Interzone #264 (May-June 2016)

By TTA Press

The May–June issue of Britain's longest running science fiction and fantasy magazine contains new novelettes and stories by Tyler Keevil, Malcolm Devlin, James Van Pelt, Rich Larson, and Gwendolyn Kiste. The 2016 cover artist is Vincent Sammy, and interior colour illustrations are by Richard Wagner and Martin Hanford.
Features: Comment from Jonathan McCalmont, Future Interrupted; Nina Allan, Time Pieces; Editorial by Elaine Gallagher; Ansible Link by David Langford (news and obits). Reviews: film, Mutant Popcorn by Nick Lowe; DVD/Blu-ray, Laser Fodder by Tony Lee; Book Zone, books reviews section edited by Jim Steel.
This issue ‘High Rise’, the film of JG Ballard’s novel, gets a welcome from Nina Allan and in Nick Lowe’s film reviews. In the book reviews Duncan Lunan looks at The Medusa Chronicles wherein two Interzone stars, Stephen Baxter and Alastair Reynolds, collaborate on a kind of sequel to Arthur C Clarke’s ‘A Meeting with Medusa’

Fiction this issue
Breadcrumbs by Malcolm Devlin
Starlings by Tyler Keevil
Mars, Aphids, and Your Cheating Heart by James Van Pelt
Lifeboat by Rich Larson
The Tower Princesses by Gwendolyn Kiste

Artists this issue
My Name To You No More by 2016 cover artist Vincent Sammy
Richard Wagner
Martin Hanford

Other non-fiction this issue
Elaine Gallagher - Editorial
Nina Allan - Time Pieces column - Rising High, or Most Prophets Are Madmen, Too
Jonathan McCalmont - Future Interrupted column - Settling, Settled, Settlement
David Langford - Ansible Link - News and obituaries
.
Books reviewed this issue
Book Zone, edited by Jim Steel, has: Science Fiction Rebels: The Story of the Science-Fiction Magazines From 1981 to 1990 by Mike Ashley, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu, Central Station by Lavie Tidhar, Dreamsnake by Vonda N. Mc Intyre, The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon, Reality by Other Means by James Morrow, City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett, The Ship by Antonia Honeywell, The Medusa Chronicles by Stephen Baxter & Alastair Reynolds

Reviewers; John Howard, Jack Deighton, Jonathan McCalmont, Peter Loftus, Stephen Theaker, Ian Hunter, Maureen Kincaid Speller, Duncan Lunan

Nick Lowe's Mutant Popcorn movie reviews this issue include
Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice, Midnight Special, 10 Cloverfield Lane, The Huntsman: Winter's War, The Divergent Series: Allegiant, Zootropolis, Kung Fu Panda 3, Criminal, Hardcore Henry, Evolution, The Witch, High-Rise.

Tony Lee's Laser Fodder, TV/DVD, reviews this issue include:
Haven Season Five Volume Two, The Ninth Configurartion

• Language: English
• Publisher: TTA Press
• Release date: May 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310765070

TTA Press

TTA Press is the publisher of the magazines Interzone (science fiction/fantasy) and Black Static (horror/dark fantasy), the Crimewave anthology series, TTA Novellas, plus the occasional story collection and novel.

Book preview

interzone_0_20_89_0.ai

ISSUE #264

MAY-JUNE 2016

Publisher

TTA Press, 5 Martins Lane, Witcham, Ely, Cambs CB6 2LB, UK

w: ttapress.com

f: TTAPress

t: @TTApress

Editor

Andy Cox

[e-mail]

Book Reviews Editor

Jim Steel

[e-mail]

Story Proofreader

Peter Tennant

Events

Roy Gray

[e-mail]

© 2016 Interzone & contributors

Submissions

Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always very welcome via our online system, but please be sure to follow the contributors’ guidelines.

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LICENSE NOTE: THIS EMAGAZINE IS LICENSED FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE/ENJOYMENT ONLY. IT MAY NOT BE RE-SOLD OR GIVEN AWAY TO OTHER PEOPLE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THIS MAGAZINE WITH OTHERS PLEASE PURCHASE AN ADDITIONAL COPY FOR EACH RECIPIENT. IF YOU POSSESS THIS MAGAZINE AND DID NOT PURCHASE IT, OR IT WAS NOT PURCHASED FOR YOUR USE ONLY, THEN PLEASE GO TO SMASHWORDS.COM AND OBTAIN YOUR OWN COPY. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE HARD WORK OF THE CONTRIBUTORS AND EDITORS.

INTERZONE 264 MAY-JUNE 2016

TTA PRESS

COPYRIGHT TTA PRESS AND CONTRIBUTORS 2016

PUBLISHED BY TTA PRESS AT SMASHWORDS. ISBN: 9781310765070

CONTENTS

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COVER ART

MY NAME TO YOU NO MORE by VINCENT SAMMY

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INTERFACE

EDITORIAL

ELAINE GALLAGHER

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FUTURE INTERRUPTED

JONATHAN McCALMONT

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TIME PIECES

NINA ALLAN

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ANSIBLE LINK

DAVID LANGFORD

FICTION

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STARLINGS

TYLER KEEVIL

novelette illustrated by Richard Wagner

[e-mail] (email)

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BREADCRUMBS

MALCOLM DEVLIN

novelette illustrated by Richard Wagner

MARS, APHIDS, AND YOUR CHEATING HEART

JAMES VAN PELT

story

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LIFEBOAT

RICH LARSON

story illustrated by Martin Hanford

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THE TOWER PRINCESSES

GWENDOLYN KISTE

story

REVIEWS

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BOOK ZONE

books

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MUTANT POPCORN

NICK LOWE

films

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LASER FODDER

TONY LEE

DVDs & Blu-rays

EDITORIAL

ELAINE GALLAGHER

Imagine picking up books and never finding in them someone like you. Or if you’re in there, you’re in a subordinate role, a servant or a victim. In issue 261 Maureen Kincaid Speller wrote about diversity and about how important it is to be represented in stories for women, people of colour, queer people. But imagine this: what if the only people you find like you in fiction or fact are monsters? Criminals, serial killers, predators? So disgusting that when people find out about you their reactions range from shock to vomiting? So outrageous that newspaper editors hound you to suicide? This is how transgender people have been represented in popular culture, from Ace Ventura and The Boxtrolls to Silence of the Lambs; how they are still treated in the Daily Mail and in US legislation. This is where kids who are unsure of who they are and what their gender is, find the words to talk about themselves: freak; pervert; rapist. It’s not coincidence that the attempted suicide rate for trans people is over 50%.

Speculative fiction, though, asks the question, what if? What if you can change your gender? What if it’s a usual thing that nobody remarks upon? What if transgender people are just…people? The first instances I ever came across were by Robert Heinlein, in Time Enough for Love and The Number of the Beast, where it’s a possibility to be chatted about and given to a minor character as a therapy, and in I Will Fear No Evil, where a rich man finds himself in a female body after a brain transplant. In Charles Sheffield’s Sight of Proteus, people change their shape all the time and it’s just another possibility. A character takes on Shakespeare’s appearance from being female before and the only comment is a joke about their sex life. Then there’s Iain M. Banks’s Culture, where everyone can change sex at will, and does.

These are wish-fulfilment scenarios, but the important thing about them is that they are presented as normal. Not a significant part of the story, except for the brain transplant, and that story is more about morality and kindness than about being suddenly female. More current stories have characters such as Savedra Severos in Amanda Downum’s The Bone Palace, who is the prince’s concubine and actually has his heart; Abalyn in The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan, who is the partner of the narrator and saves her life; or Kai in Max Gladstone’s Full Fathom Five who is the heroine of the story. All of these characters are engaging and vibrant and have positive agency.

There are other stories that examine gender presentation and changing gender, including Terry Pratchett’s Watch sequence, ending with Monstrous Regiment, and there is a history of debate about gender, changing gender, and feminism. But for someone who is still trying to figure out who and, crucially, what they are, fantasy and SF can provide role models and words to describe themself that may literally save their life.

FUTURE INTERRUPETD

JONATHAN McCALMONT

Settling, Settled, Settlement

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Back in the days when people saw reviewers as conversation-starters rather than an army of unpaid interns under the command of the publishing industry, it was often thought wise to check one’s fire when approaching the work of a first-time novelist. People argued that first-time novelists were still learning to work at novel length and that a drift of overly-harsh reviews would likely damage not only the writer’s confidence but also their chance of getting to write a second (and presumably less error-strewn) novel. While this may have been true ‘back in the day’ it seems like wildly inappropriate advice given that fewer and fewer people listen to reviewers and more and more authors put themselves through high-energy creative writing programmes before they get anywhere near publishing their first novel.

Gold Fame Citrus may well be Claire Vaye Watkins’ first novel but it is hardly her first canter around the stable yard as her debut short story collection Battleborn won no less than five mainstream literary awards and landed its author a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. Neither timid nor tentative, Watkins writes with the power and confidence of a seasoned veteran who is not afraid to race ahead and force her readers to play catch-up.

The novel is set in a future America where an apocalyptic drought has drained reservoirs, destroyed crops, and made much of the West coast uninhabitable to either man or beast. We enter this world through a sunburnt California where the flawed, the desperate, and the fucked-up are trying to stay alive amidst the vacated pleasure palaces of the Californian super-rich. Our protagonists are fairly typical of this stubborn and self-destructive breed in that they recall the kinds of people who showed up in California during the Summer of Love and wound up with no place else to go: Luz was the child-mascot of a more hopeful California who slid into modelling (and quite possibly sex work) after an overbearing father thought it might be a good idea to turn her into an emancipated minor. Ray is a surfer and a former soldier who is trying to keep a lid on both his past and present fears. Both characters are hideously flawed but they appear to have settled for each other.

Watkins’ writing reflects the dried-out instability of her characters and landscapes: Short, uncluttered sentences lead us from one moment of outstanding beauty to another while the blazing heat and dried up emotional aquifers make any excess of emotion feel both alien and inappropriate. Written in a tight third-person, the book lavishes attention on surface details and minor fluctuations in the characters’ relationships without ever bothering to look beneath the surface. This fear of interiority is manifest in a wonderful scene where Ray and Luz come across a forest only to discover that the trees are nothing but dried out husks. Throw a rock at these decorative fossils and chances are that it’ll pass straight through.

By denying us access to the details of her characters’ backgrounds, Watkins encourages us to view their behaviour as a mystery in need of a solution. We struggle to understand what Ray and Luz see in each other and we struggle to understand their decision to ‘adopt’ a small child and so we gain the impression that Gold Fame Citrus is a world in which people are so devoid of agency that they struggle to do anything but settle. For example, Ray is in no position to make informed decisions about his family’s future and yet lacks the energy to question his role as family patriarch. Similarly, while Luz is intelligent enough to be more than a sex object, she settles quite comfortably into a state of learned helplessness that flatters Ray’s ego and excuses her from all responsibility for her actions. Looking good, babygirl shouts Ray as he needlessly toils in the blazing sun to turn their empty swimming pool into a skateboard ramp while Luz poses in a series of sequined ball gowns and dusty fur coats.

As languidly beautiful as the novel’s dune-like expanses of text may be, Watkins keeps wrenching us from our reverie with lists, inserts, juxtapositions and other eruptions of typographical chaos signalling the destruction of one psychological settlement and the creation of another. Desperately unhappy and unwilling to work out why, the couple force themselves through a series of radical re-inventions that find them adopting a child, trying to leave California, and ultimately splitting up in a doomed attempt to ‘find help’. With both Luz and Ray dying of sunstroke, the novel moves things on to a settlement that appears far more welcoming and stable … as long as you don’t look too closely.

The metaphorical core of the novel is a desert that is spreading across America consuming everything from farms and cities to mountain ranges. While the government claims this expanse is nothing but a murderous wasteland, a group of activists are trying to convince the world that it is filled with both life and potential. Despite having access to both vehicles and supplies of water, the group positions itself on the edge of the dune sea and rearrange their vehicles every time the desert expands. Aside from being a wonderful representation of the need to keep making adjustments to keep relationships alive, the group’s insistence that a desert is full of weird new species echoes our own willingness to believe in the potential of unhealthy relationships: We don’t leave because we’re comfortable with what we’re used to and if someone offers us a falsehood that justifies that decision then we will lick their boots and call them Jesus.

Watkins’ cultists are as steeped in Californian mythology as her dried out swimming pools and fading starlets as the decision to build a new society on the edges of a desert recalls the array of cults and communes that emerged from 1960s counterculture. In fact, Watkins has every reason to be inspired by the idea of Californian death cults as her father was a junior member of the Manson Family who sat around the campfire when Charlie first articulated the Helter Skelter prophecy that would lead his coterie of desperate and hollowed-out hippies first into Death Valley and then on into murderous fantasies of racial holy war.

Gold Fame Citrus can be viewed as an attempt to foster understanding for people who choose to settle. Watkins’ cult leader is a criminal who exploits as easily as he manipulates but he makes his victims feel special and provides them with the excuses they need to justify staying exactly where they are. By drawing a veil over her characters’ motivations, Watkins encourages us to come up with our own understanding of why the various characters seem reluctant to take their chances and head out into what they know to be a murderous desert. Why take your chances out there when you can be happy enough in here? Smoke this weed, chew this root, enjoy this sex, perform this ritual, watch this superhero movie, purchase this stuff and the horrors of your predicament just won’t bother you anymore.

The universal relevance of this trade-off reflects the way that capitalism has shifted from being an engine of self-improvement to an engine of acquiescence; a sinister cult that promises much, delivers little, and exploits perpetually. Rather than encouraging us to improve ourselves, today’s capitalist institutions break us down and drain us of energy through constant demands on our time and attention. Neoliberalism has eroded the distinction between work and private lives to the point where we simply do not have the time to imagine something better. Capitalism did not survive the crisis of 2008 because it was the only way to organise human civilisation, it survived because nobody had the energy to propose an alternative and so we acquiesced and went in search of lies that made us feel better about our willingness to settle for a system that is beneath our contempt.

Gold Fame Citrus is one of those novels where everything seems to work: The writing is atmospheric, the imagery resonant, the characters are complex, and the themes are endlessly thought-provoking. As much a work of science fiction as a meditation on the darker corners of Californian experience, Gold Fame Citrus dares to suggest that Charles Manson may well have been the true herald of 21st Century capitalism.

TIME PIECES

NINA ALLAN

Rising High, or Most Prophets are Madmen, too

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During the post-Empire of the Sun period of his career and especially in the years following his death, J.G. Ballard’s reputation as ‘the seer of Shepperton’ came to dominate most media coverage of his work. The mainstream literary press especially tended towards a view of his work that rhapsodised enthusiastically over Ballard’s supposed facility with explaining or even predicting the future, whilst neglecting pretty much entirely those aspects of his work – especially his earlier work – that resisted and continue to resist such facile analysis. Stick an image of Spaghetti Junction and a couple of tower blocks at the top of your article and call it ‘Ballardian’ – job done. Mainstream commentators seemed at ease with Ballard’s later novels – the endlessly shiny corridors of the Millennium trilogy, the world-spanning shopping precinct of Kingdom Come – perhaps because in their overt use of symbolism and satire they were relatively easy to read. How could they not be, when the images that populated these novels were already in the process of multiplying themselves exponentially in the physical, concrete world beyond their pages? Ballard had indeed predicted the future and because that future was here it no longer needed to be categorised as science fiction. From his early days publishing alongside other new science fiction writers in New Worlds and Science Fantasy, Ballard had risen to a position of literary respectability not often afforded to writers who begin their careers in the tables of contents of genre magazines.

For all the bandwagon-jumping though, it has often seemed to me that the mainstream commentators – commentators who sometimes pretend that Ballard’s career began in 1984 with Empire of the Sun – don’t entirely get Ballard. They enjoy his surfaces – the glass, the concrete, the titanium steel – perhaps because they are reflective, giving us back to ourselves the world as we already know it – whilst never fully coming to grips with or even acknowledging the stickier, less tractable core of the madness contained beneath. Distracted by the reflection in the skyscraper window, they fail to apprehend the hallucinatory vision in the maniac’s mind’s eye.

It could easily be argued that this subconscious discomfiture, this subcutaneous disconnect between the surface and the reality of Ballard’s fiction is at least part of the reason why Ballard’s work has completed relatively few transitions into film. Aside from low-budget arthouse productions of The Atrocity Exhibition (Jonathan Weiss, 2000) and Low-Flying Aircraft (Solveig Nordlund, 2002) to date only three of Ballard’s works have been brought to the screen: Empire of the Sun by Steven Spielberg in 1987, Crash by David Cronenberg in 1996, and most recently High-Rise by Ben Wheatley in 2016. In its scope, power and sheer composite impact, Empire of the Sun must rank among Spielberg’s finest works, prefiguring Schindler’s List five years and Saving Private Ryan ten years later. But how much does this film really tell us about J.G. Ballard’s writing? Empire of the Sun the novel was never meant to be a work of fiction, a fact acknowledged by Ballard almost from the outset. And whilst it contains a wealth of insight into what precipitated Ballard’s decision to abandon his nascent medical career and become a writer instead, the themes, memories and terrors which fed him and drove him as an artist, as a piece of writing it has more in common with his later memoir Miracles of Life (2008) than with the wild-eyed cosmic creations that precede and follow it. Spielberg’s film is faithful to both the spirit and the letter of the novel, and as such it illuminates Ballard’s life but not his writing.

Cronenberg’s Crash is