Runalong The Short Shelves - Interzone 301
Publisher - MYY press
Price - $5.50 via https://www.patreon.com/interzonemag/shop
This week let’s have a look at Interzone Issue 301 which beside a pretty impressive cover by Emma Howitt befitting one tale also has a very good mix of tales and non-fiction content.
Climbing Stories - in this issue Aliya Whiteley looks back at a Worldcon panel discussing the Weird and makes the case that a Back of explanation or even expectation makes it even more effective. As well as some stories to look at Whiteley also used the column itself to make the point very….fleshily.
Mutant Popcorn - it’s always tempting to think movies may have sadly seen their day but Nick Lowe’s movie column provides at speed but very sharp analysis a look back at recent movies from Wicked all the way to Joker Folie A Deux plus more international and indie fare. It’s a really good mix and a reminder more is always out there to find
Orange Slab by Ashley Stokes - a really brilliant opening story very much in the weird tradition that Whiteley mentions. It’s a tale of tension and strangeness that echoed the imminent feeling of lockdown and a world about to go through changes. The main characters are two men lost in their lives one just about keeping his head above water but his childhood friend has gone down a lot of conspiracy rabbit holes. Arriving to find his home empty he claims a furniture removal man is not human and there is a mysterious warm, skin like orange slab on the floor. The two go Ona Road trip with it and then the story really goes for the strange. Is this two people fracturing under pressure or is this the one true conspiracy theory on the net. Stokes managed to combine the weird paranoia with a strange friendship, a sense of dark humour and even had room for lost love. Highly immersive and a highpoint in the magazine.
The Astral Key by Philip Fracassi - an unusual horror tale combining a saw like challenge with cosmic horror as four people awaken ina strange house to be told their bodies have been drugged and their consciousness kidnapped. A key must be found or they will die here and then their bodies follow suit. Plunging us in the deep end like our narrator it’s got the feel of Faustian bargains with dream like unrealities and keep us on the toes as to the eventual ending. Will kindness or desperation win the day?
Dawnie’s How The World Is (Dictated) by Rachel Cupp - a melancholy short story as two young children explain their lives. For the reader is how we interpret the actual events and find out a post apocalyptic tale that feels quite harrowing and for the innocents beyond their own knowledge. Even a child having their last ever soda is a gut punch, a reminder when the world goes mad it’s always the young who get hurt the most.
Learning To Fall by David Cleden - an almost feel of a fantasy tale as a young man agreed to his tribal coming of age ritual. Climbing an immense thread the fun for the SF reader is realising what the Thread actually is. I enjoyed the young man coming of age feel but ultimately I was more interested in what was about to happen next than the main tale.
Mirrored by Corey Jae White - a tale of a man who lives his life and career in social media to extremes and then finds another set of posts he cannot possibly make being more popular. The idea of lost identity and the shallowness of media including comes across this tale which had a dream like quality to it suiting a tale of images within images.
Then we turn to the non fiction sections-
Dancing in The Library - Una McCormack talks about the strangeness of Le Guin’s Orsinian tales which sound compelling and then links it really well to the lost futures we were told of in the 90s a melancholic but beautifully elegant article.
The Book Zone features a wealth of reviews from Zachary Gillan, Kelly Jennings, Nick Mamatas, Val Nolan and Marian Womack. I’ll highlight Nolan’s great review of The Sentence by Gautam Bhatia and Womack’s impressive walkthrough of the work of Premee Mohamed. Fun will be had going through these.
The A to Z of Zelazny by Alexander Grass looks at the writer’s skills with humour and how that works in our wider genre.
Then in Folded Spaces Val Nolan looks at the life of SF critic Fedric Jameson who looked at SF with a Marxist lens.
Lots to enjoy!
