I've been horribly remiss in my reviews, or lack thereof, for the the SF magazine Interzone. I just finished reading issues 211 and 212 and thought I'd toss together a quick post on my thoughts for issues 210 - 212.

First things first, most issues, aside from the short stories, have the same columns and such in them: book reviews, movie reviews, the occasional anime review, plus author or artist interviews. I'm not going to go in depth on any of these, unless it happens to be something unusual. The meat of each issue is the stories, and I'll be looking at those.

Issue 210 starts out with good story by Jayme Lynn Blaschke called 'The Final Voyage Of La Riaza'. Part high seas adventure mixed with a Queen of Candesce-ish setting, its a very fun read. Two other stories stood out for me, although not as much as Blaschke's story. 'Tearing Down Tuesday' looks at man/robot relationships for the standpoint of a young boy, and 'Dr. Abernathy's Dream Theater' has steampunkish feel that reminded me of The Glass Books Of The Dream Eaters, only with much less wordage. The other highlight is Harlan Ellison's article on Ted Sturgeon. It's a strong ode to friendship and is quintessential Harlan: loud, brash well written. I've never even read Sturgeon, and I found this piece to be quite moving.

Issue 211, aka The Michael Moorcock issue, starts out well with the outstanding cover art by Richard Marchand. Sadly, no story actually takes place aboard that ship. The Moorcock issue has several items of interest for Moorcock fans. An interview (long and interesting), a memoir of Mervyn and Maeve Peake (less interesting to me), an extract of his novel London, My Life! or The Sedentary Jew (very interesting, I'm thinking of reading the book now), and a short story 'The Affair Of The Bassin Les Hivers', which is a detective mystery with a possible Elric tie-in (very, very good). Even with all that, there is still three more original stories, with 'Knowledge' by Grace Dugan being the standout. It's a new take on the 'what would you do if you knew when someone was going to die?' theme, but with a modern twist. It reminded me a bit of Heinlein's short story 'Life-Line'.

Issue 212 also starts out with a cool cover by Osvaldo Gonzalez, but it's also different in that the interview, with Charles Stross, is held for the end and specifically discusses his books. That means 212 is chock full of stories. The standouts being: 'Feelings of the Flesh' by Douglas Elliot Cohen (a unique story with creature who can steal a person's senses), 'Ack-Ack Macaque' by Gareth Lyn Powell (about an underground comic character that becomes very powerful), and 'The Algorithm' by Tim Akers (a clockpunk story where God is of the machine, the best of the issue). The others, while not bad, I didn't find to be as interesting.

One thing is apparent from reading Interzone: They are very different from the American SF/F magazines. Interzone seems to stay away from the tech heavy/harder science focus of the American magazines, instead focusing on plot and characters. The look of the magazine, and that art direction, clearly indicate a more literary bent to the magazine, and while I'm not always crazy about the art on display, it certainly adds to the overall feeling of uniqueness to the magazine. If you stumble upon an issue at your local bookstore, I would recommend picking up a copy. You'll get a chance to see what the British SF scene looks like and you'll certainly be in for something different.

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Posted by JP Frantz at Saturday November 03, 2007 at 12:45 AM
© 2007 SF Signal

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