"Slow Stampede" mixed reviews

The March issue of Asimov's is out and "Slow Stampede" has gotten mixed reviews.

Lois Tilton gives me her first RECOMMENDED for this story.

Raj is a bandit, young, ruthless and ambitious to be the next Chief. His village makes its living by raiding the caravans of Swamp Elephants that travel through the Swamp where they live.

From the distance, they looked like Jesus-bugs skimming the mud, but Raj knew that they stood taller than the sequoias that anchored their roots hundreds of yards under the surface. The swampiphant's legs pierced the upper layers of silt, finding purchase further down as the mud served to stabilize their tremendous height.
But the hungry Merfolk also live in the Swamp, and must be reckoned with.

Colorful and imaginative worldbuilding makes this one entertaining.

RECOMMENDED

Garbled Signals has a less than enthusiastic review:

“Slow Stampede”, by Sara Genge, presents a finely-imagined world of bandits raiding caravans of immense “swamp elephants” on a low-gravity planet. The main character is well developed and very realistic, as a young bandit chafing at the authority of his tribe; but maybe he’s too self-confident and amoral to win our sympathy. He is also the only character to really be developed (perhaps reflecting his own self-centered point of view). The story ends with his marrying a character who has not been developed beyond a brief sketch. This, and other loose ends, makes the story feel incomplete. On the other hand, if this is an excerpt from a novel, there is plenty to build on here.

That one goes to show how hard it is sometimes to make unlikable protags work.

Another one:

"Slow Stampede" by Sara Genge is set in a world with swampiphants and Merpeople. Raj wants to be the Chief of his village and plots ways to do it. How things work out for him make for a nicely-told little story--

SFRevu

Overall, I'm pretty happy with what people have been saying about the story. I've finished the copyedits of "Shoes-to-Run" so that one should appear in Asimov's in a few months.

*Edited to add this revue by Colin Harvey, Suite101

Separating them is Sara Genge's 'Slow Stampede.' On an alien planet, Raj and his tribe eke out a marginal existence in a vast swamp also inhabited by cannibal merpeople, through which pass regular caravans of swamp-elephants ripe for the picking. Newcomer Genge skillfully depicts an exotic world peopled by ambitious youngsters, doddering elders and indulgent mothers. Recommended.

Benjamin Crowell's 'Whatness" also gets a recommended and Holly Phillip's 'The Long, Cold Goodbye' gets a highly recommended. Reading all these reviews of the other stories in this issue makes me look wistfully at the mail and wonder when I'll get my copies.

Overall, the issue seems to be sitting well with reviewers.

'Cause Octavia Butler and Ursula Le Guin weren't enough

...now I get compared to Tiptree!

I quote:

Sara Genge writes a complex story of alien sex with her "Prayers for an Egg." Like Tiptree whose work this was reminiscent of, Genge is an outsider, Tiptree coming from Langley and the mainstream, Genge from Spain; her rhythm and cadences equally exotic to American genre SF.

These stories mark the highpoint of this issue, their 'difference' from the norm giving the issue a rare depth.

And because I have a twisted feminist mind, I'll note that all three writers I've so far been compared to are women. Not that I mind, not with those three. Just sayin'

I think "exotic" needs to become part of my name, somehow. Sara Genge, aka "Exotic". Sooo cool.

Reviews

Rich Horton (ecbatan at the Elephant Forgets), has done a nice overal crit of most mags in 2007. I'm mentioned both in the Cosmos and Helix reviews.

GUD #1. A semi-review.

Continuing with my informal reviews, here are my comments on the first half of issue 1 of GUD Magazine.

I've left the poems out since I'm not into poetry.

Electroencephalography, by Darby Larson, reads like a SF fable. At first the childish style and fairy-tale characters took some getting used to, but as the story got darker, the pipping voice made it all the more terrifying. Dean is a lazy man who wants to make a robot to do his housework for him and gets his father and brother to make it for him. From there, the story gets surreal, leading to a strange ending which, nevertheless, does the story justice.

What happened was this: I woke up and the arrow was there, wedged through my breastbone and into my heart like a trowel. And, you know, I was shocked but not surprised. I thought, Well, this explains that sinking feeling I’ve had for the last thirty years.

Nadine Darling's Arrow tells us the story of a person who, literally, has an arrow through their heart. Being a romantic is a painful and embarrassing affair, and the protagonist goes through all the stages of arrow-acceptance, until they decide to do something about it. But even making a deal with the devil might not be enough to remove an arrow.
I'm glad this story was written. I'm thinking of all those teenagers who've ever been shot through the heart with an arrow: you're not alone, kids, it's ok to feel sad. People learn to cope with arrows, or in the case of this MC, find darker ways of ridding themselves of them.
The language in this story is superb, the humour subtle and understated. A great read and my favorite story in this first half of the issue.

Drive Thru by Kenneth Darling is a prose-poem about an airport. I try not to crit poems, since I don't have even basic knowledge of what a poem should be and I generally don't enjoy them, but the prose structure conned me into reading it and now I don't know what to say. It was sweet, cute, the imagery was good. I told you I didn't know shit about poems.

Hello Goodbye by Lavie Tidhar is a story I tried to understand. It has underwater dragon sex, something I've never seen anywhere else. The writing is awesome (duh, it's Tidhar) and it had an eerie dreamlike quality to it.

Baptised by the Baptist, he says and giggles again, and stares up
at the moons and takes a deep breath. He lies flat on his back, holding
in air, and his body becomes a dirigible floating on water; he is a
Phoenician sailing ship, going to Ur, a merchant of wine and souls.

In Aliens, by Jordan E. Rosenfeld, the MC is a waitress in a vegan restaurant where she hates the food and can't stand Nadia, another waitress.
The language borders on poetic and the desert imagery is vivid. A very nice read.

Not In The Yellow Pages by Lesley C. Weston, is a flash about someone searching for a hotel that isn't listed in the Yellow Pages.

He asks, “Do you remember when you used to love me?”
“I remember,” I say. The roof of my mouth and my teeth ache,
like they did when I was a kid wearing braces.

Yep, I wore braces and they can do that.

As with Arrow, this story is written in first person and the MC's gender isn't explicit. Here I have a feeling it might be a man, whereas in Arrow it felt like a woman's voice. In either case it doesn't matter since gender really doesn't add much to the story and I expect readers could fill in their gender of choice.

As with Drive Thru, I'm wondering if this wasn't almost meant as poetry. The last line certainly carries a punch that sounds like good poetry. Well, whatever the author meant it to be, it's good, so I'm not bitching.

Natural History is the story of a woman coming to terms with the loss of her husband. Gini Hamilton weaves a tale of anecdotes and memories, punctuated by the woman's findings: dead animals, bones, stones. Literary language, restrained emotion and believable characters. GUD.

Unzipped is not another Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder story. For one, if I had noticed that was what it was about, I would have chucked the story across the room. I'm sick of stereotypes of Vietnam vets hitting the deck every time someone breaks a glass. Most cases of PTSD last less than 3-4 months. What's more, most people who live through a traumatic event don't develop PTSD.
Thankfully, the opening paragraphs are so cleverly worded that by the time I found out about that detail I was in love and couldn't stop reading. Steven J. Dines takes the theme into new, medically inaccurate places (I'm not complaining, this is fiction and I don't think it was the author's intent to portray the condition precisely), where guilt, madness and literary flair merge nicely. Dark. That's the way I like it.

Max Velocity by Leslie Claire Walker is about a woman who is breeding. This is no ordinary unwanted pregnancy, in this future, bearing a child costs a woman a lot more than just her figure, her time or her career. The bad guys are seriously screwed, the good guys aren't really good and there is no escaping nature (or a random mutation, whatever). A great way to remember to use birth control and one of the few horror stories that actually scared me.

All in all, I'm amazed at the quality of this first half of GUD#1. Most were impressive stories and there were no stinkers which is more than can be said for some top SF mags. My favorites were Arrow, Aliens and Max Velocity.

Apex #10--a semi review

It's clear that Apex has been getting better issue by issue, so it stands to reason that Apex #10 is the best one yet. And I used to think horror wasn't really my thing...

Cherie Priest's Bad Sushi is a pretty straight-forward horror piece in which sushi turns sour. The interesting protagonist (old Japanese ex- WWII combatant living in the USA) keeps the story rolling and me off sushi for about a week.

The second story, Daydreams, by Lavie Tidhar is good even by Tidhar standards. Set in the universe of Gunslinger of Chelem (a previous Apex story), it depicts a world in which dreams come real and super-detectives in the REM unit of the police force go into the field (not) counting sheep and clutching their teddy-bears.
The action is gripping (and freaking weird) and the conclusion, like most of Tidhar's stuff, is inconclusive but strangely satisfying.

What is it about this guy that reminds me of Frank Herbert? You read his stories and "get" only 10% of the plot, all the while wishing that you were more intelligent because that glimpse tells you the other 90% must be awesome. I wonder if it's not all a facade, make-believe that there's stuff hidden between the lines when there isn't. Either way, the technique works. It makes me feel like I've been transported into a future that I, poor twenty-first century mortal that I am, cannot begin to comprehend. This isn't the first (or fourth) Tidhar story I've read, but I'm sure going to keep on the lookout for more of his work.

What if ghosts didn't turn up to identify their killer? Memories of the Knacker's Yard, by Ian Creasey, explores this possibility. In a world where murder investigations should be easy-peasy, Malcolm Chenier finds himself pursuing the slasher, a killer whose motive are souls.

The world-building in this piece is gorgeous and the well-paced plot leads to a psychologically acute end.

In Pigs and Feaches by Patrice E. Sarath. A virus called super-A (super-Alzheimers) spreads through brains and leaves them plaque-ridden and mushy. Is there something left underneath dementia?

Part 2 of Cain XP11 by Geoffrey Girard. I'll leave this until I have read the whole story.

Monument, by Nancy Fulda is this issue's Parting Shot. Loss, regret, misunderstanding and the good writing you'd expect from Nancy Fulda.

Apex # 9: review continued

It has taken me a while, but I've finally finished Apex 9. At first, I was pacing myself, trying hard not to run out of reading material and making sure I studied before diving into anything else. Afterwards, shit happened. I got a bad neck-ache which made a weird tingling sensation tickle down my arms and fingers. I knew this happened, but I never thought the feeling was quite this impressive. I discovered sitting at the computer worsened it, so I stayed off the keyboard (and off my pdf issue of Apex) until it went away. That's when the internet went to hell.
Anyway, I've finished Apex issue 9 and wanted to share some of my findings.

Pyramus and Thisbe by Jeremy Adam Smith is the kind of story that stays with you. I'm not entirely sure if this is all good, a big part of it is the "what the fu..?" feeling. Pyramous is a robot, Thisbe is human, everything else reads like a Reinascence alternative history or fantasy. The language is beautiful and anyone who mixes SF and Fantasy gets extra credit in my book. It is certainly a memorable story, however unclear and the ending is chilling.

Sufficiently Advanced by Bev Vincent started off with an interesting premise: an astronaut is ship-wrecked in a planet where primitive natives teleport without thinking about it twice. It goes downhill from there, however, playing off the theme that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". The story is ok, but I feel a bit let down because the beginning was so cleverly drawn.

Rob D. Smith's Don't Show Your Teeth is about people who take their collections too seriously. Seriously too seriously. Like that guy we all know who hits on you with a phrase from Star Trek. Ok, that's not so bad. But you get me.

The story is straight funny horror and it does its job. There's not much here to distinguish it from other horror pieces, but it's competently written and entertaining. And yes, a good hint to send to that friend who splurges his salary on comic books and Dracula teeth replicas.

Cain XP11: The Voice of Thy Brother's Blood by Geoffrey Girard. The first part of this story appears in Apex 9, but since the rest is due in later issues, I'll save my critique until I read the whole story. So far it looks very good.

Poppet's Left Impression is a poem by Brandy Shawn. I don't usually dig poetry unless it's by Lorca and this is no exception, but, of course, that's not saying much, is it? I'll simply refrain from critting poetry from now on.

Apex Parting Shot is Sonorus by Paul Abbamondi. The second person POV works well in this simple horror story about you when you find a musical instrument in the woods.

All in all, issue 9 surprises and delivers. My nightmares are a lot more interesting since I started reading Apex. I never suscribe to anything (because I can't commit to mags), but issue 9 was the last push I needed and I have now, for the first time ever, declared my fidelity (at least for a year) to Apex Digest

Apex Digest #9

As you all know (or should know), Apex Digest is the next big thing in Horror-SF. After much pleading and cajoling, I finally got the editor to set up an online issue at Fictionwise, making it possible for everyone who lives in the Wrong Continent or Other Axis to access the magazine. (There's a moderate amount of tongue-in-cheek here. I know you, Human, can tell, but there are a lot of confused Reptilian Humanoids and literal-meaning Nazis out there who don't always get it)

What follows is a review of what I've read so far of issue #9. I'm pacing myself to make it last. I'm not a reviewer and I'm not objective if I can help it, but I've read a bit and I know what I like.

The issue opens with The Sum Of His Parts, by Kevin J. Anderson no less. Playing off the Frankenstein monster theme, Anderson explores the origin of the monster's organs and their respective owners Although the ending is predictable, each character sketch is fascinating enough to make the story interesting.

In The End Of Crazy Katherine Sparrow shows us what happens when people don't study their pharmacology. Just kidding. This is a classic medical dystopia "meds gone wrong" story about a cured schizophrenic who has to stop taking the miracle drug when she gets pregnant. Horror readers will love the insanity theme, but what scared me was the subtext, dealing with loss of freedom and medical ethics.

Lavie Tidhar is everywhere these days, including Apex and his story Gunslinger of Chelem has that unmistakable Tidhar feel. A detective who polices people's dreams, a gunslinger gone amok who kills his victims in a dream only he controls... Perfect ingredients for a different kind of western. A great story full of that Tidhar whimsical groove that makes him editor's pet in so many mags.

Mary Robinette Kowal has a sick mind and Locked In, one of the shortest stories of this issue, is also the one I've found most terrifying so far. It's another medical dystopia about a paralyzed man who cannot communicate with the outside world. When his family finds a way to get through to him, the result isn't what he imagined.

Projector is a well written story by Daniel LeMoal. It's written in 1st person, which is clearly one of the main strengths of the story, since the protagonist is a sassy junky that readers will love, no matter what he does. The plot about drug addicts forced into a hit job is spiced up by the supernatural powers of the intended victim. Disaster is imminent, but when you're touching bottom, there's not much further that you can sink.

Today's last story is At the 24-Hour, by William F. Nolan. I have a strong feeling that it was written tongue-in-cheek, using traditional horror tropes to get a good smirk out of the reader. This subtext keeps the story moving despite the predictable ending.

That's it for today. Overall, this was my favorite issue of Apex (I haven't read all of them, so you're allowed to contradict me). Normally in a magazine you find three or four stories you love and one or two that don't do much for you. Not here. All of the above are strong stories, and if I were forced to pick one, I'd have a hard time. My personal favorites are Locked In, Projector and Gunslinger of Chelem, but I can't honestly say that the other ones are less good. This is personal taste, not reviewer objectivity. If you thought you were going to find objectivity in this blog, someone probably sent you here for it on April 1st.

Critical Ink

Marshall Payne from Tangent has reviewed "Pretty Little Thing"


Sara Genge uses multi-viewpoint first person in "Pretty Little Thing." While Claude is a charming narrator at first, it quickly becomes clear that he is a psychopath stalking Annita, a young black woman who’s been rejuvenated to look like a teenager. The speculative element is provided with a future replete with nanos and thought diaries, the latter figuring into the structure of the narrative. Genge is a new writer and I remember her vivid story, "Godtouched," in Strange Horizons. "Pretty Little Thing" isn’t as strong, but still interesting enough. Genge is definitely a talent to watch.

Nice!

While we're at it, here's what has been said about "Godtouched"
From Tangent, but this time from Ellisabeth A. Allen:

Moving on to "Godtouched" by Sara Genge, we find a vividly depicted postapocalyptic setting and the disturbed (or "godtouched") country girl, Denise. Mostly a sketch of Denise's raw and virulent world, the story boasts a small plot in the form of Denise's choice—city sophistication or rural poverty?—but the atmospheric tale, promising enough for a novel's lead, doesn't need high-octane events to draw you in.

IROSF is harder on "Godtouched". This is Lois Tilton's opinion:

As an ecocatastrophic Cautionary Tale, the vision of the Waste intrigues, but Denise's story is too slight, not sufficiently original to be of as much interest as its setting.

Thanks for the reviews, both good and bad.