Nicholas Waller. Sandtrap. Lin Adenuka arrives on planet 48-274C, known locally as ‘Churned’. He is on Arbiter business, and the small team of scientists terraforming the planet have every reason to be worried, as he is investigating what he believes to be a murder, and not an accident, as their ‘accident’ report suggested. A beginning […]
Eric Brown. The Wisdom of the Dead. Interzone have published a number of stories in Brown’s ‘Kethani’ sequence. Here we are reunited with Richard – a Ferryman, who takes the bodies of the dead to the Kethani, who whisk the bodies back to their home planet, and resurrect them. This story gives more detail on […]
Paul Di Filippo. Bare Market. A Charles Stross story from early 2000 (‘Bear Trap’) had a punning conclusion to a far-future information commodity trader yarn. Here di Filippo has a nearer future scenario, in which the world’s financial and information markets are managed by an intriguing and delectable babe. (No surprises there, PDF!) The babe […]
Christopher Evans. Posterity. A somewhat downbeat, peculiarly British take on time-travelling (not unlike last month’s story about an alien visitor to Earth, who finds his release into the wider community is somewhat low-key). Here, Rupert, going through a mid-life crisis, runs a ‘greasy spoon’ cafeteria in central London, which is a front for a hotel […]
Dominic Green. Blue Water, Grey Death. Non-genre story about two men who get in above their depth. They find out that dolphins are not quite as friendly as they are made out to be. Alexander Glass. Lucid. Glass is a young British author who has produced some good stories to date. Here is his take […]
A good issue. Nothing quite hitting the heights, but do bear in mind I do judge by the highest of standards!
Queen of Hearts. Dominic Green. A couple of years ago Green’s ‘That Thing Over There’ (Interzone #132) was picked by Hartwell for his annual Years Best, and last year’s Xmas jolly ‘Rude Elves’ (Interzone 162) and ‘Grass’ earlier this year (Interzone 168), all appealed to me. Surprisingly then, I gave up on this story halfway […]
The Invisible Hand Rolls the Dice. Carolyn Ives Gillman. Lee Pao Nelson is a wealthy, successful businessman. But as is always the case, there are other wealthier, more successful businessmen. The bugbear for Lee is that he is not himself quoted on the Personality Exchange, a recognition of trend-setter status. Whilst pitching a World Church […]
