Interzone 244

Artwork by Jim Burns

The first Interzone of 2013 will be here soon. Inside it you will find fiction from Jim Hawkins, Guy Haley, Helen Jackson, Lavie Tidhar, Tracie Welser and George Zebrowski, the regular nonfiction columns from David Langford, Tony Lee and Nick Lowe, and artwork from Warwick Fraser-Coombe, Richard Wagner, Martin Hanford and Jim Burns. Jim will also be providing all of this year’s covers. Follow the above link for more information and samples.

Any regular visitors to this blog will have noticed that there didn’t appear to be much going on in December. This was because I was literally flat on my back my back with a seasonal plague. Andy Cox had to step in and finish editing the Book Zone for me, for which I am profoundly grateful and not a little embarrassed.

This issue’s Book Zone features reviews of the following titles:

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed (reviewed and author interviewed by Ian Sales)

Nexus by Ramez Naam (reviewed by Matthew S. Dent)

Bedlam by Christopher Brookmyre (reviewed by Paul F. Cockburn)

Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution edited by Ann VanderMeer (reviewed by Simon Marshall Jones)

Taken by Benedict Jacka (reviewed by Juliet E. McKenna)

Origin by J. T. Brannan (reviewed by Ian Hunter)

Helix Wars by Eric Brown (reviewed by Lawrence Osborn)

In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood (reviewed by Barbara Melville)

The Corpse-Rat King by Lee Battersby (reviewed by Maureen Kincaid Speller)

The Creative Fire by Brenda Cooper (reviewed by me)

Jagannath by Karin Tidbeck (reviewed and author interviewed by Stephen Theaker)

It’s a particularly fine-looking issue even if I do say so myself. Hopefully I’ll have stopped coughing like a Romantic poet by the time it arrives.

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Locus 612

The January Locus sees Gardner Dozois reviewing no less than  three issues of Interzone.

“The strongest story in the July-August Interzone#235 is Mercurio D. Rivera’s For Love’s Delirium Haunts the Fractured Mind, another in the series that Rivera has been writing about the Wergen, aliens who have become obsessed with the ‘‘beauty’’ of humans […]The only thing I didn’t like about the story was that the first-person narrator dies at the end of the story […] Matthew Cook’s Insha’Allah [contains] some nice characterization, but could have been set in modern-day Iraq or Afghanistan with almost no changes necessary.  Al Robertson’ s Of Dawn is a moody and evocative fantasy about a grieving woman who encounters a Pan-like mythic figure in the remote English backcountry. […]

“Another Wergen story by Rivera, Tethered,  features in the September/October Interzone, #236. This one examines the peculiar mating dynamics of the Wergen through the lens of a friendship between a young Wergen girl and a young human girl, a friendship doomed when the Wergen girl comes of age, and it manages to generate a strong emotional charge by the end. Jason Sanford’s The Ever-Dreaming Verdict of Plagues is another of his ‘‘plague birds’’ stories, set in a strange post-apocalyptic world; entertaining, but the backstory may be getting a little hard to follow by now for those unfamiliar with the earlier stories. […] Stephen Kotowych’s A Time For Raven is a well-crafted near-fantasy with an almost subliminal fantasy element.

“The November/December Interzone, #237, is a strong issue after a couple of relatively weak ones. The best story here, and one of the strongest stories Interzone has published all year, is Digital Rites by Jim Hawkins, another story like All About Emily and Real Artists, about how human creativity is being supplanted, or at least intensively and intrusively ‘‘supplemented,’’ by artificial means, in this case a massive computer system that allows filmmakers to more or less experience a performance through the eyes of the actors, and subjectively control it. This is a vividly written and strongly characterized story, with a tense murder/espionage plot running through it: highly entertaining. I’d like to believe in the hopeful conclusion about human nature and the viewing audience that Hawkins comes to at the end, but, alas, I’m not sure that I do. Lavie Tidhar’s The Last Osama is also vividly written,  almost lurid, in fact, but somehow Tidhar is skilled enough to make the story work, although it takes us on a melodramatic journey into the Heart of Darkness through a world mystically transformed by the death of Osama Bin Laden into something like a weird Spaghetti Western. This is much too surreal to be considered legitimate science fiction, but, whatever it is, it’s a lot of fun, and will stick with you after you turn the last page.”

 

 

 

 

Interzone 237

Artwork By Richard Wagner

Interzone 237 will be published later this month and contains fiction from Lavie Tidhar, Jim Hawkins, Douglas Lain and Caspian Gray. Richard Wagner, Steve Hambidge and David Gentry provide the artwork while David Langford, Nick Lowe and Tony Lee cover the non-fiction.

 

In this issue’s Bookzone there are reviews of:

 

Johannes Cabel: The Fear Institute by Jonathan L. Howard (reviewed by Sandy Auden)

Dead Water by Simon Ings (reviewed by Paul F. Cockburn)

Final Days by Gary Gibson (reviewed by Peter Loftus)

The Silver Wind by Nina Allan (reviewed by Paul Kincaid)

Naked City edited by Ellen Datlow (reviewed by Lawrence Osborn)

Reamde by Neal Stephenson (reviewed by Paul Graham Raven)

Debris by Jo Anderton (reviewed by Ian Sales)

Roil by Trent Jaimeson (reviewed by Maureen Kincaid Speller)

Echo City by Tim Lebbon (reviewed by Ian Hunter)

Wither by Lauren DeStefano (reviewed by Jack Deighton)

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (reviewed by Peter Tennant)

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 28th Annual Collection

Gardner Dozois’ magisterial annual anthology, published as The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24 in the UK, reprints the following stories:

Flying in the Face of God by Nina Allan (Interzone 227)

Again and Again and Again by Rachel Swirsky (Interzone 226)

The Shipmaker by Aliette de Bodard (Interzone 231)

Chimbwi by Jim Hawkins (Interzone 227)

The Honourable Mentions section for 2010 lists:

The Upstairs Window by Nina Allan (Interzone 230)

The Shoe Factory by Matthew Cook (Interzone 231)

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark by Jim Hawkins (Interzone 229)

The History of Poly-V by Jon Ingold (Interzone 227)

Over Water by John Ingold (Interzone 228)

Hibakusha by Tyler Keevil (Interzone 226)

Human Error by Jay Lake (Interzone 226)

Love and War by Tim Lees (Interzone 230)

Dance of the Kawkawroons by Mercurio D. Rivera (Interzone 227)

In the Harsh Glow of its Incandescent Beauty by Mercurio D. Rivera (Interzone 226)

Camelot by Patrick Samphire (Interzone 230)

Memoria by Jason Sanford (Interzone 231)

Plague Birds by Jason Sanford (Interzone 228)

The Insurance Agent by Lavie Tidhar (Interzone 230)

Iron Monk by Melissa Yuan-Innes (Interzone 228)

I hope I haven’t missed anyone out.

As well as praising Interzone in his year’s summation, Dozois also says that Music For Another World was one of several interesting small-press anthologies that came out in 2010.

The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year 5

Jonathan Strahan praises Asimov’s, F&SF and Interzone in the introduction to his anthology and says “Interzone also had a good year, producing two excellent stories by Jim Hawkins […] There were many other print magazines published but these were the ones that struck me as the best.”

Locus 601

In February’s Locus, Rich Horton reviews Interzone 231 and says that “Sanford (and some other writers) are producing SF that truly has a different feel to much that has gone before”. He also says that Matthew Cook’s The Shoe Factory “[…]is strikingly resolved”.

Elsewhere there is a summary of 2010, and Jim Hawkins’ two Interzone stories are listed in the novelette’s section of the Locus recommended reading list for 2010.

Gardner Dozois, in his personal review of 2010, says Interzone had a strong year “[…]with good stories by Nina Allan, Lavie Tidhar, Jim Hawkins, Aliette de Bodard, and others.”

Rich Horton says that “TTA Press’s Interzone and Black Static continued in solid shape: each put out six fine issues.”

Locus guesses Interzone‘s circulation at 2000-3000 and also notes that Vector‘s circulation increased last year to over 600.

Locus 598

Gardner Dozois reviews Interzone 229 in the November Locus and says that Jim Hawkins’s Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark Matter is the strongest story. “This is a complex and chewy story, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some readers had trouble parsing it, particularily in the early going […] Stick with it, though, and you’ll ultimately be rewarded.” He also says that the rest of the stories “include some worthwhile reading”. Gardner also reviews Interzone 230 (which he feels is stronger than the previous issue) and says the strongest story “is Lavie Tidhar’s The Insurance Agent, a writer who’s having a good year so far, with several excellent stories published.” He also says that Nina Allan’s The Upstairs Window and Tim Lees’s Love and War are both “good”, and Patrick Samphire’s Camelot is “elegantly crafted”.

Rich Horton also reviews Interzone 230 in the same issue and makes The Upstairs Window one of his Recommended Stories.

Locus 594

Gardner Dozois reviews Interzone 227 in the July Locus: “The best story in Interzone 227 is Chimbi, by ‘new writer’  Jim Hawkins […] This is clearly one of the best stories of the year to date. Also first-rate is Flying in the Face of God by Nina Allan.” He also goes on to say that Mercurio D. Rivera’s Dance of the Kawkaroons is “Clever […] Entertaining and enjoyable” and lists Chimbi as one of his Recommended Stories.

Rich Horton also reviews Interzone 227: “The March-April Interzone is a very good outing. The best piece comes from a new writer: Jon Ingold’s The History of Poly-V […] Quite an impressive near debut. I also quite liked Mercurio D. Rivera’s Dance of the Kawkaroons.” He lists The History of Poly-V as one of his Recommended Stories.

The results of the annual Locus readers’ poll are published in the same issue. Bruce Sterling’s Black Swan (Interzone 221) is #30 in the Best Novelette catagory, Andy Cox is #25 in the Best Editor catagory, and Interzone is #9 and Ansible is #15 in the Best Magazine catagory.

Interzone 227

Artwork by Warwick Fraser-Coombe

Can you tell what it is yet? The second of Warwick Fraser-Coombe’s six linked covers is another astonishingly striking piece that works equally well as an individual work of art. But then, I’m biased.  The interior’s pretty – um – pretty as well, with full-colour artwork from Robert Dunn, Jim Burns, Ben Baldwin and Dave Senecal. Chris Beckett contributes a guest editorial as well as a short story, and John Ingold, Mercurio D. Rivera, Jim Hawkins, Nina Allan and Steve Rasnic Tem provide the rest of this issue’s fiction. Regulars David Langford, Tony Lee and Nick Lowe contribute their usual high-quality non-fiction.

This month’s Bookzone has:

Paul F. Cockburn interviewing Connie Willis and reviewing her latest novel, Blackout.

Terminal World by Alistair Reynolds (reviewed by Maureen Kincaid Speller)

Geosynchron by David Louis Edelman (reviewed by Paul Kincaid)

Naamah’s Kiss by Jacqueline Carey (reviewed by Lawrence Osborn)

The Poison Throne by Celine Kiernan (reviewed by Ian Sales)

Tome of the Undergates by Sam Sykes (reviewed by Mike Cobley)

WE by John Dickinson (reviewed by Duncan Lunan)

Hyddenworld: Spring by William Horwood (reviewed by Iain Emsley)

Under in the Mere by Catherynne M. Valente (reviewed by Andrew J. Wilson)

A new distribution deal means that, from this issue onwards, Interzone is available in the USA, Germany, Greece, Cyprus, Hong Kong, Austria, Norway, Croatia, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Or you can always buy it here.