F&SF Mar./Apr. 2010

One reason I haven't been doing these posts on the SF mags I've read this year is that I haven't read that many of them. However, I ran out of space in the nightstand drawer I store the unread mags in and that spurred me to get reading. It's no secret I like the anthology format and I consider F&SF to be the better of the two SF mags I read on a regular (well, sort of) basis.

Humor is difficult to writer because it is so easy for the words to fall flat on the page. A couple stories this time out worked well - "Epidapheles and the Insufficiently Affectionate Ocelot" by Ramsey Shehadeh and "The Frog Comrade" by Benjamin Rosenbaum. The former was a tale of a bumbling wizard narrated by an invisible chair named Door that mixed humor with an affecting character study of Door and the latter was a twist on the old princess and the frog story with a nice dose of Communism thrown in. Once you throw in Paul Di Filippo's "Plumage From Pegasus" about a penal system full of writers, you've got a nice set of humor.

The humor works well in contrast to darker stories, of which there were a few good examples. Dennis Danvers' "The Fairy Princess" is a story of a woman divorced from life and newly-sentient sex robots. "Blue Fire" by Bruce McAllister looks at the night a child Pope met a child vampire and what it meant for both of their souls.

You also get your classic themes and classic writers in this issue. The opening story was a take on mythology and time-crossed love ("Amor Fugit" by Alexandra Duncan) and the always dependable Albert E. Cowdrey gave us a story about art and death in "Fort Clay, Louisiana: A Tragical History." Mix that with the books column and the hide-and-seek nod to one of the stories in the classifieds and you get another good issue.

Clearing

I've spent most of my weekend trying to clear out some things (mostly brought on my whiny post about all of the piles I have) and have been slightly successful. It's also helped by the facts that my Spanish professor didn't post any online exercises like she said she would and that the pdf of the first book of The Iliad I have to read for English isn't downloading properly.

Yesterday morning I finished The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris, the follow-up novel to his acclaimed debut And Then We Came to the End, which I liked well enough. I almost gave up on The Unnamed after 75 pages but then decided to stick with it. It's about a man who has a recurring condition where he just walks. That's right, walks. He is unable to stop himself until his body decides and then falls into deep sleeps that are dangerous due to where he sleeps. He's not a particularly interesting character and the first two-thirds of the novel are fairly tedious. The final third is much more interesting, when Tim has reached a state of roaming and warring with his body. It is odd and compelling and the story ultimately reaches a nice crescendo before tailing off again in the final pages. I'm glad I stuck with it but wouldn't say I loved it.

Once I finished the Ferris novel, I returned both it and the next novel I had out from the library, then canceled my other requests. It's time to try and get a handle on the reading material I have here before dipping back into the never-ending stacks.

I did make a start by reading the second story in the Oct/Nov issue of F&SF, "Bandits of the Trace" by Albert E. Cowdrey. I usually like the work Cowdrey produces for the magazine but this one kicked it up a bit. The story has an odd opening then shifts to a college professor who is struggling with a book and a crossword puzzle. He ends up roping a student into a puzzle around which is book is based. We then get the entire first chapter of that book, telling the tale of the titular bandits, which is quite engrossing. Eventually all three sections weave back together and the fantastical element is revealed. It's clever and fun.

I've managed to clear out most of the 160+ posts I had in my Google Reader and heard some good music that way - Phantogram, Lissie, and new stuff from Josh Rouse and Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. I also listened to the third disc of that Hall & Oates box set, though I still have another to go...and then bought myself 2 more albums yesterday (Charlotte Gainsbourg and Vampire Weekend).

I watched a handful of things from the DVR, including the last two eps of Batman: Brave and the Bold with my son. He thought "A Bat Divided" was hilarious and I agreed with him, plus it was fun seeing the version of Firestorm they introduced. That show is tons of fun.

I am hoping to finally watch the final episode of Dollhouse before the Super Bowl starts. I also plan on starting the Jack of Fables trade at the top of my pile during the game.