Three issues in a row read! And August is the best of them so far. One of the criticisms I’ve seen of Lightspeed is it’s failure to live up to its submission guidelines that says we encourage writers to take chances with their fiction and push the envelope
. While I’ve liked both of the previous issues, none of the stories were particularly envelope pushing. Both of the original stories in this issue have a very different feel. I’m not up enough on current S.F. short stories to make a judgment (even for myself) whether or not these are truly taking chances, but they veer more that way than the rest of Lightspeed’s fare so far.
This time around I’m going to skip thoughts on the non-fiction pieces individually. Overall these pieces fail to carry their weight. And for the love of God, please change Carol Pinchevsky’s contract to have her produce something other than Top X lists of dubious entertainment value. This issue is pretty heavy on author profile/interviews as well, but without the depth needed in them to make them particularly interesting.
Like the cover art too.
All these items will be up at Lightspeed’s web site by the end of the month. I paid for my issue, so I get to read them a bit early.
- How to Become a Mars Overlord by Catherynne M. Valente
- This reads like an sales pitch for a meta-Mars get rich quick infomercial. There’s no story here, but lots of references to untold stories. I appreciate the new format, but since I’m kind of a story guy this one gets a thumbs down. I’m sure others would like it.
- Patient Zero by Tananarive Due
- Virus infects the world, told from the perspective of a kid in quarantine because he’s one of the first to get the disease, and the only one to survive it. Really likable character, and Ms. Due does a great job of telling about the outbreak through only hints that a kid could understand. No
As you know Bob,
in this story. Not getting told too much is what makes this. - Arvies by Adam-Troy Castro
- This is a really creepy story. The premise is sometime in the future where people aren’t born. Through medical technology they remain fetuses, but experience life through nerve linkups with their arvies, or hosts, who have no legal existence and unstated sentience. They are human, of a sort.
People
get transplanted from one arvie to another in artificial wombs. It’s really hard to explain. Our main character decides she wants to do something that hasn’t been done before: give birth. Pretty good but very squicky. - More Than the Sum of His Parts by Joe Haldeman
- This is the first story or book that I’ve previously read and reviewed on this blog (that I can remember at least. And looking back at what I wrote before, it still pretty much sums up what I think about it:
In some was this story was enjoyable and in others it wasn’t. The man goes mad due to technology theme is no different that The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells that I read over my Belize vacation. But for some reason the cyborg technology theme did draw me in. One thing that made that effective (where it wasn’t in The Invisible Man) was that you see the transformation from normal to power-mad. In Wells novel, the main character is mad prior to his introduction in the story.
Title: Lightspeed Magazine
Issue: August 2010 (#3)
Editors: John Joseph Adams (fiction) / Andrea Kail (non-fiction)
Cover: Daniele Scerra
