The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, ed. George Mann

Solaris Books is the new science fiction and fantasy imprint from Games Workshop's publishing arm. This anthology is their "book-sized calling card." It's heartening to see a company with Games Workshop's clout investing, as it were, in the field; so one wants to wish Solaris well -- provided, of course, that they publish good fiction...

Continue reading at SF Site.

Further links:
Stephen Baxter
Mike Resnick
David Gerrold
Eric Brown
Adam Roberts
James Lovegrove
Mary A. Turzillo
Ian Watson
Keith Brooke
Solaris
Solaris editors' blog

Breakfast with the Ones You Love by Eliot Fintushel

Sixteen-year-old Lea Tillim is a girl with a talent. Well, maybe "talent" isn't the most appropriate word. An ability, let's say. A power. The power to make people ill with a thought, even to kill them if she wants. But there's one boy who considers it a talent: Jack Konar, who says he is one of the God Tetragrammaton's Thrice Chosen, and is building a "spaceship" in a forgotten part of a Sears and Roebuck store, in readiness for the coming of the Meschiach. And he needs Lea's help...

Continue reading at SF Site.

Further links:

Eliot Fintushel

Random House

Jupiter XIV: Thebe

Jupiter was an unfamiliar publication to me, though it was clear enough that we would be in SF territory. I did think that two staples rather than one would make the magazine easier to handle; but of course it's the fiction that counts, so let's look at some (I must abstain from reviewing the poetry as I'm not confident about doing so).

First up is The Truth about Watermelon Seeds by Monte Davis (who also provides this issue's cover illustration), the delightfully odd tale of Vardiman Laneer, who lives out of his truck in the hope of finding a meteorite that he can sell on for enough money to patch things up with his beloved Birdie. His sole companion in this is his pet mouse, Gideon, who (unbeknownst to Vardiman) has been eating the seeds from a cosmic watermelon and undergoing a remarkable transformation. Davis writes engagingly and vividly (the atmosphere of Vardiman's truck is all too real!), and the result is a strange concoction that, nevertheless, works.

The Walking Distances by Thomas Lee Joseph Smith takes its protagonist (also a Tom Smith) to Canada, to visit an old writer friend, Kim, who has been hearing mysterious noises. Tom's speciality is writing about sounds that he has recorded; and Kim wants him to help her find out what's going on. What they discover is, naturally, rather unexpected... Actually, the solution to the 'whatdunnit' is probably less interesting than the character of Tom. Smith gives him a distinctive, jokey voice that does sometimes miss the mark ('They melted into the woods, like cheap margarine on hot corn-bread'), but, more often, hits it most effectively (as when Tom grabs something from the kitchen drawer and runs outside, only to find it wasn't a knife, as he was searching for).

Pretty much all the stories in the magazine are very good at creating an atmosphere through the unique viewpoints of their characters. In The Roots of Martian Civilisation, Robert Persons depicts an ancient Mars, where Trong, an archaeologist, is searching for evidence of the long-gone Sea Dogs. The author strikes a fine balance between alienness and familiarity; Trong isn't human, but we comprehend what he's doing well enough that his alien attributes become all the more striking (such as the way his species writes, 'a multimedia collage of up to a dozen sensual clues').

The final two stories in the magazine are also space operas, but more humorous – and, happily, both are genuinely amusing. In Jason Gaskell's Stranded, Jon Simmons is in a hurry to deliver his cargo to a client who doesn't like to be kept waiting; but a jobsworth guard won't let him through the wormhole, and Jon ends up – yes – stranded on a world he dubs 'Crapoid'. Gaskell's piece is daft, good-natured fun.

The title of Manda Benson's The Thirteenth Brigade refers to a bunch of cockroaches that have been engineered to aid humanity; they prove to be the ideal help to the crew of a spaceship who get into difficulties while trying to discover the cause of an earthquake that rocked their ship. Benson's story is perhaps not as consistently funny as Gaskell's; but it still has some good moments, and the ending is especially fine.

As I was coming to the end of this issue of Jupiter, I glanced back at Ian Redman's introduction; and something therein struck me as particularly apposite: 'put the kettle on, light the fire and snuggle into your favourite chair'. That sums up these stories: they may not break much new ground in science fiction, but they are superb entertainment.

Jupiter edited by Ian Redman, 19 Bedford Road, Yeovil, Somerset, BA21 4UG, UK. A5, 48pp, £2.75 or £10/4.

This review first appeared in Whispers of Wickedness.

Further links:

Jason Gaskell

Jupiter

I am the Bird by T.M. Wright

It is difficult for a straightforward summary to do justice to T.M. Wright's remarkable I am the Bird, a novella in which nothing much happens, no story is told (in the conventional sense) and nothing is resolved as such - yet which is still a complete and satisfying reading experience...

Continue reading at The Zone.

Further links:
T.M. Wright
PS Publishing

The Turning by Paul J. Newell

Our narrator is Lleyton Quinn, a forecaster of consumer demand by trade, whose help is sought covertly by Detective Sergeant Melissa Keller in investigating a series of cases in which people (more than one of whom is known to Quinn) have run away for no obvious reason. As the novel proceeds, it transpires that the runaways have been "turned" -- they have somehow come to stop caring about anything at all -- as Lleyton discovers first-hand when it happens to Keller. And, when he finds out who (or what) is behind the "turning," the implications for humanity will be...

Continue reading at SF Site.

Further links:

Paul J. Newell

The Virnation puzzle

Appian Publishing

Extended Play, ed. Gary Couzens

Gary Couzens takes to the decks for the third Elastic Press anthology, a set of nine tales at the longer end of the short story bracket, linked by the presence of music...

Read more at The Zone.

Further links:
Tony Richards
Chris T-T
Tall Poppies
Elastic Press

Remainder by Tom McCarthy

The protagonist...does not reveal his name, and can’t remember much about his accident; but its lasting effects are all too clear to him: intensive physiotherapy has left him conscious of every little movement he makes, and he longs for the days when he could perform action without thinking – the days when he felt real. A settlement has left our man rich to the tune of eight-and-a-half million pounds, and he wonders what to do with it all. Then one night, at a party, he recalls in great detail a flat he used to live in, where he felt real in a way he doesn’t now. He resolves to recreate those surroundings – right down to the sounds, smells, and neighbours – in the hope of capturing that feeling once again. And he doesn’t stop there…

Continue reading at Laura Hird's New Review.

Further links:
INS (Tom McCarthy)
Alma Books

The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Eric Sanderson...lost his girlfriend in an accident whilst on holiday – and, thanks to a recurring disassociative disorder (according to his psychiatrist, Dr Randle), he keeps losing all memory of his self. When we join Eric, his disorder has recurred for the eleventh time; and, as he tries to make sense of life again, he receives a series of letters signed ‘the First Eric Sanderson’ giving a rather different explanation for his amnesia: that Eric is being hunted by a Ludovician, a ‘conceptual shark’ that feeds on human memories...

Continue reading at Laura Hird's New Review.

Further links:
Steven Hall
Novel website
Canongate

Magnetic North, ed. Claire Malcolm

This book collects together works produced between 2003 and 2005 as part of a live literature programme that took place in Newcastle Gateshead...

Continue reading at Laura Hird's New Review.

Further links:
Andrew Crumey
Fiona Ritchie Walker
Julia Darling
Val McDermid
Chrissie Glazebrook
Charles Fernyhough
New Writing North

The Steam Magnate by Dana Copithorne

Kyra is sent by the Heiress Veridi to the Broken Glass City where she must find a man named Eson and take from him a certain deed. Eson has inherited his family's hot springs in the northern mountains, and is in control of the electricity generated by them -- but more than that, the springs also grant him the power to bind others to himself through deeds like the one Kyra has been instructed to retrieve...

Read more at SF Site.

Further links:
Dana Copithorne (Art Portfolio)
Aio Publishing