempt at the overdone “man/woman tries to overthrow totalitarian government” plotline, made it stand a little above the majority of dystopic fiction I have encountered.

Next up is “One Paper Airplane Graffito Love Note” by Will McIntosh. It opens with a striking scene: a man following a paper airplane to find his former partner’s last confession written on it, and in the field where it lands, he also finds windows covered with drafts of confessions. Anna began these graffito confessions to stop the stories of her life from appearing in films and books and songs; she has been writing them to Samuel since their relationship ended. After her last one, Samuel is again allowed to see into her life.

It is a love story, and a beautiful one. Anna is a fascinating character—her life does not seem real, but she is so vividly, brilliantly there on the page that it is impossible not to think that she must exist somewhere. I understand why Samuel fell in love with her. I also understand why she fell in love with him; he accepts her, peculiarities and all. And though Anna is the more powerful character, Samuel holds up adequately as narrator to carry the story. Love is a difficult condition to write about, but McIntosh handles it with a skill that makes me want to read more of his fiction. Highly recommended.

In the final story of the month, “Teinds,” Sonya Taaffe evokes the sacrifices and prices of being in a relationship with a woman who lost her previous partner, father of her child, to a fire. Such experiences are not shed easily, and the burden is carried by more than the victim:

“Your shirt unbuttoned and discarded on a chair, your jeans bundled under the table, stripped in a fury and two candy-striped socks away from nakedness, and as I knelt in the shadows and bare-bulb kitchen glare I thought for a second that all your scars were looking at me. It hurt so much. It hurt…. In the bed that was not yet ours, I lay awake until dawn, for once holding you.”

As with all of Taaffe’s writing, the prose of “Teinds” does not offer all of itself to a single, direct examination. But look at it slantwise, read it again, and Taaffe’s skill at placing layer upon layer into a short number of words becomes apparent. Read it another time, and perhaps you will see something that no one else has. Such is the wealth that Taaffe offers. Recommended.

With four out of five stories that I really enjoyed, October was a particularly good month for Strange Horizons. If you haven’t read these already, they’re worth taking some time to enjoy.