An Alternate History of the 21st Century by William Shunn

In his afterword, the author cautions against the natural human tendency to look for patterns in everything. And, indeed, anyone trying to fashion a single, coherent future history from the six stories in the book will be disappointed. Nevertheless, the tales do comprise an interesting set of snapshots of where we might be heading -- or (as Cory Doctorow's introduction reminds us) where we are now...

The full review is available on SF Site.

Further Links:
William Shunn
Spilt Milk Press

Interzone, Issue 217: August 2008

Advance publicity in several forum posts heralds issue #217 of Interzone as “not so Mundane this time,” following as it does from the Mundane SF special issue. And it’s quite right: only two of this issue’s stories are Earth-bound, and those two are outlandish enough that they’re far away from Mundane SF. Whether this contrast with issue #216 is deliberate, I don’t know; but I do know there is a lot of good stuff to be found here...

The full review is available online at The Fix.

Further links:
Interzone
Karen Fishler
M.K. Hobson
Paul McAuley
Suzanne Palmer
Jason Sanford
Paul G. Tremblay

The Fade by Chris Wooding

Orna, a member of the elite Cadre, is bonded for life to the Clan Caracassa. Orna's people, the Eskarans, are at war with the Gurta; as the novel begins, she is in battle. Tricked by the Gurta, Orna's husband is killed, and she is captured and taken to the prison-fortress Farzala. At first despairing and aloof (which gains her the nickname of "the fade," a kind of apparition), she gradually forms relationships with a small group of her fellow-prisoners and formulates a daring plan to escape...

The full review is available online at SF Site.

Chris Wooding
Gollancz

Diet Soap, Issue 2: Sex and Gender

Diet Soap’s website—and, indeed, the magazine itself—suggest that it’s meant as a provocative publication. Well, I have to admit that I didn’t find issue #2 to be quite that; but it does have some good stories that make telling points about the subject of sex and gender...

The full review is available online at The Fix.

Further links:
Diet Soap
Stephanie Burgis
Ginnetta Correli
Chelsea Martin
Katherine Sparrow

Abyss & Apex, Issue 26: Second Quarter 2008

This was my first encounter with Abyss & Apex, a generalist speculative fiction webzine that seeks to publish “powerful stories with emotion that resonates in our minds and hearts long after the first reading” and “stories that stand out from the norm even in a genre that pushes the envelope of normal.” With the five stories of issue 26, I would say they haven’t quite hit that mark...

The full review is available online at The Fix.

Further links:
Abyss & Apex
Andrew S. Fuller
Laura Anne Gilman
Larry Hodges
Vylar Kaftan
Lawrence M. Schoen

Light Reading by Aliya Whiteley

Prudence Green and Lena Patten are best friends, brought together by their marriages to officers in the Royal Air Force. Their husbands are currently away on duty, and the two women are dissatisfied with their lives back home on the base. Excitement of sorts arrives in December 2004, when Pru finds one of the other RAF wives hanging, because her husband is having an affair - with Lena's husband. At which point, it may appear that Light Reading is going to be a run-of-the-mill potboiler...but it's not so...

The full review is available online at The Zone.

Further links:
Aliya Whiteley
Macmillan New Writing

Postscripts, Issue 14: Spring 2008

PS Publishing must have one of the most diverse lists in the independent press; and their magazine, Postscripts, reflects that diversity: reading an issue is like reaching into the PS bran tub and pulling out a random selection...

The full review is available online at The Fix.

Further links:
Jetse de Vries
Rhys Hughes
Paul Jessup
Sarah Monette
Robert Reed
Jeff VanderMeer
Barry Wood
PS Publishing

Something Wicked, Issue 6

On my personal world map of fantastic fiction, South Africa is one of the areas marked “here be dragons,” because I don’t know what else to put there. If the same applies to you, here to amend that is Something Wicked, South Africa’s only quarterly magazine of science fiction and horror (so here there be no dragons after all)...

The full review is available online at The Fix.

The Grin of the Dark by Ramsey Campbell

Simon Lester's old university tutor commissions him to write a book expanding his thesis on forgotten film stars. The actor who particularly captures Simon's interest is Tubby Thackeray, a professor who became a music hall comedian and then a silent movie clown, but who has now been effectively written out of cinematic history. It becomes clear why when Simon eventually tracks down some footage of Thackeray's highly disturbing films...

The full review is online at SF Site.

The Unblemished by Conrad Williams

In a London pub, photographer Bo Mulvey is approached by a random stranger offering him a map to the secret "house of flies." Mulvey accepts, but all he receives for his trouble is a few lines of nonsense. He may think at first that he's been taken for a ride, but then the map invades his vision, and begins to change him...

The full review is online at SF Site.