John Langan, Richard Bowes, Ian R. MacLeod, and Sean McMullen the pick of an extremely strong issue.
Libling, Schulz and Irvine the pick of the issue for me.
Something for everyone … pervs included. Duncan, Reaves and Bowes my favourites, giving the first half of the chunky, value for money, volume more grist to my reviewing mill.
Excellent issue, with Paul Park the standout, and others from Robert Reed, Charles Oberndorf, Dean Whitlock, John Langan, Robin Aurelian, Marc Laidlaw, Steven Popkes, Kate Wilhelm.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction finishes 2009 with an issue of their now standard bi-monthly size, but dated for a single month to enable a clean start in 2010 with a Jan/Feb issue. Alex Irvine. Dragon’s Teeth. Irvine’s ‘Wizard Six’ in F&SF June 2007 was a strong and dark fantasy story. In a [...]
Elizabeth Hand. The Far Shore. A middle-aged man, ballet dancer initially, ballet teacher after an injury, loses his job but gets a timely invitation from friends to house-sit their remote property whilst they take a winter break. As the snow settles in (shades of The Shining, namechecked in the story) Philip, with recurrent nightmares of [...]
Sean McMullen. The Art of the Dragon. Dryly satirical tale in which a gigantic dragon appears and destroys the Eiffel Tower, then begins a world tour, destroying other notable buildings, statues and art collections. An observer of the initial attack enjoys celebrity status, and indeed has a greater role to play, his personal peculiarities putting [...]
Robert Reed. Firehorn. Prolific Reed is partly able to keep up his amazing output through dint of his capacity to mine his life, both recent and distant, for stories (to varying degrees of success, it has to be said, lest there be any suspicion that I am a Reed fanboy who will blindly praise all [...]
The first of the now double-size but bi-monthly F&SF. The disappointment of now to be hearing a copy of F&SF coming through the letter box only six times a year is mitigated by the fact that it now makes an even meatier thump when hitting the floor. Sean McMullen. The Spiral Briar. Some fantasy to [...]
Daniel Abraham. The Curandero and the Swede : a Tale from the 1001 American Nights. Taking his new girlfriend to his family in the country, and worrying what his family will make of her, a young man learns a lot from his Uncle – on the nature of the country in which they live, the [...]
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