Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August 2019

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Rating: 4/5 Stars

An above average issue, containing a tale connecting past and present by G.V. Anderson and light fantasy tales by Andrej Kokoulin (translated by Alex Shvartsman) and Molly Gloss. Cassandra Khaw and Alex Irvine start and end the issue, respectively, with tales related to the cover.

• “Mighty Are the Meek and the Myriad” by Cassandra Khaw: in a future England where robots do the manual labour, a plot to provoke war with the US is uncovered. Being provided with a purpose would be proven to be a reason for the war, plus dogs.
• “Girls Who Never Stood a Chance” by Deborah Coates: when an unusual fantasy event occurs, a region of the country is evacuated. But left behind are some girls that the men in the town look down on. But in the end, it would be the girls who would turn out to be the survivors. The fantasy element of the story, however, acts as a ‘MacGuffin’ and is somewhat peripheral to the story. -“Lacuna Heights” by Theodore McCombs: in a future where an implant can keep private memories private, even from the user when not in ‘privacy mode’, a lawyer representing the company making the implants fights a case in court against the government getting access to the memories. But the lawyer himself is finding ‘gaps’ in his own memory of events, due to his own usage of the private mode. Getting to the bottom of it would reveal a different side to the lawyer, and a hint of how the future would look in a time of a climate crisis, and how different people cope with it.
• “A Strange Uncertain Light” by G.V. Anderson: a fascinating story that starts with a newly married woman with the gift of seeing ghosts, but becomes more interesting when another viewpoint character is added with a strange connection to the woman. This leads to a race to discredit a horrible doctor from the past. Yet another character will link both the past and the present, leading to a nice closure to the tale.
• “Nice For What” by Dominica Phetteplace: a brief story about an internet ‘social influencer’ who discovers she has cancer and tries to use her fame to maintain her cancer treatment. But when the deal falls through, she has to come up with another plan.
• “The Legacy” by Albert E. Cowdrey: a story of a lawyer handing over the estate of a house to its heir. But the house, situated near a forest, gives off strange vibes to the lawyer, and he learns of a mystery over some missing persons related to the house. Later on, he learns of a mysterious mute person invited to live at the house by the heir and visits a previously locked room which, on closer examination, seems to imply that that its previous owner was a very long-lived person. Then, an act of violence at the house would reveal the truth about the mute person and of the mysterious owner.
• “The Slave” by Andrej Kokoulin, translated by Alex Shvartsman: an unusual, interesting story of a boy who is ‘marked’ as a slave by an older boy. As they grow up, the boy obeys the orders of the other boy without question, even as such orders get him into trouble. Then one day, the older boy moves away and the boy feels adrift without orders until he joins the army and feels at home being ordered around. As time passes, he slowly forgets his former ‘slave’ past; until the older boy reappears in his life, and he has to decide whether to return to his former slave past or not.
• “Planet Doykeit” by Eliza Rose: a story of a Jewish colony surviving on another planet. Unfortunately, the tale appears to require familiarity with Jewish themes, traditions and culture, which is beyond me and making it hard to get into the story.
• “The Everlasting Humming of the Earth” by Molly Gloss: the tale of a woman who can sense that an earthquake is about to happen or is happening, but cannot tell where it is happening. As she lives her life constantly being ‘shaken’ by the earth, her only source of comfort is via acupuncture. But during one session, her acupuncturist suggests a way for her to live with her ‘gift’.
• “The Legend of Wolfgang Robotkiller” by Alex Irvine: in a future where robots came out of nowhere to destroy civilization on Earth, the survivors survive by learning the routines the robots go through before seeking food and shelter. But rumours speak of one man known as Wolfgang Robotkiller who is capably of destroying the robots. But when one survivor is saved from a robot by Wolfgang, the survivor has to decide what to say when, for usual, legends don’t live up to the reality.

Magazine read from 2019/07/02 to 2019/07/12