Asimov's June 2010

In my never-ending quest to catch up on reading my SF mags, I recently tackled the June issue of Asimov's. Here are some quick thoughts.

Allen M. Steele continues to impress with "The Emperor of Mars," a sweet ode to Mars SF over the years and the story of how a man deals with the loss of his family. This is a complete departure from his Coyote stories but just as engaging. I think maybe I should delve into his catalog a bit further in 2011.

Chris Beckett's "The Peacock Cloak" was an interesting exploration of how people go about helping a brand-new world...by making the same mistakes that humanity has been making for years.

Stephen Baxter's "Earth III" is a continuation of a series of stories but I don't remember reading "Earth II," to be honest. It's a story of power, exploration, and challenging the predominant views of the world. I enjoyed it.

The rest of the stories were solid enough but nothing else jumps out as worth mentioning here.

I have started the next of the now 11 magazines I have stacked up, so I'm sure I'll be writing about it soon.

That Spark

When I read, watch, or listen to something for the first time, I'm hoping for that spark. I need something to take hold of me and pull me into the piece of art, whether it be a melody or a character or an idea or an overall aesthetic. I think that's what we all look for, isn't it?

There's another part to the equation, though. Your state of mind, you mood, can have a big affect on whether you feel that spark. I'm sure I read or listen to things at the wrong time for that particular piece of art. For example, I grabbed the last album from Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, fairly quickly after it came out. I was in love with the song "Mr. Tough" and was expecting the whole album to sound like that. It doesn't. I thought the album was okay and stopped listening to it except for random pop-ups on shuffle. Lately, though, I've rediscovered it and dig the variety of styles through the songs. It's good stuff but stuff it took me a couple years to fully appreciate. I experienced something similar with Jarvis Cocker's debut solo album recently as well. Granted, that kind of approach works with music that exists as digital files you can keep around. But what happens when you're dealing with books?

For the past two years, I've been doing most of my reading by checking books out of the library. That means I have a finite amount of time in which to decide if that spark is there or not. As recently as a couple of years ago, I would read every book I started. I would feel I was letting a book down if I didn't. These days, though, I'll give a book anywhere from 50 to 100 pages to really grab me and if it doesn't, that's the end.

I mentioned in my Asimov's review earlier this week that Stephen Baxter's story made me want to check out the books set earlier in the story's timeline. A few days ago I checked Flood out of the library and settled in. The problem was it didn't really grab me. The characters didn't really hook me and all the water was repetitive after 50 pages and the prospect of 450 or so more was not appealing (and yes, I know the book is called Flood and I should probably have known better). So, I stopped reading my 5th book of the year (as opposed to 19 I read all the way through).

The next book up in the reading queue? Everything Matters! by Ron Currie, Jr. That spark was there from the first page, in which a baby in the womb was getting advice about not moving around so as not to wrap the umbilical cord around itself further and face dire consequences. The next 50 pages have upheld that promise and I look forward to seeing how it all turns out.

I do feel bad when I don't get that spark from a piece of art. I'm sure some of the time it's me. Of course, other times it's the work of art (don't get me started on the mess that was Greek Street #1, which I am thankful was only a buck). But when that spark happens? Magic time.

Asimov's July 2009

Following on the heels of a strong June issue, Asimov's delivers another high quality issue with the July 2009 edition. There are three excellent stories and a couple of solid stories, with only one real disappointment. When reading a magazine or anthology, it's hard to get a better percentage of stories you like.

The issue gets off to a great start with Michael Cassutt's "The Last Apostle." Joe Liquori is Omega, the last of the Twelve Apostles, the group of astronauts who landed on the Moon and were dubbed by a writer. He is on the mood again in his 80s, sort of living in a retirement home on the Moon, and he makes a return trip to an unscheduled stop he made years ago with his landing partner, the Alpha Male. That return doesn't go as planned but has unexpected consequences that will forever cement his name in history. The story is an interesting look at an alternate space program that could have been and has a very strong sense of character and mood.

I did not much care for Kit Reed's "Camp Nowhere" and she is a writer I usually like. I think the voice of the main character, a teen whose parents resent him and take him to a sinister psycho therapy-like camp, was too whiny. I didn't care at all what happened to him. So it goes.

I was happy to return to R. Garcia y Robertson's future of SuperCats and Greenies in "SinBad the Sand Sailor." The titular character gets into trouble when he drops his cargo of drugs (that he is smuggling) to pick up a pretty air hostess who has been thrown overboard. He is soon forced to rob a wind wagon, be hostilely be taken aboard another ship, only to be accepted and then outcast, before going back to reresuce the woman he resuced...but she ends up rescuing him more than once. It has a cool setting and is just an entertaining story. Someone needs to collect all the stories Robertson has written in that setting - it would be a big book of stories that are tons of fun.

The next two stories were solid - "Sleepless in the House of Ye" by Ian McHugh and "Shoes-To-Run" by Sara Genge. The former is a tale of aliens trying desperately to keep their offspring alive amidst harsh weather and attacks by worms; the latter is about a girl who wants to be a man instead of a woman as well as a tale of a future where Paris has sealed itself inside a dome and what the people outside the dome try to do.

Finally, there is Stephen Baxter's "Earth II." I have always enjoyed Baxter's appearances in Asimov's, though it's been a while since his last one. This one is set on a world in the future where inhabitants of Earth fled after a disaster. The story deals with the legacy of those Founders and the future of the world, with its coolsummers and hotsprings and Purple all over the place. A society where women are the warriors and the men stay home. Xaia Windru pushes on to find the City of the Living Dead and learns more about herself and her world than she though. This story takes place in the same world as Baxter's current novels Flood and Ark and I'm going to have to put those on my reading list.

As a bonus, Paul Di Filippo points me toward a few books of interest (I would love to get to read as much as he does) in the On Books column - Nick DiChario's Valley of Day-Glo, Robert Freeman Wexler's chapbook Psychological Methods to Sell Must Be Destroyed, and yet another poetry collection from Bruce Boston (my favorite poet regularly appearing in the pages of Asimov's).